Indie creators have built grassroots followings numbering in the thousands at very little cost or effort, while mass retail and radio promotion proved problematic. Businesses, schools, government agencies, and other private institutions often block social media sites, including YouTube, due to its bandwidth limitations and the site's potential for distraction. In May 2024, YouTube introduced Playables, a set of around 75 free-to-play games that can be played on the platform. YouTube VR was updated since for compatibility with successive Quest devices, and was ported to Pico 4.
YouTube gives an option for copyright holders to locate and remove their videos or to have them continue running for revenue. The majority of YouTube's advertising revenue goes to the publishers and video producers who hold the rights to their videos; the company retains 45% of the ad revenue. This will occur on channels whose content is deemed "advertiser-friendly", and all revenue will go directly to Google without any share given to the uploader. DeFranco argued that not being able to earn advertising revenue on such videos was "censorship by a different name".
In the United States as of November 2020, and June 2021 worldwide, YouTube reserves the right to monetize any video on the platform, even if their uploader is not a member of the YouTube Partner Program. In September 2016, after introducing an enhanced notification system to inform users of these violations, YouTube's policies were criticized by prominent users, including Philip DeFranco and Vlogbrothers. YouTube Play Buttons, a part of the YouTube Creator Rewards, are a recognition by YouTube of its most popular channels. Usually, no more than half of the eligible videos have a pre-roll advertisement, due to a lack of interested advertisers.
The developer, Google, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. Get the official YouTube app on iPhones and iPads.

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• Joining the YouTube Kids app, the company created a supervised mode, designed more for tweens, in 2021.
• Microsoft does not reveal the final names of updates intended for the Stable Channel during early development.
• In March 2021, Google announced plans to gradually deprecate the Google Play Movies & TV app, and eventually migrate all users to the YouTube app’s Movies & TV store to view, rent and purchase movies and TV shows (first affecting Roku, Samsung, LG, and Vizio smart TV users on July 15).
• YouTube also released YouTube Music, a third app oriented towards streaming and discovering the music content hosted on the YouTube platform.
• In May 2013, YouTube introduced a trial scheme of 53 subscription channels with prices ranging from $0.99 to $6.99 a month.

Concurrently, old media celebrities moved into the website at the invitation of a YouTube management that witnessed early content creators accruing substantial followings and perceived audience sizes potentially larger than that attainable by television. As of 2018update, public access to YouTube is blocked by China, North Korea, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan. In December 2024, YouTube added the functionality of automatic language dubbing, which uses AI to produce translations of videos into different languages. Starting with the Oculus Quest, the app was updated for compatibility with mixed-reality passthrough modes on VR headsets. On February 28, 2017, in a press announcement held at YouTube Space Los Angeles, YouTube announced YouTube TV, an over-the-top MVPD-style subscription service that would be available for United States customers at a price of US$65 per month.

• Despite its growth and success, the platform has been criticized for its facilitation of the spread of misinformation and copyrighted content, routinely violating its users’ privacy, excessive censorship, endangering the safety of children and their well-being, and for its inconsistent implementation of platform guidelines.
• YouTube began offering free-to-view movie titles to its users in November 2018; selections of new movies are added and others removed, unannounced each month.
• In May 2007, YouTube launched its Partner Program (YPP), a system based on AdSense which allows the uploader of the video to share the revenue produced by advertising on the site.
• Despite this advice, many unauthorized clips of copyrighted material remain on YouTube.
• A Pew Research Center study reported the development of “visual journalism”, in which citizen eyewitnesses and established news organizations share in content creation.
• The choice of the name youtube.com led to problems for a similarly named website, utube.com.
• Three successful complaints for copyright infringement against a user account will result in the account and all of its uploaded videos being deleted.

YouTube VR

The move was seen as an attempt to ensure that videos being monetized did not lead to controversy, but was criticized for penalizing smaller YouTube channels. YouTube typically takes 45 percent of the advertising revenue from videos in the Partner Program, with 55 percent going to the uploader. On April 6, 2017, YouTube announced that to "ensure revenue only flows to creators who are playing by the rules", it would change its practices to require that a channel undergo a policy compliance review, and have at least 10,000-lifetime views, before they may join the YouTube Partner Program. Since its founding in 2005, the American video-sharing website YouTube has been faced with a growing number of privacy issues, including allegations that it allows users to upload unauthorized copyrighted material and allows personal information from young children to be collected without their parents' consent. The platform was tested in India and later expanded to other countries, including the United States in March 2021, with videos allowed up to 1 minute long.
The next year, when clicking on a video on the main page, the whole page turned upside down, which YouTube claimed was a "new layout". Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov labeled the court decision as "symbolic" and warned Google that it "should not be restricting the actions of our broadcasters on its platform." In July 2023, YouTube removed the channel of British journalist Graham Phillips, active in covering the war in Donbas from 2014. In June 2022, the War Gonzo channel run by Russian military blogger and journalist Semyon Pegov was deleted. In 2021, two accounts linked to RT DE, the German channel of the Russian state-owned RT network, were removed for breaching YouTube's policies relating to COVID-19.
By February 2017, one billion hours of YouTube videos were being watched every day, and 400 hours worth of videos were uploaded every minute. Most of these views came from a relatively small number of videos; according to a software engineer at that time, 30% of videos accounted for 99% of views on the site. In 2011, more than three billion videos were being watched each day with 48 hours of new videos uploaded every minute. By 2010, the company had reached a market share of around 43% and more than 14 billion views of videos, according to comScore.

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A total of 34 streaming services (including Paramount+, Showtime, Starz, MGM+, AMC+ and ViX+) were initially available for purchase. Google Play Movies & TV formally shut down on January 17, 2024, with the web version of that platform migrated to YouTube as an expansion of the Movies & TV store to desktop users. YouTube began offering free-to-view movie titles to its users in November 2018; selections of new movies are added and others removed, unannounced each month.
The system, which was initially called "Video Identification" and later became known as Content ID, creates an ID File for copyrighted audio https://www.spininio.casino/ and video material, and stores it in a database. In April 2013, it was reported that Universal Music Group and YouTube have a contractual agreement that prevents content blocked on YouTube by a request from UMG from being restored, even if the uploader of the video files a DMCA counter-notice. In April 2012, a court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube could be held responsible for copyrighted material posted by its users.

Google Chrome

YouTube has faced numerous challenges and criticisms in its attempts to deal with copyright, including the site's first viral video, Lazy Sunday, which had to be taken down, due to copyright concerns. On November 11, 2021, after testing out this change in March of the same year, YouTube announced it would start hiding dislike counts on videos, making them invisible to viewers. In December 2024, YouTube introduced new guidelines prohibiting videos with clickbait titles to enhance content quality and combat misinformation. In 2022, YouTube launched an experiment where the company would show users who watched longer videos on TVs a long chain of short unskippable adverts, intending to consolidate all ads into the beginning of a video. After testing earlier in 2021, YouTube removed public display of dislike counts on videos in November 2021, claiming the reason for the removal was, based on its internal research, that users often used the dislike feature as a form of cyberbullying and brigading.

In January 2024, YouTube had more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, who collectively watched more than one billion hours of videos every day. See what the world is watching — from the hottest music videos to what’s popular in gaming, fashion, beauty, news, learning and more. I'm on my own, and as an independent site, producing content takes a lot of work and dedication, and because of adblockers and AI, revenue is falling fast. Furthermore, since the software giant no longer provides updates, you should upgrade to Windows 11 or another operating system, such as Linux Mint, or plan to purchase a new device. Get the latest guides and updates in your inbox when you join to my newsletter Microsoft does not reveal the final names of updates intended for the Stable Channel during early development.
In late October 2023, YouTube began cracking down on the use of ad blockers on the platform. On February 16, 2023, Wojcicki announced that she would step down as CEO, with Neal Mohan named as her successor. In 2020, Roku removed the YouTube TV app from its streaming store after the two companies were unable to reach an agreement.

Google first published exact revenue numbers for YouTube in February 2020 as part of Alphabet's 2019 financial report. Prior to 2020, Google did not provide detailed figures for YouTube's running costs, and YouTube's revenues in 2007 were noted as "not material" in a regulatory filing. The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers and the YouTube Symphony Orchestra selected their membership based on individual video performances. Under YouTube's changes to its recommendation engine, the most-recommended channel evolved from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones (2016) to Fox News (2019). Senate introduced a resolution condemning Joseph Kony 16 days after the "Kony 2012" video was posted to YouTube, with resolution co-sponsor Senator Lindsey Graham remarking that the video "will do more to lead to (Kony's) demise than all other action combined." YouTube has enabled people to more directly engage with government, such as in the CNN/YouTube presidential debates (2007) in which ordinary people submitted questions to U.S. presidential candidates via YouTube video, with a techPresident co-founder saying that Internet video was changing the political landscape.