I... kinda get this argument for reddit, though only a bit. But this is just not true for Youtube. There was never a point where "well I wanted to put my video on X but Youtubue will actually let me do it without censoring" was ever true.
There's the recent stuff about monetization, but all that was happening way later! Not to mention that Youtube was huge even before ad revenue sharing was a thing on the platform.
Meanwhile, there are very well documented cases where lack of moderation on social networks lead to the people who actually make content taking their ball and going home.
The revisionism of "the internet used to have no mods and corporate money has ruined it all" is so exhausting to read over and over again. Even 4chan has had mods and janitors! Turns out that just letting the worst actors on a network be loud is not fun.
... They did what now? I find it hard to believe that half the stuff on there is "properly" licensed.
I can't parse this. Can you please state your point more clearly.
The implication of the original post was that YT's growth was in part thanks to some moderation policy that made it more attractive than alternatives. But to my understanding this was never the case, and YT's growth was from a bunch of other things. Including it basically being the only reliable option for a good part of its early life (how I remember things)
Hell, I remember doing an IAmA [1] in 2012 about having discovered Reddit the day it opened, back in July 2005. Hard to believe that it's been as much time since then as it had been between then and Reddit's founding.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/r4td2/i_want_to_...
Maybe, just maybe, letting everybody post everything is not actually desirable or responsible.
It's just a difference of semantics here... About what the inflection point is for "mainstream". I think there is a reasonable argument that moderation/centralization is needed to protect the "brand" once you get to a certain level of "mainstream".
I think it was great that they banned /r/jailbait and I think that the people who are often heavily moderating and shaping their subreddits are doing a valuable job.
I've been following /r/syriancivilwar for years and even though it is an incredibly sensitive and horrible subject it has incredibly contributions just because the mods have strict rules about content.
Reddit, youtube, etc became extremely popular precisely because they weren't censored. But once they got huge, corporate and political interests took over and you got censorship.
It wasn't the "mainstream" that demanded moderation and censorship on these platforms, it was journalists and politicians working for powerful interests.
The problem with voat, gab, etc are manifold. Firstly, their owners aren't pushing content and making the site more interesting. People forget that the creators of reddit, youtube, etc initially worked hard to provide content on their platforms. One of reddit's founders did an AMA a while back explaining how most of the content on reddit in the beginning were linked by the founders and then their employees. It took a long time before reddit became popular enough for it to be entirely user generated. Secondly, voat, gab, etc are trying to break into a saturated industry that already has large monopolistic competitors. Reddit, youtube, etc didn't have that. Sure digg existed but they weren't in a monopolistic position and there was plenty of space to grow.
I hope they succeed but they have a much more difficult task trying to take market share from established companies. If they do succeed, they'll face the same problems that reddit, youtube, etc faced. Journalists and politicians hounding them to censor content at the behest of powerful interests.
The fundamental problem is still there. I'm still not see how any of these platforms have solved this problem. Reddit and youtube were just as devoted to free speech until journalists and politicians started spreading propaganda and attacking them. If reddit and youtube folded under pressure, why would voat, gab, etc be any different?
People forget how reddit staunchly defended free speech for years. If I remember correctly, their motto was "free speech platform". They aren't that anymore.