And its users are suffering for it
Is YouTube a music service or a movie rental store? A space for news outlets or beauty vloggers? Is it for video essays or game streamers? For years, Google has wanted the answer to be a simple, “Yes, all of the above.” Today’s shutdown of the YouTube Gaming hub shows the actual answer is a lot fuzzier than that.
YouTube occupies a unique position somewhere between a TV-like service — where it gets its name — and a social network. Its core function of hosting and sharing videos is useful to a wide variety of communities with wildly different needs. Some of these needs are even contradictory, such as shopping channels that need to monetize products, versus news channels that attempt to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. Google has attempted to reconcile this clashing platform identity in recent years by spinning off pieces into independent hubs, but it’s unclear if that strategy is working or if it helps those who get left behind.
YouTube Gaming was meant to be one of those hubs. When it first launched in 2015, YouTube Gaming was a separate mobile and web app designed to leverage the massive gaming community already on YouTube and turn it into a competitor to Twitch, which is owned by Amazon. At the time, YouTube proper lacked features that would make the site better for creators making gaming content, like the ability to browse live streams or explore all videos related to a single game. A separate app would let Google more carefully serve the needs of this one community without changing the entire site for everyone else.
There was just one problem: People didn’t use it. In September of 2018, Google told The Verge, “There was confusion with the gaming app,” which led users to skip it. They just used the main YouTube app instead. While 200 million users watch gaming content on the main YouTube app every month, so few used the separate app that Google has decided to get rid of it entirely. Now the features the app spawned are being moved to a tucked-away section of YouTube.
Someone who uses YouTube for music doesn’t need to browse people's live-streaming games, while someone who watches for games doesn’t really need to upload their own music.
Google faces a similar problem with music on its platform. A 2017 study estimated that 46% of all the time spent streaming music across 13 major world markets came from YouTube. That’s more than all other music streaming services, like Spotify or Apple Music, combined. This has led to a reported $6 billion in ad revenue paid out to the music industry as of September 2018, though some reports suggest that YouTube pays out less than other streaming services. In 2018, after accidentally conquering the music market, Google tried to do it intentionally by launching YouTube Music. Eventually, the company says, this will replace the existing Google Play Music service.
At least, that’s the plan anyway. Google said YouTube Music would get all the best features of its older music service, but in the year since, progress has been slow. One of Google Play Music’s defining features (aside from a cumbersome name) is the ability to upload your own music library and play it across your devices. So far, this feature hasn’t come to YouTube Music. Google confirmed it still plans to build this feature, but didn’t provide a timeline for the transition. Meanwhile, the app can play music files stored locally on your phone, but it’s a far cry from what Google’s own standalone music service can already do.
Someday, the company may decide to change course on YouTube Music, just as it did with YouTube Gaming. The company doesn’t break down how or where it makes money through YouTube, so it’s hard for an outside observer to tell what niches within the platform — with its two billion monthly users — are worthwhile to Google.
But this conflict points to a larger issue Google faces with serving its users. The features and infrastructure required by one community may differ drastically from another. Someone who uses YouTube for music doesn’t need to browse live streamed games, while someone who watches for games doesn’t really need to upload their own music. Neither might want to rent movies on the platform.