YouTube celebrated on Wednesday that the number of videos uploaded to its platform has exceeded 20 billion videos since the first clip was launched twenty years ago.
The site, which started as just an idea born during a dinner party among colleagues at PayPal, has become a cornerstone of modern digital life, and it is expected that YouTube will surpass the number of paid subscribers in traditional television networks in the United States over the next two years, such as channels that are broadcast through monthly cable subscriptions, which have long been the main source for American program viewing.
YouTube.com was created on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, while the video upload feature was made available on April 23 of the same year, when Karim published the first clip titled 'Me at the Zoo' showing him in front of the elephant exhibit at the San Diego Zoo, and this short video (19 seconds) has surpassed 348 million views.
Over two decades, the platform has expanded beyond what could be imagined in 2005, as current figures show that YouTube witnesses the upload of about 20 million videos daily.
The platform's content varies between concerts, podcasts, political ads, educational lessons, and much more, making it the largest digital video service in the world in terms of user time spent and advertising revenue, according to analyst Ross Benes from eMarketer.
The number of global YouTube viewers last year reached over 2.5 billion users, while the number of subscribers to the music and premium services reached 100 million users, according to data from the Statista platform.
Google, the owner of YouTube, reported that users around the world watch more than a billion hours of YouTube content daily on television screens alone, and the platform announced plans to update the viewing experience on TV this summer, with technical improvements and 'qualitative adjustments,' without disclosing details.
Ross Benes says: 'Twenty years ago, it was ironic to imagine that a site posting comedic videos for kids could pose a real threat to companies like Disney, ABC, and CBS, but that’s what has indeed happened.'
Google's acquisition of YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion was a pivotal step, as Google combined its expertise in advertising and search with a video platform that has a passionate fan base, which helped develop a profitable model that allows revenue sharing with large audience content creators.
The company has also worked on improving technology and collaborating with production studios to address copyright violations, at a time when the platform was seen as the 'Wild West' of video content.
In recent years, YouTube has overcome criticisms of its recommendation algorithms, which sometimes showed inappropriate content for children, such as videos depicting famous cartoon characters in violent or inappropriate ways.
YouTube today competes with major streaming services like Netflix, Disney, and Amazon Prime, alongside short-form platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels.