For over a decade, YouTube has been the place to go to search for every cat video, music video, and cat video you’d like. And they are definitely way ahead of the competition. After all, the website is globally number two in terms of Alexa rankings, with competitors Twitch and Dailymotion ranked 43rd and 132nd globally respectively. However, there comes a problem with this: it’s almost too big for itself, as the site has recently come under fire for its algorithm-caused demonetization issues that have hurt many of its content creators who make a living off the site. And, with the site experiencing these issues, let’s get to the question I’ve been dancing around this whole intro: can Amazon take on YouTube?
There has been plenty of evidence in recent weeks that Amazon is preparing to take on the video streaming behemoth. After all, the YouTube app was recently removed from Echo Show and Fire TV and the company even filed for the totally-not-ripped-off-from-the-competition name “AmazonTube.”
But does Amazon really stand a chance? It’s really tough to say at this point. On the one hand, it’s not easy to take on something as big as YouTube. The site has 300 hours of footage uploaded every minute, meaning the money will keep on pouring in. Additionally, there have been numerous companies attempting to battle YouTube in the past that have been unable to succeed. We’ve seen Vessel, Yahoo Screen, Vimeo, Blip, Dailymotion, and plenty of other relatively generic-tech-company-sounding services that have tried and failed to become “the next YouTube.”
On the other hand, there’s a good number of ways Amazon could take on YouTube. First of all, Amazon is a pretty large company, as shown by previous acquisitions of Whole Foods, Zappos, and Twitch. Additionally, Amazon could devise a strategy of signing exclusivity deals with some of the biggest YouTubers to come exclusively to their platform, hoping that more will follow. Possibly including the co-star of InnoTech Arcade, yours truly.
Will AmazonTube (or whatever they call it) be successful? There’s no way to say for sure. I’m not holding my breath for YouTube to become the next Myspace, but I do legitimately believe that there needs to be competition to breed innovation. After all, if there wasn’t a fierce competition between McDonald’s and Burger King, we would have never gotten chicken fries. And I don’t want to think that such a world exists.
