In 2005, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim Couldn’t Find a Simple Clip to Share Online: That “Let’s Upload It Ourselves” Shrug Established the Foundation for YouTube.

YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. Its creators had a particular goal: to simplify video sharing on the Internet. Indeed, while technologically possible, sharing videos on the Internet required technical knowledge. For example, one needed appropriate software, and video playback varied depending on the device used.

According to the research cited in IEEE Communications Magazine, Internet technology was insufficient for video distribution due to bandwidth limitations and a lack of uniformity in file formats. Therefore, it was more difficult to exchange videos than texts and images.

YouTube made posting and watching videos easier. It accepted various formats for uploading and transformed videos into the necessary format automatically. In such a way, technical restrictions were removed, and people started using the site to share videos in larger numbers. Yet, uploading videos is not an innovation of YouTube. Individuals shared videos even before the website was developed. It was simply complex and required special knowledge that few people possessed.

Accessibility Drove Growth

The success of YouTube could be explained by its accessibility. The researchers from the paper, which was published in Telecommunications Policy, noted that sites that facilitated content creation and distribution processes quickly grew because they managed to attract a larger audience. YouTube had a user-friendly interface, thus making the content creation process relatively easy for everyone. People who wanted to upload videos and watch videos already posted on YouTube did not have to have any high technological skills. That is why many people joined the site, contributing to the increase.

In general, it has been proven that user-generated content is an important aspect of media ecosystem formation. The capability of the site to promote the creation of content resulted in the development of a positive feedback loop since the number of users grew, resulting in an increase of videos posted. Additionally, the process of searching for content, navigating across certain categories, and commenting became extremely popular among users since it increased the interactivity of the whole process significantly.

From a Website to a Media System

YouTube grew and developed from a video-sharing website into an essential component of digital media. From various studies carried out in New Media & Society, online video-sharing websites have transformed how we view content, giving us the freedom to view videos when convenient for us. The nature of YouTube has made it capable of adapting to any change in the consumer’s habits. It could exploit any form of entertainment, learning, and communication with the improvement in internet connectivity and devices' capabilities.

One of the critical features that the founders emphasized throughout the development of YouTube is simplicity, which has contributed to the growth of content creators on the platform. The impact of YouTube transcends its role as a video-sharing website to other components of digital media production and distribution.