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Like, Comment, Subscribe: How YouTube Conquered the World
The definitive, deeply reported account of YouTube, the company that upended media, culture, industry, and democracy--by a leading tech journalist
Across the world, people watch over a billion hours of video on YouTube every day. The sheer amount of video produced there is beyond comprehension. Every minute, over five hundred hours of footage are uploaded to the site, the equivalent of eighty-two years of video added a day. That anyone can easily access any minute of this footage--and the trillion minutes more already on YouTube--is a technical feat unmatched in the history of computing. Everyone knows YouTube. And yet virtually no one knows how it works.
Like, Comment, Subscribe is the first book to explain exactly how YouTube's technology and business evolved, how it works, and how it helped Google grow to unimaginable power, a narrative told through the people who created YouTube and the Google engineers and chiefs who took it over. It's the story of an industry run amok, and of how corporate greed resulted in the unraveling of truth, the spread of violence, and the corruption of the internet, all for the sake of profit.
Mark Bergen, the top Google reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek, might know Google better than any other reporter in Silicon Valley, having broken numerous stories about YouTube's and Google's business and scandals. His deep access within the companies makes Like, Comment, Subscribe a thrilling, character-driven story of technological and business ingenuity and the hubris that undermined it
Across the world, people watch over a billion hours of video on YouTube every day. The sheer amount of video produced there is beyond comprehension. Every minute, over five hundred hours of footage are uploaded to the site, the equivalent of eighty-two years of video added a day. That anyone can easily access any minute of this footage--and the trillion minutes more already on YouTube--is a technical feat unmatched in the history of computing. Everyone knows YouTube. And yet virtually no one knows how it works.
Like, Comment, Subscribe is the first book to explain exactly how YouTube's technology and business evolved, how it works, and how it helped Google grow to unimaginable power, a narrative told through the people who created YouTube and the Google engineers and chiefs who took it over. It's the story of an industry run amok, and of how corporate greed resulted in the unraveling of truth, the spread of violence, and the corruption of the internet, all for the sake of profit.
Mark Bergen, the top Google reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek, might know Google better than any other reporter in Silicon Valley, having broken numerous stories about YouTube's and Google's business and scandals. His deep access within the companies makes Like, Comment, Subscribe a thrilling, character-driven story of technological and business ingenuity and the hubris that undermined it
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First published September 6, 2022
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September 20, 2022
This is a long review because it’s the one I wish I’d been able to find before I bought this book. I should have noticed the endorsement from Ashlee Vance (who wrote the mostly fawning Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future) and stayed away.
This was a huge letdown. If you’re looking for a retrospective of what drew people to YouTube, or perhaps a detailed profile of clowns like PewDiePie, Stefan Molyneux and Logan Paul, this is the book for you. If you want any insight as to YouTube’s patterns of platforming ugliness, stiffing creatives and prioritizing profit over safety and human decency, look elsewhere.
The first 1/3 of the book is a glowing, drama-free origin story — scrappy upstart finds success, sells to Google for a zillion dollars. Not much of interest, but maybe things were just that simple.
The balance of the first half of the book consists of stories early YouTube successes, and efforts to organize, evolve and grow the YouTube culture. Fine, but I’m not really into the long and sordid details of various channel networks.
Repeatedly in this section, we’re told how little YouTube employees actually consume the content. This seemed like a curious inclusion to me, but it seems to be a setup for the structure of the second half.
The second half is where the wheels truly come off. Almost every chapter follows the same formula: opens with a crisis that ‘nobody could have foreseen’, details how it’s not YouTube’s management’s fault that it happened, and how a team tweaked the algorithm/burned the midnight oil in response. Almost every chapter closes with a teaser: “this drama would pale in comparison to what was about to happen…”. Rinse and repeat.
The author seems intent on portraying YouTube as a victim. People game the algorithm, YouTubers are discriminated against, ads are positioned alongside hateful videos, etc. Each time, YouTube management is positioned as innocent bystanders, victim of some type of nefarious troll, or a flaw in the algorithm. Not once does he consider that these are largely self-owns, that YouTube’s lack of diversity at the senior level is directly responsible for the failure to see any of these things before they come. For a company made up of geniuses, they sure seem clueless. There are a handful of pages discussing the human content screeners and internal YouTube cultural strife, but the author never truly seems to consider any systemic issues at the company.
Except the CEO Wojcicki, who is generally depicted as weak and waffling. I won’t speculate why she’s the only executive to be portrayed in a negative light. He does show John Green as thoughtful, positive and a general force for good, which I thought was good.
Anyway, skip this. Read Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, or Don't Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles -- and All of Us, or even An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination.
This was a huge letdown. If you’re looking for a retrospective of what drew people to YouTube, or perhaps a detailed profile of clowns like PewDiePie, Stefan Molyneux and Logan Paul, this is the book for you. If you want any insight as to YouTube’s patterns of platforming ugliness, stiffing creatives and prioritizing profit over safety and human decency, look elsewhere.
The first 1/3 of the book is a glowing, drama-free origin story — scrappy upstart finds success, sells to Google for a zillion dollars. Not much of interest, but maybe things were just that simple.
The balance of the first half of the book consists of stories early YouTube successes, and efforts to organize, evolve and grow the YouTube culture. Fine, but I’m not really into the long and sordid details of various channel networks.
Repeatedly in this section, we’re told how little YouTube employees actually consume the content. This seemed like a curious inclusion to me, but it seems to be a setup for the structure of the second half.
The second half is where the wheels truly come off. Almost every chapter follows the same formula: opens with a crisis that ‘nobody could have foreseen’, details how it’s not YouTube’s management’s fault that it happened, and how a team tweaked the algorithm/burned the midnight oil in response. Almost every chapter closes with a teaser: “this drama would pale in comparison to what was about to happen…”. Rinse and repeat.
The author seems intent on portraying YouTube as a victim. People game the algorithm, YouTubers are discriminated against, ads are positioned alongside hateful videos, etc. Each time, YouTube management is positioned as innocent bystanders, victim of some type of nefarious troll, or a flaw in the algorithm. Not once does he consider that these are largely self-owns, that YouTube’s lack of diversity at the senior level is directly responsible for the failure to see any of these things before they come. For a company made up of geniuses, they sure seem clueless. There are a handful of pages discussing the human content screeners and internal YouTube cultural strife, but the author never truly seems to consider any systemic issues at the company.
Except the CEO Wojcicki, who is generally depicted as weak and waffling. I won’t speculate why she’s the only executive to be portrayed in a negative light. He does show John Green as thoughtful, positive and a general force for good, which I thought was good.
Anyway, skip this. Read Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, or Don't Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles -- and All of Us, or even An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination.
December 23, 2022
YouTube is a now a giant platform that brings us everything from recipes, to news, to book reviews. But it had to start somewhere. In Mark Bergen's nonfiction book Like Comment Subscribe, he attempts to tell as much of YouTube's story as he can muster: its early days; being bought by Google and making that transition; the struggles of keeping disturbing content and misinformation off of the platform; and the stories of some notable creator scandals. It's all interesting stuff, but I think the author bit off a bit more than he could chew.
Click here to hear more of my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
Click here to hear more of my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
July 6, 2022
Far from the dry, technical history or corporate-approved sanitized narrative I thought it might be, this book lays out the whole story of YouTube's creation, rise, and numerous scandals and devastating travails. At times it reads like an espionage thriller, and at times like a gossipy tell-all. This book draws back the veil on the powers behind the curtain, so to speak. A fascinating read.
I received an arc from #netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received an arc from #netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
September 12, 2022
A scathing but fair page-turner chronicling the dilemmas YouTube faced over the past 15 years and the poor decisions execs made at every turn. Afraid of being regulated as a media company, they turned a blind eye to increasingly violent, racist, sexist, and harmful content. Instead they championed free speech and trusted in machine learning that effectively furthered extremism. The book profiles individual creators, some of whom milked the algorithms for profit regardless of the harm they created, and others who were trying to create quality content but couldn’t make a living because YouTube’s metrics incentivized long-form garbage. Employees spoke out and tried to fix broken policies but were cast as “ungoogley,” only to have many of those policies fixed years later after press scrutiny, threats of regulation, advertiser boycotts, or horrific events. As someone who has worked in tech for a decade, I found this book to be a sobering cautionary tale and hope that other tech leaders learn from it.
September 5, 2023
Some parts were really interesting to learn about how Youtube got started and when Google bought it.
Other parts were just company politics I didn't care to know so I skimmed through.
It was crazy to read history about Youtubers I used to watch. I started making my own Youtube videos in 2011, until I found Booktube and fell in love. 2016 was my start into Booktube and I've never looked back.
Youtube doesn't seem to be going anywhere in terms of popularity, so it was interesting to read about how it got to where it is now. Who knows where it will go!
Other parts were just company politics I didn't care to know so I skimmed through.
It was crazy to read history about Youtubers I used to watch. I started making my own Youtube videos in 2011, until I found Booktube and fell in love. 2016 was my start into Booktube and I've never looked back.
Youtube doesn't seem to be going anywhere in terms of popularity, so it was interesting to read about how it got to where it is now. Who knows where it will go!
December 24, 2022
Ah, yes. A book about why we can't have nice things.
This is a very detailed microhistory of YouTube from its inception until today, focusing on the legal conundrums they immediately run into, from copyright infringement to how to deal with people posting misinformation, violence, extremism, or creepy, nightmarish videos aimed at children. Turns out it's an impossible task, and the worst way to go about it is trying to appease right-wing people by attempting to appear neutral instead of having principles and sticking to them. Who knew trying to make money off of advertising on content that could not be regulated in any safe or satisfactory way would create some issues.
My one gripe is that Bergen tries to make the people in charge sound well-intentioned. And yes, I'm sure most of them are not actively malicious. It's a huge organisation and they encountered unprecedented problems. But Google's way of making money through advertising has made everything exponentially worse. Making advertisers happy has always been more important than keeping creators or watchers happy unless the specific creators were producing shocking content just on this side of unacceptable, which gets a lot of views so the advertisers, and Google, can profit. I feel this aspect of Google's involvement could have been talked about in more depth. If this is a topic that interests you, may I recommend The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power?
This is a very detailed microhistory of YouTube from its inception until today, focusing on the legal conundrums they immediately run into, from copyright infringement to how to deal with people posting misinformation, violence, extremism, or creepy, nightmarish videos aimed at children. Turns out it's an impossible task, and the worst way to go about it is trying to appease right-wing people by attempting to appear neutral instead of having principles and sticking to them. Who knew trying to make money off of advertising on content that could not be regulated in any safe or satisfactory way would create some issues.
My one gripe is that Bergen tries to make the people in charge sound well-intentioned. And yes, I'm sure most of them are not actively malicious. It's a huge organisation and they encountered unprecedented problems. But Google's way of making money through advertising has made everything exponentially worse. Making advertisers happy has always been more important than keeping creators or watchers happy unless the specific creators were producing shocking content just on this side of unacceptable, which gets a lot of views so the advertisers, and Google, can profit. I feel this aspect of Google's involvement could have been talked about in more depth. If this is a topic that interests you, may I recommend The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power?
August 24, 2023
I found this work to be highly insightful about the inner politics and workings of Google and its business environs. I appreciated learning how content creators earn an income and how analytics and metrics feed into that for them. I feel more informed as I'm nearly a daily user of YouTube.
December 15, 2022
This was a very good deep dive into the evolution of YouTube. It seemed like a pretty random topic to read about but I came out of it thinking this would be valuable for anyone to read because of how much YouTube has shaped our society. The book addresses the typical types of key themes about social media (content moderation challenges, the creator economy, ad sales business mode incentives, etc) and is particularly interesting because it gives such specific examples in these areas. I do think this book has deepened my thinking about social media. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because it was longer than I think it needed to be and the prose was fine but not great. It’s not Walter Isaacson but its still a valuable read.
December 5, 2022
Това беше интересно. Оказа се, че нищичко не знам за YouTube и очевидно начинът, по който аз го ползвам не е типичният "залепен за екрана" начин.
Най-любопитното е, че медията е създадена не с идеалистична цел, както обикновено е с повечето социални мрежи и подобни, ами с чистата идея да стане достатъчно голяма, за да бъде купена от някой tech гигант. :Р Това наистина беше неочаквана информация.
Всичко останало ми беше пълен мрак. Буквално всяко едно от имената, които споменаха като YT звезди ми бяха тотално безизвестни. Нито един от замесените в управлението на YT ми беше познато. Та, на моменти книгата ми идваше трудна да я следя, тъй като имаше твърде много имена, твърде много неща, за които си нямах и на идея.
Беше интересно да видя прогресията на платформата и очевидните проблеми, които е имала и вероятно ще има в бъдеще, свързани с това колко голяма е и колко трудно е да жонглираш когато има толкова замесени хора, всеки искаш своето.
Доста други мисли ме налегнаха, но тъй като в интернет човек трябва да е политически коректен и да внимава вече как се изразява, си ги запазвам за себе си. Струваше си слушането, най-малкото да потвърдя някои мои лични открития за социалните медии и човечеството като цяло. :)
Най-любопитното е, че медията е създадена не с идеалистична цел, както обикновено е с повечето социални мрежи и подобни, ами с чистата идея да стане достатъчно голяма, за да бъде купена от някой tech гигант. :Р Това наистина беше неочаквана информация.
Всичко останало ми беше пълен мрак. Буквално всяко едно от имената, които споменаха като YT звезди ми бяха тотално безизвестни. Нито един от замесените в управлението на YT ми беше познато. Та, на моменти книгата ми идваше трудна да я следя, тъй като имаше твърде много имена, твърде много неща, за които си нямах и на идея.
Беше интересно да видя прогресията на платформата и очевидните проблеми, които е имала и вероятно ще има в бъдеще, свързани с това колко голяма е и колко трудно е да жонглираш когато има толкова замесени хора, всеки искаш своето.
Доста други мисли ме налегнаха, но тъй като в интернет човек трябва да е политически коректен и да внимава вече как се изразява, си ги запазвам за себе си. Струваше си слушането, най-малкото да потвърдя някои мои лични открития за социалните медии и човечеството като цяло. :)
October 19, 2023
Very very good. As someone who was there- both an avid and longtime participant in youtube culture and a Google employee for several of the years covered here- I really think the author gets this story right. I think it’s a good, down to earth antidote to the frequent American attitude of equating financial success with genius. YouTube is a platform that in many ways succeeded because of absolute dumb luck, and frequently very much in spite of its management.
November 21, 2023
This is one of the most interesting corporate histories I’ve read! We get 2 for the price of 1 (YouTube, of course, but also a behind the scenes at Google). At times we are in the details (actual transcripts of many YouTube videos), but we see these as part of a much larger discussion. It touches on copyright battles, Arab spring, #metoo, conspiracy theories and the alt right, misinformation, child safety and children’s screen times, regulation, Black Lives Matter, legacy media, misinformation, and so much more.
December 30, 2022
Yay a book that I read for work! I learned a lot about YouTube and how it unexpectedly worked and how early creators shaped the landscape. I thought it was really interesting and honest, and I personally learned a lot, though it wasn't the bombshell some people seem to have expected it to be. For YouTube fanatics, that'll be OK.
Thank you NetGalley & publisher for the free review eARC!
Post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmDcmhQg6aZ/
Thank you NetGalley & publisher for the free review eARC!
Post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmDcmhQg6aZ/
October 1, 2022
Great read on the cultural history of YouTube. While the book does focus on the history of the company itself, it’s not as in-depth and behind the scenes as recent tech history such as The Founders (PayPal). Rather the book straddles the complex relationship between YouTube, its creators, and advertisers over the last two decades. Insightful and interesting!
September 6, 2022
Finished this book the same day I started it. Fascinating and important. I’ve worked in tech for over a decade and couldn’t believe what I learned. Highly recommended.
December 9, 2022
Excellent read.
October 2, 2023
Do you remember the first YouTube video you watched? Mine was a fifteen-second clip of a guy doing a skateboarding trick, embedded in a blog post. The men who initially coded YouTube used Flash, which allowed videos to be played from other websites, giving the new website a critical advantage against other websites also exploring the possibilities of video hosting. Like, Comment, and Subscribe is a history of YouTube’s first fifteen years, one that focuses on business, with society and culture present but distinctly in the backseat. Because Google acquired YouTube so early in its life, the tension between the two marks most of the book, YouTube playing the creative young punk and Google the responsible adult who has to pay bills and fend off lawyers. I found it largely fascinating reading, from the early revelation that one founder saw YouTube as a possible dating website, to the perennial struggles of content moderation — both the question of what should be moderated, and how that should be accomplished. The book focuses more on business and technology as it goes, possibly because the torrent of content grew too voluminous to say anything meaningful about; this and the author’s predictable and unimaginative takes on The Issues of the Day progressively dampened the fun.
The beginning of the book is especially interesting: I was coming of age just as YouTube started, so a visit to its early years is saturated with nostalgia, for that time in tech in general and for the state of the website at that time. I remember using it in college to watch comedians and movies, but also enjoying the growing world of ‘original content’. YouTube began with a team that actively combed the website looking for fun videos to feature, long before The Algorithms became our lords and masters. Although the YouTube people were concerned about copyright issues from the start — concerned about the fire they’d draw, not so much keeping more pennies from piling up in Warner Bros or Disney’s pockets — not until they were purchased by Google (which had actual money to seize in a verdict) did any legal issues really surface. What would have happened to YouTube on its own is a story for some alternate timeline, but in ours Google was able to create a system to automatically identify music and video offenses, and would triumph in a lawsuit levied by Viacom. Although the website’s original creators viewed it as a creative exercise in democracy — all the content would be created by ordinary people for ordinary people — Google needed all those servers and bandwidth to pay for itself, and as the years passed things changed, especially after its own version of Moneyball came into play. Video clicks didn’t matter: what mattered was watchtime, because videos that kept eyeballs on them increased ad revenue, and changes were made that crippled the approach of many creators who posted shorter videos. Whereas ten minutes had been the maximum upload, it now became the minimum to get into profitable ad brackets. Over time, Google would face so many issues with advertisers complaining about the videos their ads were appended to that it began restricting the videos that could be monetized. Another common theme of the book is content moderation, as Google uses both human and AI to remove pornography, calls to violence, etc. This has posed constant difficulties, both technical and policy-wise. How does one differentiate fictional violence from real violence, for instance, especially when the automatic system can’t even tell the difference between Call of Duty and actual war footage? Policy wise, there were other issues: a filmed event might be offensive and inflammatory (bin Laden calling for war, for instance), but wasn’t there a case to be made for preserving events that shaped history? Google likes to shield itself with The Algorithms as much as possible, asserting that it doesn’t go around personally meddling in affairs: it simply puts its systems to work observing and enforcing the rules. Of course, those rules were written by its people to begin with.
I largely enjoyed Like, Comment, and Subscribe, although the author’s political fixations make the book almost amusing partisan at times. Need to talk about the filter effect and radicalization? Of course it’s the Other Side’s problem. We read of birthers but not truthers, of conservative anti-government types but never antifa or the mobs literally burning down cities, that kind of thing. Bergen makes no attempt whatsoever to go beyond strawmen, making him guilty of the very thing he’s pontificating about, as well as less credible as an author. Fortunately for him, the subject is interesting in itself — the under the hood look at how YouTube operates, and the rise and fall of various YouTube personalities. I’m amused by how many Youtube obsessions I was or remain oblivious to: I never heard of Pewdiepie before a year or so ago, for instance, and I would be happily unaware of ‘mukbang’ if I didn’t work at a public library where I actually see people watching it. Like, Share, and Subscribe is a generally enjoyable book, especially for those like myself who have a love/hate relationship with Google. There’s a reason I write on WordPress and not blogger these days…
The beginning of the book is especially interesting: I was coming of age just as YouTube started, so a visit to its early years is saturated with nostalgia, for that time in tech in general and for the state of the website at that time. I remember using it in college to watch comedians and movies, but also enjoying the growing world of ‘original content’. YouTube began with a team that actively combed the website looking for fun videos to feature, long before The Algorithms became our lords and masters. Although the YouTube people were concerned about copyright issues from the start — concerned about the fire they’d draw, not so much keeping more pennies from piling up in Warner Bros or Disney’s pockets — not until they were purchased by Google (which had actual money to seize in a verdict) did any legal issues really surface. What would have happened to YouTube on its own is a story for some alternate timeline, but in ours Google was able to create a system to automatically identify music and video offenses, and would triumph in a lawsuit levied by Viacom. Although the website’s original creators viewed it as a creative exercise in democracy — all the content would be created by ordinary people for ordinary people — Google needed all those servers and bandwidth to pay for itself, and as the years passed things changed, especially after its own version of Moneyball came into play. Video clicks didn’t matter: what mattered was watchtime, because videos that kept eyeballs on them increased ad revenue, and changes were made that crippled the approach of many creators who posted shorter videos. Whereas ten minutes had been the maximum upload, it now became the minimum to get into profitable ad brackets. Over time, Google would face so many issues with advertisers complaining about the videos their ads were appended to that it began restricting the videos that could be monetized. Another common theme of the book is content moderation, as Google uses both human and AI to remove pornography, calls to violence, etc. This has posed constant difficulties, both technical and policy-wise. How does one differentiate fictional violence from real violence, for instance, especially when the automatic system can’t even tell the difference between Call of Duty and actual war footage? Policy wise, there were other issues: a filmed event might be offensive and inflammatory (bin Laden calling for war, for instance), but wasn’t there a case to be made for preserving events that shaped history? Google likes to shield itself with The Algorithms as much as possible, asserting that it doesn’t go around personally meddling in affairs: it simply puts its systems to work observing and enforcing the rules. Of course, those rules were written by its people to begin with.
I largely enjoyed Like, Comment, and Subscribe, although the author’s political fixations make the book almost amusing partisan at times. Need to talk about the filter effect and radicalization? Of course it’s the Other Side’s problem. We read of birthers but not truthers, of conservative anti-government types but never antifa or the mobs literally burning down cities, that kind of thing. Bergen makes no attempt whatsoever to go beyond strawmen, making him guilty of the very thing he’s pontificating about, as well as less credible as an author. Fortunately for him, the subject is interesting in itself — the under the hood look at how YouTube operates, and the rise and fall of various YouTube personalities. I’m amused by how many Youtube obsessions I was or remain oblivious to: I never heard of Pewdiepie before a year or so ago, for instance, and I would be happily unaware of ‘mukbang’ if I didn’t work at a public library where I actually see people watching it. Like, Share, and Subscribe is a generally enjoyable book, especially for those like myself who have a love/hate relationship with Google. There’s a reason I write on WordPress and not blogger these days…
February 8, 2023
YouTube is a business (unit) that can be analyzed on do many levels:
* as a technology composed of a straightforward video delivery platform, enriched with creation & social interaction tools, and algorithms that drive both growth and moderation;
* as a multilayered social platform, composed of literally ecosystems around types of content that are born, grow, evolve, mutate, and possibly die;
* as a business within the Google machine composed of complex teams, goals & OKRs, and political/power maneuvering;
* as a societal force, affecting the livelihood of so many creators, providing a window into events both positive (e.g. citizen journalism), very negative (e.g. a tool to promote atrocities and crimes), and very grey areas (e.g. from game reviews to gamergate, from YouTube ‘for kids’ to children’s exploitation (never allow kids to watch without adult supervision!), and much, much more).
While the book was a fast paced ride through all these topics, told from the perspective of its developers, leaders, content creators, and regulators, it also showed how enigmatic developing a social media platform is, both to Google itself and content creators, both trying to drive growth, evolve, and not push society’s wrong buttons, and to outsiders trying to understand something seemingly purely user driven, yet impacted by algorithms and social forces pushing popularity up and down.
* as a technology composed of a straightforward video delivery platform, enriched with creation & social interaction tools, and algorithms that drive both growth and moderation;
* as a multilayered social platform, composed of literally ecosystems around types of content that are born, grow, evolve, mutate, and possibly die;
* as a business within the Google machine composed of complex teams, goals & OKRs, and political/power maneuvering;
* as a societal force, affecting the livelihood of so many creators, providing a window into events both positive (e.g. citizen journalism), very negative (e.g. a tool to promote atrocities and crimes), and very grey areas (e.g. from game reviews to gamergate, from YouTube ‘for kids’ to children’s exploitation (never allow kids to watch without adult supervision!), and much, much more).
While the book was a fast paced ride through all these topics, told from the perspective of its developers, leaders, content creators, and regulators, it also showed how enigmatic developing a social media platform is, both to Google itself and content creators, both trying to drive growth, evolve, and not push society’s wrong buttons, and to outsiders trying to understand something seemingly purely user driven, yet impacted by algorithms and social forces pushing popularity up and down.
November 30, 2022
Was engaging for about the first four chapters. Only on the final page of the book (410) in an addendum labelled Sourcing Note does Bergen admit what is blindingly obvious, that he had no access to anyone important, the major youtubers he covered and Google executives all refused to speak to him and he only has quotes from disgruntled former employees.
While he namedrops Levy's In The Plex the difference is that Levy is very well respected in the hacker/coding community and writes his books with tremendous amounts of access to very senior figures as a result.
The book is more or less a summary of any major news event YouTube has been involved in. If you've read Wired and The Verge you've read the book.
Unremarkable except for revealing how often Google places its thumb on the scales and manually intervenes and attempts to curate content or serve as a tastemaker despite having failed in this role several times over.
While he namedrops Levy's In The Plex the difference is that Levy is very well respected in the hacker/coding community and writes his books with tremendous amounts of access to very senior figures as a result.
The book is more or less a summary of any major news event YouTube has been involved in. If you've read Wired and The Verge you've read the book.
Unremarkable except for revealing how often Google places its thumb on the scales and manually intervenes and attempts to curate content or serve as a tastemaker despite having failed in this role several times over.
May 6, 2023
Bergen takes you on a wild ride through the history of YouTube, from its scrappy beginnings to its total domination of the internet. He explores everything from the rise of influencers to the platform's impact on society.
If you're a YouTube junkie or just curious about how this whole thing works, this is for you. It's a fun and informative read that'll leave you feeling more satisfied than a unicorn eating a rainbow.
If you're a YouTube junkie or just curious about how this whole thing works, this is for you. It's a fun and informative read that'll leave you feeling more satisfied than a unicorn eating a rainbow.
December 9, 2022
If there is any example of how a great topic can be written in an absolutely boring fashion, this one will win the prize. Very dry and lacks the thrill. Even the chapters feel useless in the overall context. Pick it up if you have 15/16 hours of your life to waste.
Disappointing is an understatement!
Disappointing is an understatement!
September 11, 2023
A sober chronology of the online video monopoly. I wanted more philosophy, more poetry but the book was a pretty dry summary of all the controversies its had since its inception. The author fell flat on animating any of the central humans involved and could’ve trimmed it down substantially. Overall felt a little stale.
September 17, 2023
Good account of rise and rise of Google as a commercial entity. Part 3 and part 4 are interesting as it touches the controversial matters faced by YouTube. Chapters on creators tells us about the significant role played by them in growth story.
April 19, 2025
The inner workings of YouTube and Google are fascinating. The algorithms, commitment to scale and culture that influences their decision making is important to understand. I did not enjoy the seemingly endless tangents about YouTubers and their issues but I guess it gave it all some context. I think I’ll take two things from this book. Mindless allegiance to algorithms and scale are bad, and never ever let a child use YouTube Kids.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 27, 2024
It was really interesting in the beginning and then they just said the same shit over and over again... this could've been 200 pages instead of 500 be fr
March 25, 2025
Very entertaining book with good presentation of how YouTube began and going down the timeline of multiple behind the scenes situations the company went through.
March 22, 2023
It’s not a bad book by any means but I was waiting for something more exciting. It’s an interesting story of growth and struggles, but I was expecting something else.
December 30, 2022
When you read this book, you comprehend the reasons why web3 will prevail. There is a need for decentralised social media platforms where the decisions around the transformation and novelties are driven by the community.
Youtube will shortly be outlived by such platforms and I don't believe that Youtube will be capable of reinventing itself. The users are becoming more intelligent and more demanding. In the end of the day these platforms fail to grasp that transparency is a right, not a privilege.
Youtube will shortly be outlived by such platforms and I don't believe that Youtube will be capable of reinventing itself. The users are becoming more intelligent and more demanding. In the end of the day these platforms fail to grasp that transparency is a right, not a privilege.
January 3, 2023
Great book about Youtube's history and many of the Creators who made Youtube what it is. Highly recommend this well-written page-turner!
October 29, 2023
Before I get into the content of this book I just want to praise Bergen’s writing for a bit. As a piece of (incredibly) long form journalism this is an undeniably dense book. That being said, Bergen is a wonderful writer who knows how to tell stories, explain context, and throw the reader into the minds of the people he examines. I lost count of how many times I chuckled or cursed the brilliance of his little stylistic flourishes - which often took the form of little thematic puns and references (which I’m a huge fan of). As a unit, it’s an extremely exhaustive look at YouTube that hits nearly every nook and cranny, both to its gain and its detriment. At times the novel is too long, but I don’t know that there’s really any other way to cover a talk like this.
With my literary appetites satisfied, I want to jump into the content. Wow, just wow. Bergen lays the bare the utterly terrifying notion that google both has no idea what they’re doing and also doesn’t care. It’s almost heinous reading about Google’s dirty laundry like this. Where once it was possible to see a proud and high functioning tech organization, you cannot possibly leave this book with that notion. The company is as flawed as any other and treats its employees like any other.
It’s one of those situations where the evil doesn’t come from people choosing to be evil, but rather not saying no to evil. YouTube’s underbelly, both in corporate and video form, is truly disturbing at points. Sure, Bergen tells of both their errors and how they cleaned them up, but I love that a majority of this is based on the google era of YouTube. This is not a Silicon Valley founder wunderkind story, it’s an investigation and revelation into the messy, frequently shocking, and raw underbelly of the world’s largest media company.
It’s incredibly powerful and shocking when Bergen highlights the google employees that saw these issues coming, flagged them, and then watched as they happened regardless. It’s particularly damning how Google’s response always seems to be, “oops, my bad guys” and never to take any ownership.
Insightful and harrowing, illuminating and exhaustive, this is a wonderful piece of journalism and while not always a great time content wise, an excellent read.
With my literary appetites satisfied, I want to jump into the content. Wow, just wow. Bergen lays the bare the utterly terrifying notion that google both has no idea what they’re doing and also doesn’t care. It’s almost heinous reading about Google’s dirty laundry like this. Where once it was possible to see a proud and high functioning tech organization, you cannot possibly leave this book with that notion. The company is as flawed as any other and treats its employees like any other.
It’s one of those situations where the evil doesn’t come from people choosing to be evil, but rather not saying no to evil. YouTube’s underbelly, both in corporate and video form, is truly disturbing at points. Sure, Bergen tells of both their errors and how they cleaned them up, but I love that a majority of this is based on the google era of YouTube. This is not a Silicon Valley founder wunderkind story, it’s an investigation and revelation into the messy, frequently shocking, and raw underbelly of the world’s largest media company.
It’s incredibly powerful and shocking when Bergen highlights the google employees that saw these issues coming, flagged them, and then watched as they happened regardless. It’s particularly damning how Google’s response always seems to be, “oops, my bad guys” and never to take any ownership.
Insightful and harrowing, illuminating and exhaustive, this is a wonderful piece of journalism and while not always a great time content wise, an excellent read.
December 31, 2022
great!
Very interning and easy to read I enjoyed this book. It was well researched and the narrative style was great.
Very interning and easy to read I enjoyed this book. It was well researched and the narrative style was great.
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