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YouTube
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| Logo used since February 2025 | |
| Type | Subsidiary (of Google) |
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| Founded | February 14, 2005 San Mateo, California, U.S. |
| Launched | April 23, 2005 |
| HQ | 901 Cherry Avenue San Bruno, California, U.S. |
| Founders | Chad Hurley · Steve Chen · Jawed Karim |
| Key people | Neal Mohan (CEO) |
| Parent | Google (Alphabet Inc.) |
| Products | YouTube Kids · YouTube Music · YouTube Premium · YouTube Shorts · YouTube TV |
| Revenue | US$31.5 billion (2023, advertising) |
| Users | 2.7 billion MAU (January 2024) |
| Website | youtube.com |
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1 Overview✎
YouTube is an American online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. Founded on February 14, 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim — all former employees of PayPal — and launched publicly on April 23, 2005, YouTube was acquired by Google on November 13, 2006 for US$1.65 billion. It operates as a subsidiary of Google, which is itself a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.
YouTube is the second-most-visited website in the world, behind only Google Search. As of January 2024, the platform has over 2.7 billion monthly active users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of video content every day. As of mid-2024, YouTube hosts approximately 14.8 billion videos, with more than 500 hours of new content uploaded every minute. In 2023, YouTube's advertising revenue totaled $31.7 billion, and from late 2023 through 2024, its combined revenue from advertising and subscriptions exceeded $50 billion.
The platform hosts an enormous range of content: music videos, vlogs, news, short and feature films, live streams, educational content, gaming, documentaries, and more. Most content is user-generated, though major media corporations, news organizations, and entertainment companies maintain active YouTube channels. The platform has had a profound social impact, creating new forms of celebrity, influencing popular culture, and reshaping the media landscape. It has also faced significant criticism over copyright enforcement, misinformation, privacy, child safety, and content moderation.
2 Name✎
The name "YouTube" combines "You" — representing user-generated content — with "Tube," a colloquial term for television. The domain youtube.com was registered on February 14, 2005. The name caused problems for Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, which operated the similarly named website utube.com and found itself overwhelmed by misdirected traffic. The company sued YouTube in 2006 and eventually changed its URL to utubeonline.com.
3 History✎
YouTube's history spans two decades, from a small startup above a pizzeria to the world's dominant video platform.
3.1 Founding (2005)✎
Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim had all become wealthy after eBay's acquisition of PayPal, where they were early employees. Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen and Karim studied computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The origin story of YouTube has been told in several ways. A widely repeated version holds that Hurley and Chen came up with the idea in early 2005 after having difficulty sharing videos from a dinner party at Chen's San Francisco apartment. Karim, who was not at the party, disputed this account. He has said the inspiration came from his inability to easily find video clips of the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami online. Hurley and Chen have acknowledged that their original concept was a video version of an online dating service, influenced by the website Hot or Not. They even posted ads on Craigslist offering women $100 to upload videos of themselves. When that failed to gain traction, they pivoted to accepting uploads of any kind.
The company was incorporated in February 2005. YouTube's early headquarters were located above a pizzeria and a Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The first video ever uploaded — "Me at the zoo," an 18-second clip of co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo — was posted on April 23, 2005, and remains on the site to this day. The platform launched as a public beta the same day, and by November a Nike ad featuring Ronaldinho became the first video to reach one million views. By December 2005, YouTube had exited beta and was receiving 8 million views per day.
Between November 2005 and April 2006, the company raised venture capital funding, with Sequoia Capital and Artis Capital Management as the two largest investors.
3.2 Google acquisition and early growth (2006–2013)✎
On October 9, 2006, Google announced it would acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock. The deal was finalized on November 13. It was around this time that YouTube adopted the slogan "Broadcast Yourself." The acquisition spurred interest in the broader video-sharing market; IAC, which owned Vimeo, began focusing on supporting content creators to differentiate from YouTube.
Growth was staggering. In 2007, YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet had used in 2000. By 2010, the platform held roughly 43% market share with more than 14 billion video views. In 2011, three billion videos were being watched daily and 48 hours of new content were uploaded every minute. By 2013, more than 100 hours of video were uploaded per minute, and YouTube underwent interface redesigns to unify the experience across desktop, TV, and mobile.
YouTube weathered a major legal threat during this period. Viacom International filed a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit that could have shut the platform down. The case dragged on until 2012, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that YouTube was protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor provisions.
YouTube also experienced leadership transitions after the acquisition. Chad Hurley stepped down as CEO in October 2010, with Google executive Salar Kamangar taking over. The company moved its headquarters to a new office in San Bruno, California in 2006.
3.3 Expansion and new products (2014–2019)✎
Susan Wojcicki, who had provided the garage where Google was first headquartered, was appointed CEO of YouTube in February 2014. Under her leadership, YouTube expanded aggressively into new products and revenue streams.
In 2014, YouTube announced "Music Key," a subscription service bundling ad-free music streaming with Google Play Music. This evolved into YouTube Red in 2015, which offered ad-free access to the entire platform plus original content. YouTube also launched YouTube Music as a dedicated music streaming app. YouTube Kids, designed for younger audiences with parental controls and curated content, launched in 2015. That same year, YouTube Gaming was introduced to compete with Amazon's Twitch in the live-streaming market.
In 2016, YouTube expanded its San Bruno headquarters by purchasing an office park for $215 million. In August 2017, the platform rolled out a major redesign built on Google's Material Design language and debuted a new logo featuring the familiar play button emblem.
By February 2017, one billion hours of YouTube video were being watched every day, with 400 hours of content uploaded every minute — a figure that rose to over 500 hours per minute by 2019. In April 2018, a shooting at YouTube's San Bruno headquarters wounded four people before the shooter died.
3.4 Recent years (2020–present)✎
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased YouTube usage. Forbes estimated that YouTube accounted for 16% of all internet traffic by 2024, up from 11% before the pandemic. In response to EU requests during the pandemic, YouTube temporarily reduced streaming quality to conserve bandwidth.
YouTube launched YouTube Shorts as a competitor to TikTok and Instagram Reels, embracing the short-form vertical video format. The platform also introduced Playables, an in-app gaming platform, in 2023. In late 2023, YouTube began cracking down on ad blockers, warning users that video playback would be restricted if they did not allow ads or subscribe to YouTube Premium. In 2024, YouTube started using server-side ad injection to make ad blocking more difficult.
In November 2021, YouTube controversially removed public dislike counts from videos, claiming the feature was used for cyberbullying and brigading. Co-founder Jawed Karim publicly criticized the decision.
In February 2023, Susan Wojcicki stepped down as CEO. Neal Mohan was appointed as her successor. Wojcicki took an advisory role at Google and Alphabet before her death from non-small-cell lung cancer on August 9, 2024.
A COPPA complaint in 2018 led to a $170 million FTC fine for collecting personal information from minors under 13. YouTube was required to implement systems to better protect children's privacy, and beginning in 2020, all videos designated as "made for kids" were treated as liable under COPPA rules.
4 Products and services✎
YouTube operates several distinct products beyond its core video platform.
YouTube Music is a dedicated music streaming service, offering both a free ad-supported tier and a subscription option. It replaced Google Play Music in 2020.
YouTube Premium (formerly YouTube Red) provides ad-free video playback, background play on mobile devices, and access to YouTube Originals. Subscribers also receive YouTube Music Premium.
YouTube TV is a live television streaming service offering cable-replacement packages with major broadcast and cable channels.
YouTube Kids provides a child-friendly interface with curated content, parental controls, and restricted features. A supervised mode for tweens was added in 2021.
YouTube Shorts is a short-form vertical video feature competing with TikTok and Instagram Reels.
YouTube Studio provides creators with analytics, video management tools, and monetization features.
5 Content and creators✎
YouTube's content ecosystem is built around individual creators, known as YouTubers, as well as media companies, brands, and organizations. The platform's Partner Program allows eligible creators to earn revenue through advertisements, channel memberships, Super Chat donations (ranging from $1 to $500), and merchandise shelves.
YouTube has produced numerous globally recognized internet celebrities and has given rise to distinct content subcultures including BookTube, BreadTube, beauty channels, gaming channels, and VTubers (virtual YouTubers using animated avatars). The platform's recommendation algorithm plays a significant role in shaping what content viewers encounter, and has been both praised for enabling discovery and criticized for promoting sensational or misleading content.
YouTube maintains several recognition programs for creators, including YouTube Creator Awards — commonly known as Play Buttons — which are awarded at subscriber milestones: Silver (100,000), Gold (1,000,000), Diamond (10,000,000), and Red Diamond (100,000,000).
6 Records✎
YouTube has been the stage for numerous records in online media. The first video to reach one billion views was Psy's "Gangnam Style" in 2012. As of 2025, the most-viewed video on the platform is "Baby Shark Dance" by Pinkfong. The most-subscribed individual creator channel has been MrBeast, while the most-subscribed channel overall is T-Series, an Indian music and film production company.
7 Criticism and controversies✎
YouTube has faced extensive criticism across several areas.
7.1 Copyright✎
The platform has long struggled with unauthorized uploads of copyrighted material. YouTube's Content ID system, introduced in 2007, automatically scans uploads against a database of copyrighted works and allows rights holders to block, monetize, or track matching content. Critics have argued that the system is prone to false positives and can be weaponized to suppress fair use and legitimate commentary.
7.2 Misinformation✎
YouTube has been criticized for hosting and algorithmically promoting conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and political misinformation. The platform has implemented policies against medical misinformation (particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic) and election-related falsehoods, though enforcement has been inconsistent. In September 2025, Alphabet announced it would reinstate creators previously banned for spreading COVID-19 and 2020 election misinformation.
7.3 Child safety✎
Concerns about children's safety on YouTube have been persistent. The 2017 "Elsagate" controversy involved disturbing content disguised as children's videos. The FTC's $170 million fine in 2019 for COPPA violations led to significant policy changes around content labeled as "made for kids." In 2025, YouTube began testing age-assurance systems using machine learning to restrict minors' access to certain content and features.
7.4 Privacy and advertising✎
YouTube has been criticized for its data collection practices and the volume and intrusiveness of advertising. The platform's 2023 crackdown on ad blockers and subsequent move toward server-side ad injection drew significant user backlash.
8 Legacy and impact✎
YouTube fundamentally changed how people create, distribute, and consume video content. Before YouTube, online video was fragmented across numerous platforms with inconsistent quality and usability. YouTube provided a single, free, easy-to-use platform that democratized video publishing — anyone with a camera and an internet connection could reach a global audience.
The platform's influence extends across entertainment, journalism, education, politics, and commerce. It launched entire industries — from influencer marketing to online education — and gave independent musicians, filmmakers, and educators a distribution channel that previously required institutional backing. The term "YouTuber" has entered common usage worldwide, and the platform's cultural impact is difficult to overstate.
YouTube's first-ever video, "Me at the zoo," remains on the platform as a testament to the site's origins — a simple, 18-second clip that opened the door to what would become the world's largest video library.
Content available under CC BY-SA 4.0