On YouTube's 20th Anniversary, the Platform Says Over 20 Trillion Videos Have Been Uploaded (hollywoodreporter.com) 58
On its 20th anniversary, YouTube now says that since YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim's video -- "Me at the zoo" -- was posted, more than 20 trillion videos have been uploaded. From a report: The video behemoth dropped a number of jaw-dropping stats Wednesday, along with significant updates to its TV experience, which has become a strategic priority for the platform, all connected to its anniversary. YouTube says that as of March 2025, more than 20 million videos are uploaded every single day, and that in 2024 users posted more than 100 million comments on videos, on average, every day.
And yet (Score:4, Insightful)
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And yet, there's nothing to watch!
Can't say that over here. Youtube might actually be the most watched streaming service in this house. Partly because I love retro-gaming, partly because I have a kid and there's a metric-shit-ton of decent programming for them, and partly because of things like wanting to watch one segment of SNL and not the whole show.
I ain't interested in selling anybody on the service but, come on let's be real, the only thing Youtube is short on is porn.
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come on let's be real, the only thing Youtube is short on is porn
That's not really true. While my comment was a joke, Youtube threatens to demonetize basically everything that doesn't fit into their cozy, family friendly template. This is why every Youtuber has started self-censoring to a completely absurd degree in order to not get caught by the automatic profanity detector, etc. In other words, because of its heavy tilt toward being family friendly, Youtube is short of content for mature audiences.
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Youtube is short of content for mature audiences.
What does this mean? I can watch John Carpenter's 1982 stone cold classic "The Thing" for free on Youtube right now with all it's profanity and gore intact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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You overestimate how wide-spread Youtube censorship is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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You overestimate how wide-spread Youtube censorship is.
Perhaps I do. It just feels like every Youtuber I watch regularly bleeps out words like "death" and "suicide", while also complaining all the time about being demonetized for video game gore, etc. Maybe it's overly cautious risk mitigation, as a Youtuber's income obviously depends on videos not being demonetized. However, in that case, Youtube might have a problem with not properly communicating platform restrictions, or are restricting videos through an unfair, automatic process. But, maybe it's just not a
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It just feels like every Youtuber I watch regularly bleeps out words like "death" and "suicide", while also complaining all the time about being demonetized for video game gore, etc.
I think that's because the video was originally recorded for TikTok, same reason that so many videos are horizontally flipped.
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It just feels like every Youtuber I watch regularly bleeps out words like "death" and "suicide"...
The Youtubers I watch that go into more 'mature' content (like police-cam footage...) will often do the "Monetization Edit", then provide a link from that vid to the uncensored unmonetized version.
The link I was trying to show you was an example of YT providing easy-to-find pirated content.
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For un-monetized content I find Youtube is surprisingly lenient of what they will let you upload.
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I've seen a few things that might have been interesting but I don't like watching via a web interface, and yt-dl ends up with the 403 forbidden error if I try that lately. Even the DuckDuckGo video results no longer play inside the search page.
Now, I wouldn't mind if I can never watch something from that site, but the problem is occasionally there's video material on an interesting subject on a site, but it's just about always hosted on MonopolyTube.
Celebrating via glitch? (Score:1)
I notice Youtube hogs a lot more CPU than normal in Firefox of late. Anyone else? Putting the video in "wide" mode helps some.
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Yep, I've seen this behavior too. I need to make sure to close the YouTube tab when finished or the resources just keep climbing over time. My hunch is it has something to do with trying to defeat the many ad, sponsor, and tracking blockers I have installed. This behavior didn't start until YouTube starting actively trying to thwart these measures last year.
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Thanks! Do you believe YouTube are activity trying to punish those who use ad-blockers by upping CPU, or it's merely a side-effect of using blockers?
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I would say it's a side effect, but with Google you never know ... "Do no evil" proved to be complete bullshit.
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> "Do no evil" proved to be complete bullshit.
It was an evolution:
1. Do no evil.
2. Okay, only a little evil.
3. Be evil.
4. Be evil and enjoy it.
5. Out-evil our evil competitors.
6. Subjugate the world!
Granted, not fully into #6 yet.
They failed to mention... (Score:3)
Their report failed to mention that well over 19 trillion of those videos are pretty much crap.
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Sturgeon's Law comes knocking for every platform in the long run.
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Their report failed to mention that well over 19 trillion of those videos are pretty much crap.
And that probably 1 trillion were deleted due to bullshit copyright claims from the likes of the RIAA.
Naaah. Numbers don't add up. (Score:5, Insightful)
20 trillion videos uploaded in 20 years is a trillion a year, or about 2.74 billion per day. However, the article says that only 20 million are uploaded per day. Over 20 years, that's about 146 billion... but I assume upload pace has increased over time, so I reckon the true number is 20 billion and not 20 trillion.
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They're probably counting deletions and videos that were immediately flagged for copyrights.
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That wouldn't get them off by a factor of 1000. I find it hard to believe that 999 out of every 1000 uploads are subsequently deleted or copyright-flagged.
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What, doing math and actually understanding numbers? Carefully there, that may get you deported...
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I already live outside of the USA, so I guess I'm OK for now...
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Or at least demonetized.
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I was already wondering the same.
That would be thousands of videos per person on earth, seems a bit high of an estimate.
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So either the number is wrong or, if it is correct, then there are some accounts that are uploading hundreds, if not thousands of vide
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Not only that, the average video on YouTube is about 10 minutes long. Let's say YouTube compresses that down to about 400MB. 20 trillion of those videos would be 8 * 10^21 bytes, or 8 zettabytes. The total amount of disk storage on earth is only about 33 zettabytes. Furthermore, uploading 8 * 10^21 bytes over 20 years would require a sustained bandwidth of about 100 terabits per second.
Re:Naaah. Numbers don't add up. (Score:1)
Maybe one figure counts those uploaded by humans and the other uploaded by bots. SpamBots grow ever more aggressive and devious. Even before the GPT boom, spamBots were swiping and re-gluing snippets from other videos.
My God, it's full of spam! [reddit.com]
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Well, it's probably more like 20 billion were uploaded, and 19 billion were deleted or tossed for nonsense copyright claims.
And they continue to demonstrate ... (Score:2)
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Nothing is free. Watch the ads or pay the $14/month for premium. I do, and it's the best $14 I spend every month. I can't remember the last time I watched anything on TV or streaming as mainstream media is currently producing nothing that interests me in any way.
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Some things are free. Install an ad and sponsor blocker into your browser and get the same experience. Here is the list of add-ons I use in Firefox. With these I never see, or hear, ads on the Internet any where: ClearURLs, Disconnect, Ghostery, Google Analytics Opt-Out Add-On, SponsorBlock for YouTube, uBlock Origin.
Re:And they continue to demonstrate ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I do this, but I'm afraid it won't last forever. Eventually Google might win over the ad-blockers because of their immense resources. Enjoy it while you can. They will do everything in their power to maximize profits (Even at the expense of content quality and the invasion of personal privacy).
Here's some of what might eventually happen:
1. Google could start embedding ads directly into the streaming content (At great processing expense). You'd need a specialized AI plug-in to download and then filter out the ads. The viewing would no longer be in real time.
2. They could do a power grab on videos with sponsored content which would result in two things. Content creators would no longer be able to insert sponsored content without giving google a serious cut of the revenue from the sponsoring entity, and the sponsored content would become un-skippable. Again, you would need an AI and database web browser plug in to view videos ad-free and they would not be in real time.
3. The could go Netflix and require everyone to log in to view videos. This last one is the one I really fear for multiple reasons. First, anything you watch on Youtube would no longer be anonymous, and second, the legality of the end user modifying anything which is behind a login can be a legal minefield.
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Of those the first might be the most plausible, the other two I think are way too much of a disruption for their model which is working for them. Lot's of companies can be that stupid but YT seems to avoid the worst pitfalls.
They also don't even have to go that far, they only need to make it just onerous enough to make subscribing worthwhile. I think they may be smart enough to know someone like the parent is going to find a way regardless, it becomes more like sport at that point, they can let us know but
Re: And they continue to demonstrate ... (Score:2)
I'm all ears for advice, I guess load up on what you are using as per your post... ?
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Yep, if you use Firefox and install those add-ons you won't see a single ad any where, that includes /. I have not seen an ad on the Internet in well over 15 years now, maybe even longer. When I use a virgin browser on some one else's machine I simply can't believe people put up with the Internet without ad blocking.
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"You're paying too much for your car insurance."
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By "customers", do you mean YouTube Premium? Are you getting wet fish with logged in with Premium?
I wouldn't know, I use YouTube for free. So about 10% of my stream is wet fish. For me, that beats paying $13.99 / £11.99 a month.
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Andy Warhol Was Right (Score:2)
Great tune, BTW.
Stories like this are celebratory in spirit, but in a way it's a sad statistic on where we've focused so much of our time and energy. Most of Youtube is glorious indulgence in stupidity and echo-chamber reinforcement. The stupidity is the less egregious of the two. I'm all for stupid entertainment. I grew up watching Three Stooges for cryin' out loud, and nobody's going to say that's smart entertainment. But everybody clamoring for their fifteen minutes is creating a massive flood of echo-ch
As many as that? (Score:2)
The question we need answered (Score:3)
How many of these 20 trillion videos are cat videos?
It's a "typo" the article say 20 billions. (Score:2)
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Fair enough. How many of those 20 billion videos are cat videos? 50%?
Can someone explain to me... (Score:2)
...how do they afford the storage space for all those videos? How much space do they have to keep adding every month to keep up with it? All videos ever uploaded to YouTube that weren't removed are available for viewing as far as I know.
My YouTube channel is part of my income, and I have to say that they are one of the best platforms for paying users for ad revenue run against their content. I just don't know how they can continually add the space to store it all. The revenue model must work, to pay
That's a lot (Score:2)
YouTube is an international treasure (Score:2)
I don't say that lightly. The amount of useful information I've obtained from YouTube videos is amazing, and totally unexpected. One of the most important properties on the web today.
20 Billion NOT 20 trillion (Score:1)
Let's do the math... (Score:2)
Youtube claims to have 2.5 billion users globally. If "over 20 trillion videos" have been uploaded, that means, on average, each user has uploaded more than 8000 videos... or an average of 400 videos per year for the past 20 years.
And that, of course, is nonsense. The only possible interpretation is this: the overwhelming majority of the 20 trillion videos are auto-generated and posted by a bot of some kind. (These days, of course, there is a lot of obvious AI-generated junk on youtube... but even before
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Oh, never mind, I see that the article was wrong and that it's been corrected. (Maybe someone mixed up the European "billion" with the U.S. "billion".)