YouTube

YouTube was founded in February 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, former PayPal employees. Its first video, “Me at the zoo,” was uploaded by Karim on April 23, 2005; the 19-second clip shows him discussing elephants at the San Diego Zoo. Google announced its acquisition of YouTube in October 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock, and the transaction closed the following month. Under Google, YouTube became a central product of what is now Alphabet’s Google division. The service allows users to upload, view, share, and comment on video, while creators can organize material into channels and playlists. Its earliest growth was closely associated with user-generated clips, music videos, comedy, and video blogging. The platform later expanded into live streaming, movie rentals and purchases, podcasts, short-form vertical video through YouTube Shorts, and subscription offerings. YouTube Premium removes advertising for subscribers and includes background playback and offline downloads. YouTube Music is the company’s music-focused streaming product, while YouTube TV is a paid internet television service offering live channels in the United States. Advertising remains YouTube’s core business model. Google began sharing advertising revenue with qualifying creators through the YouTube Partner Program, introduced in 2007. This program helped establish careers for creators who could monetize videos through advertisements, channel memberships, Super Chat payments during live streams, merchandise features, and other tools. YouTube’s copyright-management system, Content ID, enables rights holders to identify uploaded material matching reference files and choose whether to block it, track it, or monetize it. Several landmark events illustrate YouTube’s cultural reach. In 2012, “Gangnam Style” by South Korean artist Psy became the first YouTube video to reach one billion views. In 2019, the music video “Baby Shark Dance,” uploaded by Pinkfong, surpassed “Despacito” to become the platform’s most-viewed video; it later became the first to exceed ten billion views. YouTube has also hosted official channels for major institutions, sports leagues, news organizations, record labels, and governments. The company has faced persistent scrutiny over copyright infringement, recommendation systems, misinformation, child safety, moderation, and the treatment of creators. Viacom sued Google in 2007, alleging massive copyright infringement on YouTube; the parties settled in 2014. YouTube has revised policies repeatedly in response to advertiser concerns and platform abuse, including restrictions on monetizing content that violates its guidelines. In 2020, it introduced YouTube Shorts in India before expanding it internationally, competing directly with short-video services such as TikTok.