A GAME OF YOUTUBE
India has always been and will be a very huge market when it comes to internet usage.We went from being nowhere in the game to being almost the biggest players in the game(bruh China is sweating right now).Reliance Jio came in, gave away free data, introduced cheap data packs, angered the competition, took over their customer bases, spread the internet to the masses, gave us the ability to access content that was fresh,unique,and original and most importantly we got access to content from different parts of the world that are just mind-blowing!We already know about rise of all these streaming services like Netflix,Amazon Prime Video, HotStar, AltBalaji, Voot in India and the wide range of regional and international content that they provide us but the main hero in India when it comes to online streaming of content is the one and only YOU-TUBE!
I think from the very beginning, we Indians have only known about one video streaming platform and that is YouTube.Yeah i am talking about back in the day when internet was barely a thing here and only the rich people had internet access(lets not talk about that awful dial-up speed).Its kind of difficult to think about how people even knew about it but i guess it was a 'word of mouth' thing.No body in India even knew about Netflix and bet even today, 90% Indians probably do not know that Netflix was originally a DVD and Blu-Ray rental service before switching to OTT. But I remember that when i heard first about YouTube which was definitely before 2010.I was so fascinated by the idea of a service that allowed people to post videos and share it with people from different parts of the world.That was a time when using YouTube was basically like a Day-Dream afterthought.I remember how i re-watched Yuvraj Singh's six sixes on YouTube and it was the first time i saw YouTube and it was epic.But now times have changed and now we probably have the largest user base on YouTube.
The biggest reason for Youtube's massive success in India is that it is FREE,well for the most part(who even uses YouTube premium?How much free time do you have?Do some activities!).We love free stuff be it free food, free internet(Mukesh Ambani is a genius businessman) and we love content even more when its free.YouTube had all those advantages of being free and at the same time providing unlimited amount of content to us from around the world.Unlike the Westerners who prefer watching paid content without ads,we prefer watching free content with ads and i think Netflix can grow much fast here if it gets free here with ads on all movies and web-series, kind of like HotStar. I think that the special thing about YouTube is that its about individual creators who make their own original content and share it with the people. YouTube is all about personal connection with the creators.I think people really relate to a creator when he/she sits down in front of a camera and has an honest face to face conversation with their audience that is real and honest.I think that is what makes YouTube different from T.V.
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| Youtube Home Page(Yes I like Minecraft and expensive PC parts so don't judge me) |
How big has YouTube got in India can be defined by 2 factors, Indian YouTubers and Indian Corporate Channels.The Supernatural growth of Internet here is has not only given us free content to watch and enjoy but has also given lots and lots of Indian creators a platform to do what they love and make a living from it.Just in the last 2-3 years, so many Indian Youtubers have popped up and are growing at an insane rate.The YouTube India community as a whole is growing at an extraordinary rate.Some of India's major YouTube stars include Amit Bhadana(15 million subscribers),BB Ki Vines(14 million subscribers),ashish chanchalani vines(13 million subscribers),Technical Guruji(13 million subscribers),Sandeep Maheshwari(11 million subscribers),Round2Hell(8.4 million subscribers),CarryMinati(7.5 million subscribers), and many more.These Youtubers have grown very big in just a few years, gaining massive amounts of subscribers and millions of views on their videos.Its also pretty crazy to think that these Youtubers are all from different categories and make different type of videos ranging from sketches and skits to roasting,comentary,technology,gaming,etc.It is also very evident that Indian Youtubers get more views and subscribers than some of the very popular international YouTube channels and since internet here is at a boom makes it even more easier.
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| From Left to Right:Technical Guruji, Bhuvam Bam & Amit Bhadana |
And then there are corporate channels.These channels are mammoths.The amount of views and subscribers this corporate channels get seems very insane at first sight but then when you think about the potential for Indian market,it seems to make more sense.The biggest channel on YouTube is a giant Indian Multi-Million Music Label known as T-Series.What are the two things Indians love too much?Bollywood songs and Punjabi songs and that is T-Series.They have signed deals with majority of the main stream movie producers and artist and publish movie trailers and music videos in bulk and have gained huge traction(Almost all of their music is garbage).They were in a race for the number 1 spot and hitting 100 million subscribers with the legendary Youtuber PewDiePie and they won(well practically PewDiePie won because he gained like 30 million subscribers in 6 months and he fought a corp for like 8 months).PewDiePie vs T-Series was the best internet event ever to be honest and i had so much fun following it and most importantly i found a very talented small Indian creator Saiman Says who is very self aware and funny and he loves Christopher Nolan so that is a bonus in my books
Currently T-Series has 106 million subscribers and 77 billion views(WHAT?) and it is not the only corporation dominating the platform.Top 10 largest Indian channels in India are all corporations that are either related to Bollywood, Bollywood music, Punjabi music, T.V soaps or Child animations.The channels following T-Series include SET India(52 million Subs), Zee Music Company(40 million subs), Zee TV(32 million subs), Sony Music India(26 million subs),etc.
I guess it is safe to assume that India has taken over YouTube in a flash and both Youtubers and corporations have got huge benefits but clearly the Indian internet revolution has helped individual content creators more as they finally have a way to post their content on a fixed platform and people also have easy access to the content.Although it is sad YouTube is promoting corporations more than creators because in the end YouTube wants to squeeze out as much potential profits as possible, but that is expected as YouTube understands that India is the largest market and they will use their algorithm to squeeze out as much watch-time out of us as possible and these corporations are the easiest way to achieve this as they make content that panders to the interest of most of India.Now since I am pretty much done here, I will tell you that I am never going to write a blog about TIK-TOK and that thing is the most cancerous thing I have ever seen.
If you are a having a good day or a bad day, CLICK HERE to listen to a very underrated chill music.
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| Top Indian channels are all corporations(link) |
Currently T-Series has 106 million subscribers and 77 billion views(WHAT?) and it is not the only corporation dominating the platform.Top 10 largest Indian channels in India are all corporations that are either related to Bollywood, Bollywood music, Punjabi music, T.V soaps or Child animations.The channels following T-Series include SET India(52 million Subs), Zee Music Company(40 million subs), Zee TV(32 million subs), Sony Music India(26 million subs),etc.
I guess it is safe to assume that India has taken over YouTube in a flash and both Youtubers and corporations have got huge benefits but clearly the Indian internet revolution has helped individual content creators more as they finally have a way to post their content on a fixed platform and people also have easy access to the content.Although it is sad YouTube is promoting corporations more than creators because in the end YouTube wants to squeeze out as much potential profits as possible, but that is expected as YouTube understands that India is the largest market and they will use their algorithm to squeeze out as much watch-time out of us as possible and these corporations are the easiest way to achieve this as they make content that panders to the interest of most of India.Now since I am pretty much done here, I will tell you that I am never going to write a blog about TIK-TOK and that thing is the most cancerous thing I have ever seen.
If you are a having a good day or a bad day, CLICK HERE to listen to a very underrated chill music.
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