Chapter 2
The Basics of YouTube
IN THIS CHAPTER
Navigating the basics of the YouTube interface
Watching YouTube videos
Creating a YouTube account
Setting up a unique channel URL
Checking out the YouTube Partner Program
In the simplest sense, YouTube is a website designed for sharing video. Before YouTube’s founding in 2005, posting and sharing a video online was difficult: The bandwidth and storage needed to stream video were expensive, and many copyright risks were involved in letting people upload whatever they wanted. Because YouTube was willing to absorb the costs and ignore the risks, it provided, for free, the infrastructure for users to upload and view as much video as they want. This proposition turned out to be a popular one.
Google acquired YouTube in 2006, and YouTube’s growth continued. As of 2019, viewers watch more than a billion hours of video per day, and more than 500 hours of video are uploaded every minute.
Let us say that last part again: 500 hours of video are ...
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