Bengaluru, March 16

As an increasing number of social-media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are introducing subscription plans, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen told businessline that subscriptions are a short-term solution, and that he expects other innovative platforms to come up with different forms of monetisation in the future. 

He was speaking on the sidelines of Biban Forum 2023, a forum for entrepreneurs and small-to-medium sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia. He noted that games could be downloaded for free today, but the user ends up paying for other things related to the game. This concept itself is very different from the gaming monetisation models that existed five years ago.

“I think again, in a year or two years’ time, monetisation models are gonna be continually changing. That’s the exciting part about the innovation that leads to success in Silicon Valley and just technology in general,” said Chen. YouTube, too, has introduced a subscription plan for users to watch ad-free content, along other benefits.

Commenting on whether Chen and his co-founders thought of introducing subscriptions when they founded YouTube in 2005, he said: “The answer is both yes and no. We always wanted to make uploading free, and it is still free today. Subscriptions only apply to the viewers, and I think it does make sense. If you don’t want to see ads and save time, then you pay for it.” Chen, along with Jawed Karim and Chad Hurley, sold YouTube to Google in 2006 in a $1.65-billion deal.

Short video content

Commenting on the advent of short video platforms such as TikTok and Youtube Shorts, Chen said he does not particularly like the concept because it is not good for human brain. “I still believe that people should watch 2-5 minute videos. However, I know I am a guilty as well, because YouTube has a related videos feed. So, even without YouTube shorts, nobody really finished watching a video before they clicked on another video to watch. Such addictive behaviour is not healthy. I have two kids and I tell them to not watch YouTube Shorts,” he added. Having said that, Chen noted that YouTube Shorts is easier to use and that there is a huge audience that prefers to watch short video content.