So what IS YouTube anyway?

YouTube continues to creak under its own weight. The Los Angeles Times has a story where people are complaining that YouTube is losing it's "real" feeling because so many videos being placed there are corporate or commercial.

"Part of the allure of YouTube is the realness of it," one person whined in the article. "[The YouTube community] is nervous that if people are being paid to do their videos, it's not real anymore."

Is YouTube a place to surf around and look for fun videos? Or is YouTube a place to host and promote money-making content... That mix is shifting...

Here's the deal folks. YouTube has a huge viewer base. YouTube offers free posting, hosting and streaming of video content. Like many things, this will start out as something individuals use, it will grow to critical mass, and corporations will begin to use it to make money. It's the natural order of things.

Does nobody else remember the early 90s when people were afraid the web was going to go corporate? It certainly did, in a big way. And many of the web's coolest things are corporate provided. (Yes, many of the web's worst things are corporate provided, too, and many, many great things come from individuals.)

YouTube is going to continue to provide a valuablel service, and continue to creak...