After 20 years, I don’t recognize the YouTube I grew up with

I was eight years old when Jawed uploaded the first video, “Me at the zoo,” to YouTube. I don’t remember it. In fact, I don’t think I even saw the video that started it all until later, when people began celebrating YouTube’s origins. That also means I don’t remember a time without YouTube. It’s just kind of always been there as a way to watch music videos, stumble down rabbit holes, and, of course, “broadcast yourself.”

But now, after 20 years, it feels like YouTube has changed. It’s grown from a wide-open video-sharing platform full of some of the funniest skits and sketches I’d ever seen to an ad-laden content empire full of influencers, carefully choreographed brand activations, and, yes, videos of cats doing cute things. And, while I haven’t loved every change that YouTube has made, I don’t think the internet would be the same without it.

It’s funny, after about 20 years, it finally feels like it’s time to be nostalgic for old YouTube. I mean, I know I have favorite videos from the early days of the platform — classics like “David After Dentist,” “The Evolution of Dance,” and “Charlie the Unicorn” stick out — but I never really thought about just how old those videos had become. In my mind, like old video game graphics, they were sharp, smooth, and excellent the entire time, even though that was hardly the case. At the time, I thought that content published on the internet would never get better.

Then, I learned that it did get better. I watched YouTube go from a place where one-off videos like “How Animals Eat Their Food” thrived to a place where I could actively seek out creators and learn things. I delved into Jon Rettinger’s channel, Techno Buffalo, which I still credit with my modern love of technology, and I spent more than my share of time watching Crash Course videos from Hank and John Green or documentaries when I couldn’t be bothered to do my homework.

But because laughs are usually more fun than learning, I still kept a close eye on YouTube’s humorous side. I watched the channels I loved blow up and find ways to stamp their mark online. I stumbled onto Letterkenny Problems early on, only to watch it become a full-blown show with a budget, distribution on Hulu (in the US), and its own spin-off, Shoresy. I also watched Roosterteeth become — and then un-become — a hit channel that created a video game-flavored version of Mythbusters with its Immersion series.

Something, somewhere in that explosion of creativity always reassured me that there’s always room for a fun idea or two to thrive, you just have to know where your audience is. Sure, some of my favorite creators have since retired from YouTube — an unbelievable statement to make about a platform that’s not old enough to buy a beer in the United States — but everything they uploaded shaped my modern presence on the internet in at least a small way.

As time went on with YouTube, though, its developers eventually realized that the platform couldn’t possibly stay free forever, and that’s where ads come in. Although I might not be old enough to remember a time without YouTube, I can clearly remember when it came without ads and let you jump right into whatever video you were watching. Maybe the app still had an old-timey TV as its icon, but I remember hopping from one clip to the next without a care in the world.

Then, the pre-roll ads started. They were five or ten seconds long at first, or at least you could always skip them pretty quickly. After that, YouTube also started tacking ads at the end of videos. Before long, they were even popping up in the middle of videos, though YouTube seemed to know better than to split a music video in half for the sake of a few cents. Instead, it just started making the ads longer at the start and end of videos, and sometimes that precious skip button disappeared, though you could still escape ads by paying for YouTube Premium.

Now, a new level of misery has worked its way into my YouTube-watching experience — the phrase “Fewer ad breaks for this long video.” On the surface, it sounds great. I’d trade a minute or two of ads for a 30-minute video if it meant watching in peace, wouldn’t you? The problem is that YouTube seems to have forgotten to set its timeline, as it usually feels like I get more ads during long videos, sometimes just a few minutes apart, rather than fewer.

And then there’s the ads themselves. YouTube has had no shortage of trouble with its advertising policy over the years. In the early days, it largely felt like anything went. Creators were making good money, and advertisers were happy, so everyone kept rolling. Then the original Adpocalypse hit in 2016. YouTube suddenly shifted towards family-friendly content, pulling revenue from some of the most-followed channels in the process.

In the decade since, YouTube has experienced several more Adpocalypse-style events, each with its own wave of demonetizations and advertisers pulling away from the platform as it tries to find the perfect balance between paying its creators and ensuring the safety of its users. But, if recent issues with explicit ads are any indication, YouTube is still very much in the learning stages of its early twenties.

When I sat down to reflect on a whopping twenty years of YouTube, I wanted to be disappointed. I wanted to complain about the overwhelming number of ads and the increased polish on some of the most popular content on the internet. I wanted to bemoan that new YouTube doesn’t feel the same as old YouTube, just like a hipster whose favorite bar has been taken over by the popular crowd.

However, I don’t think that it would be fair of me to do that. Would I love to see YouTube clean up the quality of its ads, the structure behind how ads get delivered, and who’s eligible to make money off of them? Sure, I would, but I also know that no platform as large as YouTube will ever be perfect. As a platform that started as a way for people to put themselves online in whatever video-based format they wanted to, I have to argue that YouTube has done a pretty good job. It’s evolved with the times, adding vertically oriented Shorts to its standard videos, the ability to broadcast live, and even a tab for podcasts, because we all know the internet wouldn’t be complete without just one more.

Besides, I think YouTube would have run out of juice if it had tried to stay the same as it always was. If not for copying competitors like Vine and later TikTok, YouTube would have lost much of its audience to short-form, vertically scrolling video apps. If not for an influx of ads and therefore ad revenue, several channels with high production values simply wouldn’t be able to make the content that could inspire a future generation of creators.

But hey, maybe for one day, we can pretend it’s the old days and skip an ad or two. What do you say, YouTube? If not, at least take 19 seconds to enjoy the clip that started it all just one more time.