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Like, Comment, Subscribe: How YouTube Drives Google’s Dominance and Controls Our Culture
Bottom of the pile
13
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
19/100Critics
7/100Scholars
Author:
Mark Bergen
Publisher:
Viking
Date:
September 6, 2022
The inside story of YouTubeâthe company that upended media, culture, industry, and democracyâby a leading tech journalist.
What The Reviewers Say
...with Karim’s pixelated smirk, begins Mark Bergen’s fascinating Like, Comment, Subscribe, an account of the company’s journey from its humble roots, thrown together in a garage by two college dropouts and a graphic designer, to its world-conquering present — last year it hoovered up $28 billion in revenue...On the surface, YouTube’s story is one of astonishing success: snapped up by Google for $1.65 billion in October 2006, dishing out ad money to more than three million “creators” by April 2012, and today racking up 2.6 billion monthly users around the world...Behind the scenes, though, its journey reads like a two-decade game of Whac-a-Mole with the company trying to suppress crisis after crisis: the $1 billion lawsuit launched by Viacom over copyright infringement; the proliferation of conspiracy theory channels; the frequent appearance of porn in children’s videos; and the constant gaffes of some of the channel’s biggest stars..
Many books that purport to trace the rise of a dazzlingly successful technology company suffer from founder-worship. Mr. Bergen avoids this trap.
Bergen offers a revealing look at how YouTube has struggled with that growth.
In extensive, and sometimes overlong, detail Bergen shows how it was done. For both YouTube’s content providers and consumers, it’s an interesting journey..
