YouTube Originals will become free and ad-supported by 2020

I have YouTube Red so I can listen to YouTube videos in the background on my phone, but I don’t think I’ve ever watched a complete YouTube original.

If anything, I have a general sense when I see the “Original” tag that it’s probably overproduced and flimsy content relative to normal YouTube videos. The marker is probably anti-selling the content to me at this point. Even though I’ve ostensibly “paid” for that content.

Contrast to Netflix Originals which I generally assume are at least mildly relevant, interesting, and/or produced by reputable creators.

I think Google messed up by going after the most popular creators, who are mostly playing a game of clickbait and lowest common denominator attractors.

Netflix did the total opposite, forgoing the big name filakers and finding artists who have niche audiences that were previously considered too small to fund.

Google needs to realize the “Top Youtubers” and “People who need funding for a small but traditionally produced film” are very different categories.