I was an early YouTube creator. Here’s what I noticed about Susan Wojcicki’s legacy of improving the platform over 10 years.

• YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down after nearly ten years at the helm. 
• Under her leadership, the video platform cemented itself as a favorite of online creators.
• YouTube enters 2023 focused on becoming a platform for all types of video, long and short.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced last week that she would step down after almost a decade at the online video platform. The unexpected move follows a succession of other women in Big Tech who have stepped down from leadership roles of late. 

Wojcicki's resignation comes at a time when YouTube is experiencing some turbulence. YouTube Shorts, the company's direct competitor to TikTok, recently surpassed 50 billion daily views and opened up monetization to creators. But revenue slumped 2% in the fourth quarter amid broader macroeconomic concerns. And the company has been dragged to the Supreme Court over a question of whether it should be liable for ISIS terrorist content, which could result in a ruling with major implications.

Still, under Wojcicki's tenure the video platform was rarely mentioned in discussions about the ills of social media, and the CEO was not regularly hauled in front of Congress like other tech leaders. Wojcicki was well regarded by creators for empowering them with increasingly sophisticated tools and monetization options.  

The early days were tough

I spent some of my formative years making videos on YouTube, beginning all the way back in 2007 when I was only a preteen. YouTube had only launched in 2005 and being an internet influencer wasn't an idea in the mainstream consciousness yet, and the iPhone wouldn't support video recording for another two years. 

Early on, people didn't take YouTube seriously, so it became synonymous with videos of dogs riding skateboards and other content of the lowest common denominator. Uploading videos was difficult — since there was no easy-to-use iPhone app, it took me days to figure out how to connect my DV tape camcorder to my Windows tower PC and then get a recorded video uploaded. And it was hard for YouTubers to make money from their videos. Discoverability was another challenge. 

YouTube launched the "Partner Program" in 2007, allowing a small number of creators (in the low hundreds initially) to earn a 45% cut on ads placed alongside their videos. The hope was to bring more high-quality content onto the site. But in a recent book on the history of YouTube, "Like, Comment, Subscribe," author Mark Bergen reports that only 30,000 creators had access to the program by 2012, in part due to YouTube's copyright concerns. When I was accepted in the early days, the program's criteria were opaque and most applicants were rejected. 

I was miraculously accepted into the program one day, after applying more times than I can count, and I was ecstatic. In those days, between 2007 and 2010, it was essentially unheard of that a kid could broadcast videos to the world from their bedroom, and make money doing it. It felt revolutionary. 

In that context, it's especially surprising that the likes of TikTok and Instagram were late to figure out how to compensate creators. YouTube has offered a more advanced and trusted monetization system for several years. I first learned about CPMs as a 13-year-old by reviewing my AdSense earnings. 

My old YouTube channel holds a lot of nostalgia for me. I made close friends on the site, some of whom I would meet at VidCon, a convention in Los Angeles where creators and their fans meet to celebrate their niche subcultures. I remember repeatedly hitting refresh as I watched "Fred" become the first channel to cross one million subscribers (the most popular channels today have hundreds of millions). 

The community was much smaller than it is today. There were long-gone features like "video responses" which as the name implies allowed users to create video responses that would appear under someone else's video. Algorithms were not as sophisticated or well-understood, so it was a way for people to have their videos discovered. Attention-grabbing titles and thumbnails intended to game the system weren't rampant yet. 

Those were good times as we all figured out this strange new frontier together, but YouTube did have its problems. I was often a target for bullying in the comments section. I took it in stride and would even laugh off some of the most vicious comments people would make, but others might not have taken it so easily. There was very little in the way of moderation tools back then. 

Listening to creators

YouTube has always had some tension with creators. It's nearly impossible to reach an actual human at YouTube. Women on the site have been the targets of harassment. Its algorithms have been the subject of frustration as shifting priorities mean creators have to tailor their videos to an algorithm in order to be discovered. And YouTube has been criticized for promoting big-name creators over up-and-comers.

Such a large platform, with billions of users, is never going to make everyone happy. It's hard to comprehend, but anyone who has searched YouTube enough has probably had that experience of finding a seemingly niche, obscure channel that happens to have millions of subscribers. Those channels, and their followers, can be vocal about changes to the platform that may result in some unintended consequences. 

The constant criticism from YouTube's creator community is probably why other platforms are hesitant to empower users at all. Wojcicki was steadfast in listening to creators, however, making herself available for interviews and hosting regular events to explain changes happening at YouTube. That never happened in the old days when YouTube was a mysterious black box.

Under Wojcicki's tenure, YouTube expanded monetization and released a slew of new ways to make money, like a merchandise shop. It added a community tab where channels can share text-based updates with their subscribers. Today creators have comprehensive tools for protecting themselves from harmful comments. YouTube no longer even allows videos of children to include comments, and my oldest videos had their comments retroactively deleted years later following the change. Moderation has improved, though it's never perfect. 

And of course, the ubiquity of smartphones now means anyone can easily produce videos much better than I could back in the day. 

Wojcicki's legacy is strong. YouTube is a medium of communication akin to the television or newspaper, and it feels like it's in a stable place as it builds out Shorts and tries to become a home for all types of video. Shorts hold a lot of potential because it gives creators the ability to cut out bite-sized clips from their videos that can then entice audiences to view the full thing. I'm excited to see what happens next.