YouTube Deteriorates, Sadly

Occasionally, I think back to how I got interested in Hello! Project, and its groups (Morning Musume, shuffle groups, etc.) I had been interested in K-pop for about 6 months. (I won’t go into how I got interested in that.) I thought that if I liked K-pop, maybe I would like J-pop, too. So, I typed ‘J-Pop girl groups’ into the search bar of YouTube. Up popped a playlist, and I clicked on it. I was cleaning/straightening out my office at work, and I wanted some background music. And, I thought if I could discover some new music or new groups at the same time, so much the better. Long story short, There was a Morning Musume song (JKM) on this playlist. It sparked my interest in the group and subsequently, Hello! Project in general. I have been a fan of them ever since that time, which was 6+ years ago. At the beginning of my interest in Morning Musume, YouTube was a very important source of information about them. For example, I learned a lot about the rise and fall of Ai Kago in Hello! Project, and even some of her activities after she was fired.

YouTube used to be a lot better than it is now. The videos didn’t have commercials at the beginning. Nowadays, it gets very irritating to have an ad come up at the beginning of a PV (or some other video) that I want to see, and then have to wait for ‘5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – 0 . . . skip ad.’ Worse yet is when you get a 15 second (or longer) ad that you can’t skip at the beginning of the video. Some longer videos even have ads imbedded in them, say, every 15 or 30 minutes. It has really taken away from the entertainment pleasure that YouTube used to provide. I used to be able to click on a playlist and it would continually play videos for an hour or more. If a song came up that I didn’t like, I could skip ahead to the next one. Generally, though, I would just let it play. This even helped me to discover new groups and new singers. With the commercials on YouTube they have now, I don’t dare click on a playlist. It is just not worth it.

While I am on the topic, there is another thing that bothers me about YouTube. That is, the issue of videos being removed. Sometimes, videos get removed from YouTube because the owner of the copyright filed a complaint, or for some other reason. This is very frustrating. I mean, if the management wants fans, then they have to give us something. Have you ever clicked on a YouTube video, and have a message come up that says “The owner of the copyright has not made this available in your country”? That is also frustrating. I mean, why would a company determine that it is OK for people in the Netherlands (or wherever) to see some content, but not in the United States? I wish I knew a way to disguise my location in order to bypass these restrictions. I have heard about people in a country where they block a certain website like Twitter, who were able to reroute the Internet pathway to and/or from their computer, so that whoever was blocking the website gets tricked into letting it through, or failing to block it. There must be a way to do that so that I could see the blocked videos I want to see on YouTube. If anybody reading this knows how to do it, I would appreciate it if you would let me know. Please either leave a comment below or send me a message or something.

In the past, YouTube really helped me to get to know my favorite idol stars from Japan and other places. Due to the pitfalls I described above, I don’t really get the use out of it that I did in years past. I am interested in finding another source of videos that I want to see. I know Daily Motion is another alternative. I have used it a little. If anyone has advice on how to use Daily Motion and/or what it is good for, please let me know that, too. I have used a Chinese site called Youku.com a little bit. I have been able to find some stuff that wasn’t available on YouTube.

In summary, I used to really like YouTube, and it really helped me out in my journey as a music fan. I have come to the point where I don’t like to use YouTube for music videos anymore. I am seeking viable substitutes for YouTube. In closing, I’d like to mention that I recently discovered a new use for YouTube. There are a lot of older movies on YouTube, in their entirety. You can watch them for free, too. This is one positive thing that I can say about YouTube in its current state.

I hope to get some helpful comments to this post. Happy holidays!