In 2005, YouTube was founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim and others. Jawed Karim, as the founder of the website, was also the uploader of YouTube’s first video “I’m at the Zoo”. In November 2006, Google acquired YouTube for US$1.65 billion and operated it as a subsidiary. Google initially maintained a cautious attitude towards how to make money through YouTube. After the acquisition, YouTube is still popular among Internet users around the world. Citibank analysts believe that in 2012, Google earned US$2.4 billion in revenue from YouTube. Users without Google accounts can still watch videos on YouTube, but they cannot upload videos or leave comments. Registered users can upload unlimited videos. When a video is reported multiple times, after verification, violent or nude content will be classified as “only for registered users over 18 years old”, while pornographic and copyright-infringing content (such as movies, TV series or cartoons that are still being shown or distributing audio and video products) will be deleted, and specific buying and selling themed videos are also prohibited. YouTube was originally created to facilitate sharing of video clips between friends, and later gradually became a repository of memories and a place for netizens to publish their works. Judd Karim once said that he was frustrated that he could not easily find video clips of the 2004 Super Bowl incident, which provided inspiration for YouTube and later Vevo. Like many new technology startups, YouTube was also founded with angel investors at the beginning, and the office was just in a simple garage. YouTube was originally a new technology company that developed through venture capital. It received $3.5 million from Sequoia Capital in November 2005 and an additional $8 million in April 2006, for a total of about $11.5 million in investment. In addition, YouTube partner and former PayPal CFO Roelof Botha also became a director of YouTube to manage YouTube’s operations. YouTube has reached cooperation with Cable News Network and ABC and regularly uploads videos. With these, YouTube’s capital began to gather users in its first few months and experienced tremendous growth.

Today, YouTube has become a leader in audio and video websites. It not only attracts audiences in the entertainment music market, but also successfully transforms huge traffic into a community platform and stimulates the online creation industry. For example, the number of viewers and revenue of YouTube celebrity performances such as YouTube FanFest every year are quite amazing; at the same time, companies apply for official accounts for advertising and online media, NGO promotion and public relations, etc., becoming another successful business model of Silicon Valley cultural innovation. Of course, it is also because of the hardware support that it can withstand the huge amount of information and develop, and the popularity and popularity effect gained by the right entrepreneurial timing. Despite the support of a large number of users, the content has become more important under the fierce competition of similar websites. Therefore, in recent years, YouTube has begun to turn its attention to well-known online producers. YouTube attaches great importance to these people with millions of subscribers, and will give them trophy feedback and invitations to official gatherings, as well as higher salary dividends, etc. (this type of professional video creator is called YouTuber). Pursuing high click-through rate has become one of the ways for many people to gain wealth. The first male singer to break the billion views was PSY (Gangnam Style), and the first female singer to break the billion views was Katy Perry. In September 2015, PewDiePie became the first YouTube channel with more than 10 billion views. As of February 2017, YouTube uploaded more than 400 hours of video per minute, and the number of views per day reached 1 billion hours. According to Alexa Internet, as of August 2018, YouTube was ranked as the second most popular website in the world.