Sharp and engaging - The Times The intricately-reported elegantly-crafted story of the website
that came out of nowhere to change everything. - Brad Stone author of The Everything Store
and Amazon Unbound ----------------------------------------------------- Now for the first
time ever discover the story of YouTube: how it started how it works and how it came to
control our culture. It has entertained us with cat videos flash mobs gaming streams and
Charlie Bit My Finger. It has educated us with makeup tutorials DIYs and delicious recipes. It
has changed us with advertising extremism and political propaganda. Since its foundation in
2005 YouTube has existed on a pendulum. Its emergence established a valuable space for unique
and important voices to share themselves and their views and made global stars out of everyday
people such as PewDiePie Shane Dawson and Ryan Higa. It invented the attention economy we all
live in today forever changing how people are entertained informed and paid online. At the
same time countless extremists have found a home on YouTube using it to spread misinformation
and propaganda - sometimes with real-world life-and-death consequences. The site is massively
profitable for its parent company Google (Alphabet) which has aggressively grown it into a
ruthless advertising conglomerate with little regard for its impact beyond the bottom line. In
Like Comment Subscribe Bloomberg tech journalist Mark Bergen delivers the definitive
page-turning account of YouTube. Exploring the stories of the people behind the platform he
tells the story of a technical marvel that upended traditional media created stars of everyday
people and ultimately changed the world through untamed freedom of speech.
