YouTube began its journey on February 14, 2005, and it took Google just a year and nine months to recognize its potential. After $1.65 billion, YouTube is the number one video portal on the Web, and as such it has been forced to change constantly. Many of the adjustments it received optimized its functionality, while others targeted its aesthetics. Today YouTube seeks to be minimalist, and on more than one occasion it has shown that mobile devices are its priority, but it still has many things to improve.
Personally, I think the current YouTube experience is not the best. Some of its technical decisions are questionable (for example, its horrible implementation of DASH), and there are also many rough edges in its interface. The new format, which by the way you can try at www.youtube.com/new, tends to waste quite a bit of space, but at least it includes a very good "Dark Theme". Now, if there is one detail impossible to deny, it is that YouTube remains in motion. Those responsible are always optimizing, evaluating, or adjusting something. Sometimes that generates a certain loss of consistency, however, they need to test to know what works and what should be discarded. Visualizing all those changes is difficult, therefore, we invite you to watch one of the latest videos from the 4096 channel, which teaches the evolution of YouTube over its twelve years.
The Web of 2005 was very peculiar. Many countries were still assimilating the concept of broadband, and the simple idea of accessing video streaming gave us chills. In other words, the margin for excess was null, and YouTube demonstrated it in its original interface. Even so, it didn't take too long to adjust the search bar, present slightly larger thumbnails, apply a tab system in its main functions. The login section moved to the front, promotional videos were included, and finally it abandoned the content rating system based on the five stars.
The version with the black menu on the left probably reminds you of the original YouTube app for Android 2.x. To tell the truth, the progress of Google's mobile operating system had some influence on later changes to YouTube. And so we arrive at the modern interface. Lots of white on the desktop, a good amount of red on the mobile version, and the inevitable presence of advertising (it needs to finance itself somehow) define the service today. With the introduction of 60 FPS videos, 360-degree support and 4K resolution, YouTube has grown a lot, but its work is far from finished.
