Book review: 'Like, Comment, Subscribe' offers a ringside view of the rise and rise of YouTube

The book traces YouTube's journey from the time it was launched in February 2005. (Representational image: Nordwood Themes via Unsplash)

“So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.”

It’s uncanny, almost creepy to think that this quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein could be relevant for an Internet era business two centuries later. This quote sets the tone for Mark Bergen’s ringside view of the spectacular rise of YouTube since 2005. To compare YouTube with a Frankenstein monster is not an exaggeration. Bergen keeps making references to how this massive conglomerate (he calls it a tanker) has not been easy to steer for the heads of the company, how even the company’s most advanced algorithms can’t always moderate and control the content that keeps popping up on the site with incredible speed.

Like, Comment, Subscribe is a definitive account of a business that is an integral part of many of our daily media consumption routines. And Mark Bergen is well-positioned to capture YouTube’s frenetic journey over nearly two decades in a book in under 400 pages. As a Bloomberg Tech journalist, Bergen has kept a close eye on Google and YouTube. I remember reading a 2020 article by Bergen built on research reports on how ads were present on 95 percent of videos kids under 8 watch on YouTube and how a fifth of these ads were categorised as age-inappropriate. Bergen has reported from India for global platforms like The New York Times and Reuters, one reason why his India references in the book, especially around content creators, has a deeper understanding of the Indian cultural landscape.

There’s a dialogue in the 2022 blockbuster Vikram where Vikram (Kamal Hassan) is asked if he is a good guy or bad guy; this line pays tribute to one of the most famous lines in the 1980s classic Nayakan. This is the same question that has confronted YouTube and Big Tech over the past years. On the one hand, YouTube is a technical marvel that has disrupted traditional media, created stars out of everyday people, and on the other, it’s a ruthless advertising conglomerate. Mark Bergen’s book confirms what we already know—the answer lies somewhere in between. The book is a fascinating, sometimes racy account of how the YouTube story began, how it works and also how it plays a huge role in Google’s success.

Bergen shares the text of an early email from 2005 with the subject line “Strategy: please comment” from Jawed Karim, co-founder and the first person to upload a video on the site. “The most important aspect of the design is ease to use. Our moms should be able to use this site easily.”

YouTube might have exploded as a platform for content creators and voices from all over the world but it’s stuck to that original strategy of being a site where videos have been ridiculously easy to upload. As Bergen recounts in the book - “Google made the wheel,” one veteran of Google and Facebook said. “Facebook and every other internet company copied it.”

It's not easy to cover an eventful journey that few tech or media brands can boast of. Bergen begins with an account of the company’s humble roots. The archetypical California start-up in a garage set up by two college dropouts and a graphic designer. And how it went on to become a company to hit revenues of close to $30 billion a year. It covers the Google acquisition in 2006 (for $1.65 billion) that now seems like a garage sale deal for a company whose influence goes way beyond its bottom-line. The book covers critical phases of YouTube’s journey from disinformation allegations, how it steered the 2016 US presidential election and a deadly attack that rocked its own campus in San Bruno California in 2018. It covers (not in so much detail) the emergence of rival platforms like TikTok and how YouTube continues to hold its ground, thanks to its domination of large screens and smart TVs with Google smarts.

Bergen interviewed over 300 people including 160 current and former YouTube and Google employees. It’s why the book manages to capture some rare insights into YouTube and its recommendation system that he compares to a gigantic, multiarmed sorting machine that has one task: predict what video someone will watch next and deliver it.

“By 2019 the world was beginning to grapple with social media’s real impact—how a few computer science companies in California suddenly controlled most pathways of information and speech. YouTube, when it could, liked to fly below the radar of these debates. But in so many ways, YouTube had set the stage for modern social media, making decisions throughout its history that shaped how attention, money, ideology, and everything else worked online”.

The YouTube story is far from over. Bergen’s book is probably one of the most engaging accounts of the YouTube phenomenon. A story that continues to develop – or ‘unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation’, even as we figure whether to describe it as a tech or a media company.