> The web was never supposed to be a few walled gardens of concentrated content owned by Facebook, YouTube [...]

What are the numbers on views of original Youtube content vs. views of clips of material that infringes copyright? My guess is that the latter still makes up a significant portion of clicks.

If someone makes a serious P2P alternative to Youtube, not only will infringing content be there-- such content's existence will be a measure of how successful the platform is.

Either that, or you design something like the unexplained decentralized internet on the show "Silicon Valley" which somehow still has a single company controlling the pipes.

If not that, then "P2P-tube" has to house Silvestri's "Back to Future" theme[1] just as it houses impassioned vlogs of walled-garden escapees. If you don't have both you'll end up with a bunch of walled-garden escapees rationalizing the virtues of housing unpopular, homogenized content.

Anyway-- as passive onlookers its easy to dismiss Youtube's infringing content. But it's a lot more difficult when its a fledgling service that content owners cannot monetize. I think we've been through this before with Bittorrent. What was O'Reilly's opinion then?

[1] The first Youtube link that popped up was obviously put together in a consumer video editor and currently has over 9 million views:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8TZbze72Bc

Edit: clarification