Bye bye YouTube

[George K]

https://spaceexplored.com/2023/09/04/spacex-all-in-on-x-ditching-youtube-for-its-livestreams/

SpaceX is seemingly all in on X as its media distribution tool. Over the weekend the commercial launch provider ended streaming its launches and Dragon operations on YouTube in favor of exclusive coverage on the social media platform also owned by SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

Over the weekend the expected streams of SpaceX’s Starlink Group 6-12 and the splashdown of Crew-6, a crew rotation mission to the ISS through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, were removed from YouTube. SpaceX just finished its coverage of Crew-6’s undocking and departure of the ISS on both X and YouTube. The company also performed a livestream of its launch of in-house designed satellites for the Space Development Agency the day before, so seeing future streams removed was unexpected.

SpaceX has been increasing its production on X since Musk’s acquisition of the site. In July we saw the company provide multiple streams of different angles of a Starlink launch out of Vandenberg Space Force Base in California – hopefully we’ll see that return more often. We’ve also seen Starlink news moved to its own dedicated account, with short lived press releases to the media ended in favor of posts on the official account.

SpaceX has also begun ending its support of competing social media platforms. To my knowledge SpaceX has never had a Facebook page but has had Instagram, its last post was about the launch of Starlink Group 6-11 a week ago. The company’s Flickr page, a once great asset for the media has gone dark since a few days before SpaceX’s first Starship flight test in April. LinkedIn has only been use as a recruiting tool with extremely sporadic posts, and of course SpaceX never joined Instagram’s Threads.
All while its X account has been more active than ever. So come Sunday evening when SpaceX launched its latest Starlink satellites and Crew-6 splashed down off the coast of Florida, it was unsurprising to see the company move away from anything not owned by Musk.

[Jolly]

It's business.

OTOH, YT is trying its best to slowly strangle itself. Note the post I made about the WW2 channel, probably the most in-depth and classroom-worthy videos on the subject. YT has demonetised them right and left.

[89th]

I wouldn't bet against Musk! Paypal, SpaceX, Starlink worldwide satellite internet, Boring Company, Tesla, twitter... well ok, maybe that last one was just a stepping stone for his media/X strategy.

[Doctor Phibes]

If I'm honest, I'm probably only going to watch his rockets take off in the event that one of them blows up.