Medium and Market Structure

Why is video dominated by a few platforms and audio isn't?

Why is the podcast ecosystem built around audio, not video? The open formats that are used to publish podcasts support video as well, but I'm not aware of anyone actually using them for that. This is partly a chicken/egg problem. What comes first, the podcast player that supports videos, or the podcast that publishes videos? But that doesn't explain why the ecosystem started with audio and not video.

Fundamentally, the reason is that video is more expensive and more challenging to host. Everyone can upload a video to a server, but only a few platforms have the resources to stream video reliably and fast. That means that these platforms have no incentive to support open formats. There's no competitive pressure forcing them to and it would only enable other platforms to stick them with the expensive of streaming while building their own brand and network.

But audio is not the cheapest medium. Images and text are so cheap to host that they have so many platforms that we don't even think of these as platforms for images and text. We think of them as social media, forums, chatrooms, blogs, etc..

It's easy for these platforms to expand into other media. Facebook, Twitter and Reddit have videos now, which feels completely natural. Youtube has something called "community posts" now, which does not feel natural at all. Facebook, Twitter and Reddit are not defined by any type of content, Youtube is.