After nearly a decade in her role, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki officially announced that she will be stepping down from her position, leaving the website’s Indian-American chief product officer, Neal Mohan, to take her place. 

“…After nearly 25 years here, I’ve decided to step back from my role as the head of YouTube and start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I’m passionate about,” Wojcicki said in a YouTube blog post. “When I joined YouTube nine years ago, one of my first priorities was bringing in an incredible leadership team. Neal Mohan was one of those leaders, and he’ll be the SVP [Senior Vice President] and new head of YouTube.”

In the post, she would go on to compliment Mohan, his leadership, his ideas, and his impact on YouTube, which includes services like YouTube TV, Music, Shorts, and Premium. “Neal will be a terrific leader for YouTube. Neal is the right person to lead us.”

Despite Wojcicki’s constant reassurance on Mohan’s leadership and capabilities, much of the internet is speculating whether or not Mohan’s leadership spells (further) doom for YouTube and its future. The main thing many people and luddites worry about is Mohan’s support of Web 3.0 (Web3), which he makes clear in a 2022 YouTube blog post. Web3 is an advanced idea of what is the ideal third generation of the World Wide Web. Web3 wants to be open to everyone and it incorporates decentralization and more crypto and blockchain-based technology and economics. This means that Web3 is in advocacy of more modern socializing and economical practices and currencies, like cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the metaverse. 

Mohan’s support of all these new technologies is partly the reason why many people don’t support Web3, and therefore, Mohan’s new ideas. Web3, though trying to be open to everyone and beginner-friendly, seems to be juggling too many ideas and policies at once. According to Analytics Insight, some of the main issues with Web3 include its bad ratings on user experience and interface design, its unintended openness to computer hijacking for forced crypto mining, its expected obstacles in exchanging and making use of information (interoperability), and its poor provisions to modern and mainstream businesses. This and the introduction of complicated and misunderstood technology within Web3 is why so many people are against it, questioning Mohan’s ability to improve YouTube as a result.

The final and probably most popular reason for the hate brought upon Mohan’s admission is his advocacy for the removal of public visibility of another creator’s video’s dislikes, usually referred to as the “removal of the dislike button.” In an attempt to bring more positivity to the platform, YouTube officials decided to make it so that no one could see how many dislikes another creator’s video had in November of 2021.

This was responded to with hateful words and much criticism from YouTube users everywhere, as this, to some, meant the destruction of constructive criticism on the platform and made it difficult to determine which videos would be helpful or entertaining via a like-to-dislike ratio. Now, one can only see how many likes one’s own video has via YouTube Studio. Only now users are recognizing and publicizing that Neal Mohan was a supporter of this drastic change on the platform, using it as a justifiable reason to criticize and question Mohan’s policies, ideas, and those to be.

Not only that, but depending on the impact of Mohan’s ideas for YouTube’s future, this will definitely affect Niles North students and staff.

“I think everyone in the building [Niles North] probably uses YouTube on a regular basis,” social studies teacher and frequent YouTube user Lauren Velazquez said. “As I hear more about things like [Web3], thinking about…the problems that have come up with cryptocurrency, it does worry me to try all these experimental formats. The fewer users understand how a product is designed, the less agency they have over what it is. I’m really worried about ties of cryptocurrencies [too]…the crypto market has very much been like the Wild West and they caused a lot of damage. If we make these [possibly upcoming] dramatic changes before sufficient beta testing, that could really impact the credibility, reliability, and usability of the site.”

Many are skeptical of Mohan’s ability to improve YouTube in his now much more powerful position. Some see him as a doom speller for YouTube’s future, considering what he had done to the platform and what he said about his future ideas for it. However, it hasn’t even been two weeks since Mohan was sworn in, so it may be too soon to tell. Neal may be the right person to lead YouTube; the answer will come in good time.