Could YouTube Actually Be… an Open Web? 🤔

By Max Legrand · GreyFox Ads · A French perspective on programmatic advertising

We spend a lot of time setting the Open Web against the walled gardens. But when you look closely at YouTube, things get a little more interesting. What if it were an Open Web of content… inside a very closed advertising ecosystem? 🤭

1. YouTube: a vast universe of open content 🎥

YouTube is built around a huge ecosystem of third-party creators. Some run professional channels with substantial production budgets, large audiences and familiar editorial environments. Others publish niche videos for small but intensely interested communities.

Does that sound familiar? It should. On the traditional Open Web, we see the same diversity: established publishers alongside a long tail of specialist sites. In both cases, the publisher or creator, the context and the audience matter.

To be precise, YouTube also commissions, licenses and distributes certain content, so saying it produces none would be too absolute. The point is that its vast creator ecosystem supplies much of the material viewers come to watch.

2. As on the Open Web, context changes everything 🎯

Consider the differences between these environments:

• Highly engaged channels: a detailed product review can attract viewers who are genuinely interested in a purchase.
• Questionable contextual matches: an automotive in-market audience does not necessarily mean an ad will appear alongside an automotive video (it might even turn up next to Peppa Pig).
• Background listening: music and podcasts can be played with little attention to the screen.
• Brand-safety concerns: certain videos or channels may be unsuitable for an advertiser, even if they attract views.

None of this means YouTube is inherently poor-quality inventory. It means quality cannot be inferred from the platform name alone. Just as with the Open Web, placement-level context and the way content is consumed deserve scrutiny.

3. Why are advertisers sometimes stricter with the Open Web? ⚖️

Many advertisers apply demanding quality filters to their Open Web campaigns — and rightly so. Yet the same level of scrutiny is not always applied to YouTube activations. Why should a questionable placement be unacceptable on an independent publisher's site but somehow acceptable when the video sits inside a global platform?

That is the question worth asking. (It is an observation about buying practices, not a claim that all advertisers treat YouTube less rigorously.)

4. Open content does not mean an open advertising ecosystem 🔒

Here is the crucial distinction: people can freely discover an extraordinary range of videos on YouTube, but advertisers cannot simply plug in any third-party optimisation, measurement or curation technology they want.

Google determines the supported buying paths, data access and technical integrations. Tools such as Custom Bidding can provide additional optimisation options in supported Google environments, but that is not equivalent to unrestricted interoperability across independent DSPs, SSPs and curators.

So my shorthand is this: YouTube is a world of Open Content inside Google's Walled Garden. Content diversity and market openness are two different things.

5. Imagine if YouTube opened up to independent curation 🦊

YouTube attracts enormous advertising investment, which naturally encourages companies to look for opportunities to optimise it. Imagine if independent curators could apply transparent placement-level filters across the platform, selecting the most relevant channels, contexts and viewing experiences.

At GreyFox Ads, we'd love to bring that approach to YouTube. But expecting Google to open its ecosystem fully to independent curation may be a bit like waiting for the sun to rise in the West and set in the East. 🌅

For more on the concept, see what programmatic curation actually means, and for another angle on the platform's video economics, read why YouTube CTV CPMs could rise.

6. Meanwhile, there is quality video across the French Open Web 🇫🇷

Here in France, independent publishers offer video environments that deserve a place alongside the big platforms in an advertiser's media plan. At GreyFox Ads, we believe that choosing quality supply, relevant contexts and transparent buying paths can improve the effectiveness of programmatic video campaigns.

That is why we developed our programmatic Master Deals for Media Traders, combining supply-path optimisation and inventory-quality filters. We also advise programmatic sales houses and trading desks on curation and activation strategy.

And if you're exploring the broader relationship between the platforms and independent publishers, see our take on how to revive the French Open Web.

Original LinkedIn post: Read the original discussion.