Though, Google is a giant corporation that, not all that long ago, arose out of the "geek" community, so it still has a somewhat different "feel" from more "traditional" corporations.

And "Snakes on a Plane" started out as a corporate production, then turned into a grass-roots phenomenon... which was then taken back over by the corporation. So things are frequently more complex than just "grass roots phenomena arise out of nowhere and then get taken over by big, evil corporations".

<<Though, Google is a giant corporation that, not all that long ago, arose out of the "geek" community>>
I know this is off topic, but :
Would you attribute this to the China issues? Going public? What?

I agree with Dan, most people still see Google as a different kind of company. The Chron article seems worried about shareholder pressure, lawsuits from media companies, etc. which will start creating compromises. But Google doesn't compromise easily.

I see no indication that Youtube is going to slow down anytime soon...

This is an opinion piece – not reporting. That effectively makes the criticism near worthless. Put the opinion piece in a major corporate newspaper, and you have what could quite possibly be the first truly completely worthless fluff article ever recorded.

'Many of us' could mean '10 of us' or it could mean '10 of us 20 million' or it could mean '55 of us 100 million'. It's irrelevant because it's just a fluff piece bought and paid for by GooTube's corporate competitors. The Chronicle continues to lose money to Google. The Chronicle will probably fold in four months. Or perhaps Google will buy it.