The conventional wisdom has been that YouTube is the new Napster, a business based on copyright infringement. Back in February, Jason Calacanis said it was not a real business but just a "haven for pirates". Fred disagreed, saying the real issue is user-generated content and that "YouTube has captured the hearts and minds of the people as the place they go to post videos and find videos".
Six months later, it turns out Fred was mostly right. The "Lazy Sundays" clip may have put YouTube on the map, but user-generated content is driving the site. Last month, 86 of the top 100 videos were user-generated content (via Waxy.org).
Now if they can just figure out how to make money (I'll update when the article link is actually available), they'll get rich like that Digg guy.
