Google has given the artists of Pakistan much to rejoice as it announced that it is launching a ‘YouTube Partner Programme’ in the country, which will allow video creators to make money for their original work. If a Pakistani creator has even one original video to share, they now have the opportunity to get paid for it. This is great news for young people especially who have little to no outlet for their art form and more importantly to make a living out of it. Many musicians in Pakistan owe their success to YouTube, that launched their careers in the absence of record labels in the past.

Videobloggers have largely replaced bloggers and podcasters, owing to the preference around the world to watch a video rather than reading text. Because new technologies make images and video easy to produce, anyone with a digital camera or camera-equipped cell phone and Internet can create a videoblog. The greatest downside to videoblogging however, is the bandwidth requirements and the resources required to capture, store, and distribute video. If Pakistanis hope to benefit from this service, better quality Internet provision is a necessity.

The popularity of vlogs in the YouTube community has risen exponentially in the past few years; out of the top 100 most subscribed YouTube channels, 17 provide vlogs as their primary style of footage. Many vloggers have been able to turn their channels into sustainable careers; in 2013, the highest paid vlogger brought in a minimum of $720,000 for the year.

This is also a welcome development as access to better technologies and new ways to generate incomes can be adopted. We live in a world where people in media, arts, and sciences are integrated globally through mediums like YouTube. Open platforms for free expression are essential to social and political development and today, the adoption of new technology is essential to make that happen.