One could infer that Youtube is so popular because they have an easy to use URL system (you only have to jot down about 12 characters and put it at the end of your URL instead of quite longish file descriptors on other platforms). And they have a community function that works pretty well, the success of Youtube is generated by the same people who use myspace, facebook and such. It's a very special audience that most of the Youtube content attracts. And the 10 minute limit that you have experienced was introduced a couple of years ago to preemptively prevent people from uploading TV shows and other stuff. Not everyone is motivated enough to split an episode into 10min pieces so all the spontaneous people who wanted to share the latest Homer-mishap from the Simpsons with their friends would either learn how to extract the scene or not upload it at all. The latter being an absolutely desired effect for the copyright owners. I would hope for something like BayImg (the Image Hosting project by some of the most famous Swedes) for videos, no comments, no responses, just video hosting. There are dozens of other reasons for the huge success Youtube still is: Advertisement, Media Coverage, Reaction times, Meme throughput but there's no room here to discuss all these.