Basic tools to help creators and other uploaders — like an upload status bar or a timer to let you know when an uploaded clip has been transcoded — are missing. For large clips, this can be maddening. Make a mistake uploading a clip? Good luck trying to replace the clip you've already uploaded with another. And if you accidentally upload the same clip twice, that's just time lost, since even with new descriptions set it'll be flagged as a "duplicate" and deleted. If your audio suddenly sounds terrible, its because YouTube forces it through a blunt compression filter. But hey, you can add funny captions to your videos!

When it comes to user experience for content creators, Vimeo and Blip.tv beat it soundly. But then why should YouTube care? If you want access to viewers who will inevitably slag you and your work in the comments, you'll have to put up with it to a degree. Better to post your content to YouTube via third-party tools like TubeMogul, which will also cross-post your video to multiple sites — making it the one-stop shop for content creators looking to publish that YouTube might have been.