Disclaimer: Sorry if this is a bit scatterbrained. I'm getting ready for bed, so this is basically a bunch of stream-of-consciousness ramblings.
Kind of a tricky question, really. I'd say "yes" because it makes the Internet more legitimized and..."no," because it makes the Internet more legitimized.
It's a two-sided coin. On one hand, legitimately acquiring and consuming media has become cheaper, easier, and more convenient than ever thanks to companies taking it seriously. These distribution models are equally useful for larger companies and indies. If there were major barriers to entry with regards to media creation and distribution, people like Gavin Dunne (Miracle of Sound) would have had a much harder time making a livelihood from their creative pursuits. Instead, he stands shoulder to shoulder with bands like Metallica on the iTunes sales charts. At one point, he literally topped the metal charts.
If we were still in the Wild West era, sure, he might have gotten some word of mouth exposure. But, given his niche (video game inspired music, primarily), what are the odds that a label would have picked him up? Odds are he would have just been another name on mp3.com with a small, dedicated following and dozens of people sharing his music freely on file sharing sites. Bear in mind that popular bands weren't the only music being spread on Napster, KaZaA, Limewire, Morpheus, Soulseek, et al--the indies were, too. Streaming music services made it so easy to just pick a song--while still allowing the artist to be compensated--that there's really not much of a need for peer-to-peer file sharing anymore. It's become a pretty niche thing once again.
Movie services aren't quite up to that level of maturity yet, but for a while YouTube was a bastion of light for independent creators. While there's a lot of garbage on there, there is plenty of extremely high quality content. Take a peek at just about anything on
Ahoy's channel. You'd swear some of that stuff was professional content. Even post-adgate, with the amount of exposure and quality content that channels like that have received, they can make a decent living through crowd funding. In 2006 you'd have to be picked up by a network to even have a chance, and even then a lot of content creators were forced to work full-time jobs on top of making regular videos. Again, without having that air of legitimacy, ad networks would have never taken a chance on YouTube.
As far as why the olden days were better, there are two big reasons: with everyone and their grandmother (literally!) being online, the signal-to-noise ratio is extremely high. Without a solid hook it's difficult to break into those markets.
In addition to that, large companies (as previous discussed) have gotten overzealous when it comes to enforcing their copyrights. While I totally get sending takedown notices to channels that upload entire, full-length episodes (and, really, that's what the system was
intended for, but you know what they say about the road to Hell), it's become a weapon that copyright holders gleefully use. Why should they consider fair use? What's some nobody with 200 subscribers going to throw at them? Even if it looks like the YouTuber is going to win, all they have to do is throw a token settlement their way so as to keep from setting a precedent. Throw in a gag clause as one of the settlement conditions and all of a sudden the bad press goes away, too.
The problem with legitimacy in that aspect is that there are rules that need to be followed from both sides, and only one side readily has the power to issue a challenge. The rest of us have to bow our heads and fall in line. While Viacom was somewhat in the right to file that suit (though that doesn't excuse the
extremely shady shit that they did--apparently they thought that Google retained a staff of two-bit lawyers that weren't going to actually do any investigation)--because, let's face it, wholesale copyright infringement was a
huge problem on YouTube back then--the impact of that case has resulted in the ContentID leash getting pulled tighter and tighter as time goes on, to the point where one of the cornerstones of gaming content on YouTube, gameplay videos, are in serious danger. Nintendo's already proven that they aren't interested in that pesky "fair use" business with their sham of a "Creator's Program," and even indies like Campo Santo (god, I wish I could refund Firewatch after their recent bullshit) are abusing the DMCA to silence someone because they didn't like something they said, nullifying the implied consent clause that they have on their site.
It's a fucking mess, and I have a feeling as a result of this strife we're going to be seeing a crash of sorts in due time. It probably won't be a huge financial crash, but it could lead to YouTube itself ceasing to be financially viable for Google to continue operating if ad revenue keeps plummeting.
I guess the best way I can sum up my thoughts is that yes, the modern Internet is a resounding improvement for certain tasks (most notable anything related with music and general information) and a resounding "NO" for anything that's commonly impacted, illegally, by the DMCA. That piece of legislation was designed for the Internet of the late 90s and early 2000s, not 2017. For a hosting company to retain their safe harbor status they must pull the content immediate when contacted, otherwise they can be held liable. If the claim is spurious, the claimant becomes liable for perjury. Great. But that brings us right back to the lawyer argument. Are you going to hire a lawyer and sue Atlantic Records despite you more than likely being in the right to use it under fair use? No. Why would you?
How could you? They're well aware of this, so they can send out fraudulent claim after fraudulent claim without punishment.
The only real punishment that big corporations received in that regard is the result of Lenz v. Universal Music, where they were told that they must consider fair use when submitting takedown requests. But that leads us back to Content ID. It's an automated system, so how, pray tell, can it possibly consider something that even lawyers can't fully agree upon? Again, IANAL, and I haven't read the relevant ruling in full, but it seems to me like Content ID could possibly be illegal as a result of that. But, again, who's going to sue Google because their cat video got taken down? Not many people would even consider it.
Sorry I can't really give you a more straightforward answer. I'm kind of a centrist.