When the odds of even 1,000 people viewing your video in a month's time are only 3 percent, however, it's tough to argue that hitting it big on YouTube is anything more than dumb luck.

This is the wrong conclusion. Posting and viewing videos on YouTube is not like rolling dice or playing the lottery. That 3% of videos got their noteriety because, for one reason or another, people want to see them. There's something about them that attracts attention. This is different than random chance.

If anything, your stat just proves that most videos on YouTube suck. If you went to a site like Vimeo.com that specializes in higher-quality content, I suspect the hit rates would be higher all around.

I have to disagree with you. Your underlying argument of attraction as separable from random choice neglects the vast quantity of video users must sort through and watch to find a video worth watching. Thus random choice plays a large role in the initial popularity because it takes a village, so to speak, to reach a thousand views.

And secondly, Vimeo simply doesn't have the same popularity as YouTube, so I must raise doubts concerning their comparability.

Wish you well.

Dobbsfox is certainly right that this is not completely a game of chance. But I think Alex-Caple states the counter argument well: Videos are not uploaded into a fair environment where they all have an opportunity to become popular if they are deserving. I love Charlie Bit Me as much as the next guy--maybe I should have disclosed that 50 of those 104 million views are mine--but one has to imagine that equally adorable things continue to languish in obscurity.

Regarding Vimeo, my colleague Farhad wrote a good piece a few months ago on its curiously high quality. They do seem to have fostered an environment based on artistry, which is the dream of many a webmaster. This very well may preclude them from ever reaching YouTube's gargantuan size. Given the overhead, they probably don't want to.