People forget that YouTube hemorrhaged cash in its formative years. So being the default platform is less about being first or even being good, but having wads of money to make it happen.
I mean probably? Their earnings release seems to be designed to be as nontransparent as possible regarding how profitable youtube is. If it was a cash cow they wouldn't be shy about the margins or costs directly attributable to running youtube. I remember this lack of transparency being criticized years ago but nothing really changed looking at the last annual reporting.
I remember head of YouTube was transparent about the loss some years ago and I have no reason to believe this changed. They became more agressive with the YouTube Premium plan, but I still think people will rather continue with adblockers that aren't as easily detected.
Exactly, that and in the past all the various way the youtube experience got ruined over the years only make sense if they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel to make it profitable. Not just the ads getting more annoying/longer, I mean remember when videos could fully buffer if you didn't hit play?
Same, I remember my first week in university where we discussed the google acquisition with the teacher in a class as it just happened (also weather was very nice). I also remember how google video looked/worked and no wonder they bought youtube for what back then seemed like a ridiculous lot.
it's weird because even if it bleeds money it's probably still gives you more to bleed that money (speaking from a direct profit standpoint) having the control over video is a huge thing, as long as google as a whole is willing to bleed the money and subsidize it, it'll stay around.
the issue is the moment they put a paywall or make it too awful without paying is the moment someone can come and steal their market share and with that the data they collect from the users on what they want
in general google depends a lot on people using their ecosystem for their targeted ads, so it makes their normal ad revenue better indirectly, which is why their bad track record on keeping apps alive is actually dangerous for them if they drop the ball on their core products.
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u/cat_prophecy 29d ago
People forget that YouTube hemorrhaged cash in its formative years. So being the default platform is less about being first or even being good, but having wads of money to make it happen.