Is it still? I thought they'd been profitable for years now....the fact that it's a money-losing horrorshow?
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7868311&page=1 I also worked a conference where a former director of video content at Google spoke. He said that Google's business model is to find a market segment that's highly profitable, operate at a loss until every player has been "disintermediated" and then make crumbs on the monopoly that's left. When was the last time you watched something on Vimeo?
That article doesn't have a time stamp. The oldest comment was posted in May 2017 and reads: I did some ducking myself trying to find the answer. There are some articles speculating that YouTube finally will turn a profit in 2010. A bunch of articles from 2015 with titles along the line of "1 Billion Viewers, No Profit". But the article you posted actually brings up an interesting point: San Francisco-based RampRate reasons the perception of large losses at YouTube helps Google negotiate more favorable contracts with movie, TV and music studios licensing their video. What's more, copyright owners also are less likely to go to court in pursuit of unpaid royalties and damages if they believe YouTube is a big money loser, according to RampRate's thesis. "Google is no doubt thrilled to let YouTube be known as a financial folly," RampRate's report said. So maybe they have been making money for years, but fudge the numbers to negotiate better deals. Isn't that how every start-up in Silicon Valley operates? YouTube has had a monopoly ever since Google Video shut down though, so you'd think they were past that stage. Not that long ago actually. I have a few friends who prefer to upload their videos to Vimeo over YouTube. They seem to think Vimeo is better for sharing your own videos with friends and family. If they were trying to monetise their videos on the other hand, they'd probably upload to YouTube because of the larger audience.Could you put the date this article was published at the top of the page, please? I don't see anything indicating a date except for the part where you referenced the "April report" in this article.
But Google has little incentive to set the record straight about YouTube's actual losses, according to RampRate, which specializes in managing technology costs.
I also worked a conference where a former director of video content at Google spoke. He said that Google's business model is to find a market segment that's highly profitable, operate at a loss until every player has been "disintermediated" and then make crumbs on the monopoly that's left.
When was the last time you watched something on Vimeo?
"Maybe they've been making money for years" is not an adequate counterbalance to every analyst putting their losses between $750b and $2b per year. "Fudging the numbers" would be called "intentional tort". If ABC asks to see the numbers and Youtube shows them made up numbers, they are committing fraud. Google is not a startup and has not been for twenty years. And your "few friends" are not representative of the world at large. We're discussing monetization.