> was there some technical aspects to YouTube that Google couldn't or didn't want to build themselves? Google had very much the power of building a YouTube-lik

> was there some technical aspects to YouTube that Google couldn't or didn't want to build themselves? Google had very much the power of building a YouTube-like community themselves, but buying out a competitor is a short-cut since it has the positive side-effect of removing that competition in our business. After buying YouTube, Google didn't have to waste time in building a community around a new product or "converting" the YouTube masses to theirs. This short-cut way of acquisition is nowadays preferred by large companies rather than risk everything by doing innovation and "real" competition.