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One of those players has a virtual monopoly on internet videos by subsidizing a money losing service with the virtual monopoly on search revenues. The other is

One of those players has a virtual monopoly on internet videos by subsidizing a money losing service with the virtual monopoly on search revenues. The other is a store that has lots and lots of competition.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
That "store" has a virtual monopoly on cloud services, which it uses to subsidize its unprofitable online store and logistics network. Edit: revenue is not profit!
- mattmanser 9y ago
  Search revenues (major) vs YouTube revenues (minor). AWS revenues (minor) vs Store revenues (major) . I'm not trying to defend Amazon or anything, but you really are comparing very different situations.
criddell 9y ago
Is YouTube a money loser? Their revenues are estimated to be around $10 billion. Surely their expenses can't be that high.
- dottrap 9y ago
  According to Eli the Computer Guy, it is something like: YouTube costs: $6.3 billion per year YouTube revenue: $4 billion So they are losing $2.3 billion per year. Eli the Computer Guy made a lot of waves around a year ago because his account was both incorrectly flagged for a "Community Strike" and his appeal was incorrectly dismissed which effectively left his channel dead in the water and he announced he was quitting. After outrage, a human finally stepped in and fixed the mess. Then later that year, his account was deleted by Google in the middle of a live stream without any explanation. (It was later restored, without explanation.) Eli, talking as business entrepreneur, has talked a lot about the problems of YouTube as a platform. He frequently does business analysis and goes over numbers. He has also broken down their cost structure, and yes, their expenses can really be that high. In addition to the massive number of videos that get uploaded every minute, they must also make multiple encodings of each one, and then all that needs to be mirrored to all the CDNs. (He was trying to figure out if he could do self-hosting...he felt if he just needed to make downloadable video files you watch offline, it can be done cheaply, but for streaming convenience, that's where things get expensive.) Eli also quoted Susan Wojcicki stating that they still see YouTube as in the investment stage, which means they still are pumping money into it with no expectation that it's going to turn a profit anytime soon.
  - criddell 9y ago
    $4 billion is the lowest estimate I've seen anywhere. Most analysts guess it's about twice that based on what they pay out in ad rev share. And yes - Wojcicki did say they are still investing in YouTube. Specifically she was talking about adding VR functionality. YouTube is probably profitable.
    - dottrap 9y ago
      I've never seen anybody who's made a serious attempt to look at the numbers claim YouTube is profitable. All say the opposite. Some random examples: CBS Marketwatch: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-make-a-profit/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-... Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-google-any-money-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-goo... Motley Fool: https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/01/youtube-isnt-profitable-so-what-should-google-inc.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/01/youtube-is... And none of these include this year's Adpocolypse.
      - criddell 9y ago
        Those are all from 2015 where the weren't profitable. Look for something more recent. http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-youtube-20161027-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-y... http://fortune.com/2017/04/27/alphabet-earnings-up-as-ads-surge-on-youtube-and-mobile-devices/ http://fortune.com/2017/04/27/alphabet-earnings-up-as-ads-su... https://seekingalpha.com/article/4096345-google-youtubes-potential-exponential-growth-hidden-plain-sight https://seekingalpha.com/article/4096345-google-youtubes-pot... https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2017/0129/How-YouTube-and-mobile-search-drove-revenue-for-Google-s-parent-company https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2017/0129/How-YouTube-and... https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/youtube-will-earn-9bn-in-revenue-this-year-towering-over-spotify/ https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/youtube-will-earn-9bn... http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/google-youtube-alphabet-q1-2017-1202401702/ http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/google-youtube-alphabet... Even if YouTube isn't profitable today (and I think they are), the growth indicates they will be soon. > And none of these include this year's Adpocolypse. That's true. That could be interesting for sure. The Variety link talks about it a little bit.
hnlmorg 9y ago
YouTube has a massive market share, I won't deny that. But it's far from a virtual monopoly. Even ignoring its numerous similar competitors like Vimeo, Metacafe and Daily Motion you still have Facebook.
curun1r 9y ago
Amazon is far more than a store. For one, they are a monopoly on any content that's exclusive to Prime. And for a lot of us, that's meant choosing between our Prime accounts and our preferred streaming device. I personally would've probably chosen to buy an AppleTV except for the fact that Prime isn't available on the platform (though it appears that finally Amazon's spat with Apple on this front is coming to an end). Instead, I'm using a Roku because I don't want to reward Amazon for this crappy behavior by buying a FireTV. And Google isn't really a monopoly on internet videos. In addition to many smaller competitors, Facebook and Twitch are competitors. It's hard to find reliable numbers, but from what I've seen YouTube gets around 2/3 or the hours watched in this category (i.e. excluding streaming sites like Netlifx and Prime). That's big, but not monopoly big.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  You misunderstand what we're talking about. Having the rights to a show is not having a monopoly, as we're talking about them. If not every single cable company in the world is somehow a monopoly. You can watch other shows. YouTube has an effective monopoly on internet videos. Almost ALL user generated videos, apart from few niches. They're using their dominance in one market to try and give themselves an advantage in another, which is usually illegal. Amazon, on the other hand, have plenty of competition. From Walmart to eBay. In videos there's Hulu and Netflix and Now TV, etc.
  - curun1r 9y ago
    > Having the rights to a show is not having a monopoly, as we're talking about them. If not every single cable company in the world is somehow a monopoly. Cable companies don't generally produce content. In the case of the ones that do (like Comcast, after their acquisitions), they've absolutely used their content for anti-competitive purposes. This is exactly what Amazon has done with Prime...tried to leverage it to support their less established products. And it's exactly what Google is doing with YouTube. Amazon is getting the same treatment they've given others. > You can watch other shows. And you can watch other user-uploaded videos. There's plenty of other sites that host user-generated videos. > YouTube has an effective monopoly on internet videos. Almost ALL user generated videos, apart from few niches. This is just incorrect. YouTube is the biggest, but it's nowhere near "almost all" videos. As I said before, the numbers I've seen are around 1/3 of the watched hours are on platforms other than YouTube with Facebook being the biggest. > Amazon, on the other hand, have plenty of competition. From Walmart to eBay. In videos there's Hulu and Netflix and Now TV, etc. Hulu and Netflix don't manufacture streaming devices like FireTV. Walmart and eBay don't stream video or sell their own devices. Google and Apple are the only competitors relevant to this discussion since they're the only ones that compete on multiple products. And all three have artificially limited their cloud services to lock consumers into their platforms. All three should be reined in. But acting like Amazon is somehow the helpless victim in all this is just hypocritical. They're getting the same treatment they've given Google and Apple.

toomuchtodo 9y ago

That "store" has a virtual monopoly on cloud services, which it uses to subsidize its unprofitable online store and logistics network. Edit: revenue is not profit!

mattmanser 9y ago
Search revenues (major) vs YouTube revenues (minor). AWS revenues (minor) vs Store revenues (major) . I'm not trying to defend Amazon or anything, but you really are comparing very different situations.

criddell 9y ago

Is YouTube a money loser? Their revenues are estimated to be around $10 billion. Surely their expenses can't be that high.

dottrap 9y ago
According to Eli the Computer Guy, it is something like: YouTube costs: $6.3 billion per year YouTube revenue: $4 billion So they are losing $2.3 billion per year. Eli the Computer Guy made a lot of waves around a year ago because his account was both incorrectly flagged for a "Community Strike" and his appeal was incorrectly dismissed which effectively left his channel dead in the water and he announced he was quitting. After outrage, a human finally stepped in and fixed the mess. Then later that year, his account was deleted by Google in the middle of a live stream without any explanation. (It was later restored, without explanation.) Eli, talking as business entrepreneur, has talked a lot about the problems of YouTube as a platform. He frequently does business analysis and goes over numbers. He has also broken down their cost structure, and yes, their expenses can really be that high. In addition to the massive number of videos that get uploaded every minute, they must also make multiple encodings of each one, and then all that needs to be mirrored to all the CDNs. (He was trying to figure out if he could do self-hosting...he felt if he just needed to make downloadable video files you watch offline, it can be done cheaply, but for streaming convenience, that's where things get expensive.) Eli also quoted Susan Wojcicki stating that they still see YouTube as in the investment stage, which means they still are pumping money into it with no expectation that it's going to turn a profit anytime soon.
- criddell 9y ago
  $4 billion is the lowest estimate I've seen anywhere. Most analysts guess it's about twice that based on what they pay out in ad rev share. And yes - Wojcicki did say they are still investing in YouTube. Specifically she was talking about adding VR functionality. YouTube is probably profitable.
  - dottrap 9y ago
    I've never seen anybody who's made a serious attempt to look at the numbers claim YouTube is profitable. All say the opposite. Some random examples: CBS Marketwatch: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-make-a-profit/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-... Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-google-any-money-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-goo... Motley Fool: https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/01/youtube-isnt-profitable-so-what-should-google-inc.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/01/youtube-is... And none of these include this year's Adpocolypse.
    - criddell 9y ago
      Those are all from 2015 where the weren't profitable. Look for something more recent. http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-youtube-20161027-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-y... http://fortune.com/2017/04/27/alphabet-earnings-up-as-ads-surge-on-youtube-and-mobile-devices/ http://fortune.com/2017/04/27/alphabet-earnings-up-as-ads-su... https://seekingalpha.com/article/4096345-google-youtubes-potential-exponential-growth-hidden-plain-sight https://seekingalpha.com/article/4096345-google-youtubes-pot... https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2017/0129/How-YouTube-and-mobile-search-drove-revenue-for-Google-s-parent-company https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2017/0129/How-YouTube-and... https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/youtube-will-earn-9bn-in-revenue-this-year-towering-over-spotify/ https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/youtube-will-earn-9bn... http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/google-youtube-alphabet-q1-2017-1202401702/ http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/google-youtube-alphabet... Even if YouTube isn't profitable today (and I think they are), the growth indicates they will be soon. > And none of these include this year's Adpocolypse. That's true. That could be interesting for sure. The Variety link talks about it a little bit.

hnlmorg 9y ago

YouTube has a massive market share, I won't deny that. But it's far from a virtual monopoly. Even ignoring its numerous similar competitors like Vimeo, Metacafe and Daily Motion you still have Facebook.

curun1r 9y ago

Amazon is far more than a store. For one, they are a monopoly on any content that's exclusive to Prime. And for a lot of us, that's meant choosing between our Prime accounts and our preferred streaming device. I personally would've probably chosen to buy an AppleTV except for the fact that Prime isn't available on the platform (though it appears that finally Amazon's spat with Apple on this front is coming to an end). Instead, I'm using a Roku because I don't want to reward Amazon for this crappy behavior by buying a FireTV. And Google isn't really a monopoly on internet videos. In addition to many smaller competitors, Facebook and Twitch are competitors. It's hard to find reliable numbers, but from what I've seen YouTube gets around 2/3 or the hours watched in this category (i.e. excluding streaming sites like Netlifx and Prime). That's big, but not monopoly big.

mattmanser 9y ago
You misunderstand what we're talking about. Having the rights to a show is not having a monopoly, as we're talking about them. If not every single cable company in the world is somehow a monopoly. You can watch other shows. YouTube has an effective monopoly on internet videos. Almost ALL user generated videos, apart from few niches. They're using their dominance in one market to try and give themselves an advantage in another, which is usually illegal. Amazon, on the other hand, have plenty of competition. From Walmart to eBay. In videos there's Hulu and Netflix and Now TV, etc.
- curun1r 9y ago
  > Having the rights to a show is not having a monopoly, as we're talking about them. If not every single cable company in the world is somehow a monopoly. Cable companies don't generally produce content. In the case of the ones that do (like Comcast, after their acquisitions), they've absolutely used their content for anti-competitive purposes. This is exactly what Amazon has done with Prime...tried to leverage it to support their less established products. And it's exactly what Google is doing with YouTube. Amazon is getting the same treatment they've given others. > You can watch other shows. And you can watch other user-uploaded videos. There's plenty of other sites that host user-generated videos. > YouTube has an effective monopoly on internet videos. Almost ALL user generated videos, apart from few niches. This is just incorrect. YouTube is the biggest, but it's nowhere near "almost all" videos. As I said before, the numbers I've seen are around 1/3 of the watched hours are on platforms other than YouTube with Facebook being the biggest. > Amazon, on the other hand, have plenty of competition. From Walmart to eBay. In videos there's Hulu and Netflix and Now TV, etc. Hulu and Netflix don't manufacture streaming devices like FireTV. Walmart and eBay don't stream video or sell their own devices. Google and Apple are the only competitors relevant to this discussion since they're the only ones that compete on multiple products. And all three have artificially limited their cloud services to lock consumers into their platforms. All three should be reined in. But acting like Amazon is somehow the helpless victim in all this is just hypocritical. They're getting the same treatment they've given Google and Apple.