5 ms·

Urrmm, Youtube, Doubleclick, Waze? Those have all been industry defining.

scarface74 7y ago
As someone stated below, YouTube is still not profitable. Waze is really not adding to their bottom line, and DoubleClick was to increase their advertising reach. It’s really not analogous to their hardware acquisitions.
- karanganesan 7y ago
  "YouTube is still not profitable." Are you sure? https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/#6 https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/#6
  - scarface74 7y ago
    That’s revenue - not profit.
  - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
    Revenue is not profit. If you search around, analysts mostly suspect YouTube is either not profitable or only slightly profitable.
    - ConceptJunkie 7y ago
      Google isn't in it for just the money. They want to control our thinking as well, and given the kind of censorship that is happening on YouTube, if it is operating at a loss, they may not mind because it has other less tangible benefits.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        For profit public corporations do everything for the money. There is no ulterior motive.
        arbitrary_name 7y ago
        Gas stations make hardly any profit on gasoline. The margins on snacks, on the other hand... Youtube or other platforms may not make strong profits themselves, but contribute strategically or operationally to the overall Alphabet bottom line. So the discussion here is not 'Is Youtube making a profit' but 'Does Youtube contribute, directly or indirectly, to the overall Google/Alphabet enterprise strategy?'. In that case, it is entirely possible for major acquisitions to not appear to be 'for the money' but are still essential in driving shareholder value.
- keepper 7y ago
  "as someone stated"... Google has never released Youtube numbers, so I can't say that. I will tell you that youtube is the dominant video platform on the internet. You do realize Youtube shows ads? and those ads are part of google's ad revenue? But the numbers have been inferred "YouTube probably generates $16 billion to $25 billion in annual revenue"[1] Waze drives all of their google maps traffic data. Again, industry's best. Doubleclick is the basis for ALL non text advertising at google. I'm starting to get the picture you really just want to argue your point, without any actual facts. Google has a verifiable history of successful acquisitions. Just apparently non that you "like" [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/technology/youtube-financial-disclosure-google.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/technology/youtube-financ...
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Your link estimate “revenue” not profit. And none of those are hardware acquisitions - again look at Motorola, HTC’s partial acquisition and Nest.
  - CraneWorm 7y ago
    there are no ads on YT
    - wongarsu 7y ago
      What? A giant front page ad, one to two pre-roll ads (with accompanying banner ad in the sidebar), semitransparent text ads on the bottom of the video, and another video ad every 4-10 minutes in the video. Personally I think they are great at finding interesting and relevant ads, which is why I don't block the ads. Howerver I hear the experience varies.
      - dmitrygr 7y ago
        YT does not show ads if you have adblock. Adblock cannot actually block them, but google detects it and chooses to not show them (the idea is that if you have adblock, ads are unlikely to be worth showing to you)
  - 7y ago

As someone stated below, YouTube is still not profitable. Waze is really not adding to their bottom line, and DoubleClick was to increase their advertising reach. It’s really not analogous to their hardware acquisitions.

karanganesan 7y ago
"YouTube is still not profitable." Are you sure? https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/#6 https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/#6
- scarface74 7y ago
  That’s revenue - not profit.
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  Revenue is not profit. If you search around, analysts mostly suspect YouTube is either not profitable or only slightly profitable.
  - ConceptJunkie 7y ago
    Google isn't in it for just the money. They want to control our thinking as well, and given the kind of censorship that is happening on YouTube, if it is operating at a loss, they may not mind because it has other less tangible benefits.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      For profit public corporations do everything for the money. There is no ulterior motive.
      - arbitrary_name 7y ago
        Gas stations make hardly any profit on gasoline. The margins on snacks, on the other hand... Youtube or other platforms may not make strong profits themselves, but contribute strategically or operationally to the overall Alphabet bottom line. So the discussion here is not 'Is Youtube making a profit' but 'Does Youtube contribute, directly or indirectly, to the overall Google/Alphabet enterprise strategy?'. In that case, it is entirely possible for major acquisitions to not appear to be 'for the money' but are still essential in driving shareholder value.
keepper 7y ago
"as someone stated"... Google has never released Youtube numbers, so I can't say that. I will tell you that youtube is the dominant video platform on the internet. You do realize Youtube shows ads? and those ads are part of google's ad revenue? But the numbers have been inferred "YouTube probably generates $16 billion to $25 billion in annual revenue"[1] Waze drives all of their google maps traffic data. Again, industry's best. Doubleclick is the basis for ALL non text advertising at google. I'm starting to get the picture you really just want to argue your point, without any actual facts. Google has a verifiable history of successful acquisitions. Just apparently non that you "like" [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/technology/youtube-financial-disclosure-google.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/technology/youtube-financ...
- scarface74 7y ago
  Your link estimate “revenue” not profit. And none of those are hardware acquisitions - again look at Motorola, HTC’s partial acquisition and Nest.
- CraneWorm 7y ago
  there are no ads on YT
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    What? A giant front page ad, one to two pre-roll ads (with accompanying banner ad in the sidebar), semitransparent text ads on the bottom of the video, and another video ad every 4-10 minutes in the video. Personally I think they are great at finding interesting and relevant ads, which is why I don't block the ads. Howerver I hear the experience varies.
    - dmitrygr 7y ago
      YT does not show ads if you have adblock. Adblock cannot actually block them, but google detects it and chooses to not show them (the idea is that if you have adblock, ads are unlikely to be worth showing to you)
- 7y ago