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YouTube and GSuite (Docs, Sheets) etc are probably the only other business lines that would work well as big standalone tech companies. Google Play is probably
by mmahemoff 7y ago
YouTube and GSuite (Docs, Sheets) etc are probably the only other business lines that would work well as big standalone tech companies. Google Play is probably making a decent chunk by running ads, skimming 30% of purchases and new subscriptions + 15% of subscription renewals.
That said, there have been other successful products and acquisitions which improved their ad busines. GMail, Maps, Android, Chrome all products with giant user numbers, but whose main contribution is probably to improve ads.
Still, a system like Stadia relies on convincing developers that it has a viable future, and it's difficult to build momentum when developers feel burned by the shutdown of other platforms, e.g. Google Plus or Chrome Web Store, where they've sold developers on a bright future, mostly abandoned the platform within a year of launch, and eventually shut it down.
- scarface74 7y agoIt’s estimated that Youtube is barely break even between what they pay creators and bandwidth and storage costs.
- throwaway2048 7y agoevery analysis ive ever seen about YouTube bandwidth costing google vast sums of money completely ignores that they are directly peered with almost every ISP on earth and pay absolutely nothing per byte or per mb/s and just assume they pay level 3 or similar tier 1 provider publicly stated rates. Thats the real moat Google has, to replicate it would likely cost hundreds of millions a month in bandwidth, especially from places where they charge insane amounts (like GCP)
- redis_mlc 7y agoYou could argue that Youtube breaks even. But they pay peanuts to creators, $1k - $3k/million views per monetized video. And they own their own CDN, so bandwidth is a cost they can control or share with other properties. And not operating Youtube would mean another advertising company would have a foothold to compete against them.
- scarface74 7y agohttps://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21121370/youtube-advertising-revenue-creators-demonetization-earnings-google https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21121370/youtube-advertisi... Except, it’s not actually $15 billion. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat told investors during an earnings call on Monday afternoon that YouTube pays out a majority of that advertising revenue to its creators. Although Porat wouldn’t say how much of the $15 billion goes to its content makers, she did specify those payouts belong to YouTube’s “content acquisition” costs, which run around $8.5 billion.