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The thing is YouTube likely would not have survived without being acquired or continuously raising huge amounts of capital. Bandwidth is absurdly expensive and

The thing is YouTube likely would not have survived without being acquired or continuously raising huge amounts of capital. Bandwidth is absurdly expensive and they have to store exabytes of data and make it available all around the world in a reasonable amount of time, and make it all load quickly. I don’t think YouTube would be profitable today if they didn’t get to piggy back on the massive infrastructure Google built. There are just some services that are simply not profitable until you reach a massive scale.

bjustin 5y ago
I agree about YouTube, but I think the funding environment has changed significantly since then. Requiring larger amounts of money or a longer time span than usual is a surmountable problem now. Uber has proven that being unprofitable to the tune of billions is not necessarily a death sentence, not even enough to prevent an IPO in their case.
jfrunyon 5y ago
YouTube has a massive scale, and had a massive scale before Google purchased them. I don't think you understand just how much money they make from ads, not to mention the various other revenue options they've rolled out. Frankly, whether YouTube would've succeeded on its own or not is irrelevant, as is whether Giphy would succeed on its own or not.
- minhazm 5y ago
  I think YouTube only became profitable in the last few years [1]. And it's not clear at all how much profit YouTube actually generates today since they don't break down net profit for YouTube in their earnings. Remember that 50% of the ad revenue goes to creators (possibly higher for some top end creators). The 50% they keep has to fund all of the infrastructure required to keep YouTube running, which is definitely billions of dollars a year, not even including the employees. 1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-for-youtube-1424897967 https://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-f...

bjustin 5y ago

I agree about YouTube, but I think the funding environment has changed significantly since then. Requiring larger amounts of money or a longer time span than usual is a surmountable problem now. Uber has proven that being unprofitable to the tune of billions is not necessarily a death sentence, not even enough to prevent an IPO in their case.

jfrunyon 5y ago

YouTube has a massive scale, and had a massive scale before Google purchased them. I don't think you understand just how much money they make from ads, not to mention the various other revenue options they've rolled out. Frankly, whether YouTube would've succeeded on its own or not is irrelevant, as is whether Giphy would succeed on its own or not.

minhazm 5y ago
I think YouTube only became profitable in the last few years [1]. And it's not clear at all how much profit YouTube actually generates today since they don't break down net profit for YouTube in their earnings. Remember that 50% of the ad revenue goes to creators (possibly higher for some top end creators). The 50% they keep has to fund all of the infrastructure required to keep YouTube running, which is definitely billions of dollars a year, not even including the employees. 1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-for-youtube-1424897967 https://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-f...