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YT's content isn't free. The majority of the income (55/45 split) from ads and Premium goes to the content creators. To compare, in 2021 Netflix had content acq

by jsnell 4y ago

YT's content isn't free. The majority of the income (55/45 split) from ads and Premium goes to the content creators. To compare, in 2021 Netflix had content acquisition costs of 60% of their revenue. And then on the flipside, YT has a much harder infrastucture problem than Netflix. There's probably like 1000x as much content (both new and existing), and much more diversity in what is being watched. That means 1000x more storage and transcoding, and far lower cache hit rates. (I've got no idea of whether/how profitable YT is. Just saying that if you're trying to reason about it via analogy to Netflix, you've got the directionality wrong on both of the issues.)

esperent 4y ago
> I've got no idea of whether/how profitable YT is. YouTube: 20 billion USD profit in 2021 on 28 billion revenue Netflix: 12 billion USD profit in 2021 on 30 billion revenue There's a reason why people call YT a money printer. And I just heard they are trialling showing five(!) ads before each video now.
- dismalpedigree 4y ago
  YT is becoming unusable. Watch 2 ads before it starts. Then another ad every 60 seconds. Oh and one at the end for good measure.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    You forgot the "thank our sponsors" moment that >50% videos then make you sit through, even if you are on YT premium, or using a regular ad blocker.
- jsnell 4y ago
  > YouTube: 20 billion USD profit in 2021 on 28 billion revenue Alphabet does not break out YT's profits in their financial reports, just the revenue. So that $20 billion is just a total fabrication. Shame on you. It's also not at all a credible number, because YouTube's split of the ad revenue is known to be 45%. It's literally impossible for them to have 70% margins like you claim.
  - esperent 4y ago
    > Shame on you. Weirdly antagonist response.
  - friendzis 4y ago
    > because YouTube's split of the ad revenue is known to be 45% What's the split on demonetized videos? What's the split on "ad supported" videos where engagement is too low for actual payout? How does this affect overall split?

by jsnell 4y ago

esperent 4y ago

> I've got no idea of whether/how profitable YT is. YouTube: 20 billion USD profit in 2021 on 28 billion revenue Netflix: 12 billion USD profit in 2021 on 30 billion revenue There's a reason why people call YT a money printer. And I just heard they are trialling showing five(!) ads before each video now.

dismalpedigree 4y ago
YT is becoming unusable. Watch 2 ads before it starts. Then another ad every 60 seconds. Oh and one at the end for good measure.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  You forgot the "thank our sponsors" moment that >50% videos then make you sit through, even if you are on YT premium, or using a regular ad blocker.
jsnell 4y ago
> YouTube: 20 billion USD profit in 2021 on 28 billion revenue Alphabet does not break out YT's profits in their financial reports, just the revenue. So that $20 billion is just a total fabrication. Shame on you. It's also not at all a credible number, because YouTube's split of the ad revenue is known to be 45%. It's literally impossible for them to have 70% margins like you claim.
- esperent 4y ago
  > Shame on you. Weirdly antagonist response.
- friendzis 4y ago
  > because YouTube's split of the ad revenue is known to be 45% What's the split on demonetized videos? What's the split on "ad supported" videos where engagement is too low for actual payout? How does this affect overall split?