Maybe YouTube could have done it on their own too, but a big reason why Google was able to keep YT afloat was its widespread peering agreements. So even though

Maybe YouTube could have done it on their own too, but a big reason why Google was able to keep YT afloat was its widespread peering agreements. So even though it bled cash for years, it didn't bleed near as much cash as it could have because they paid very little for their actual bandwidth.