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Not sure I’d characterize YouTube as a diversification from ads.
by kevinventullo 3y ago
Not sure I’d characterize YouTube as a diversification from ads.
- emodendroket 3y agoIt is though. Being an ad supplier is different from being an ad exchange. Or would you describe the New York Times or HBO as "ads businesses"?
- hot_gril 3y agoAlso, they sell Premium
- js4ever 3y agoThat's probably less than 1% of YouTube revenue (number came out of my hat)
- JohnFen 3y agoIn 2022, premium subscribers accounted for a bit less than 9% of YouTube's audience (and 67% of premium subscribers were in the US), according to this: https://www.mediagistic.com/blog/how-many-youtube-users-will-be-premium-subscribers https://www.mediagistic.com/blog/how-many-youtube-users-will...
- jonathankoren 3y agoTo use a googlism: I’m surprised Google can count that low.
- kmlevitt 3y ago8-9% is actually a pretty impressive conversion rate considering close to 100% of people use YouTube. They have like 97.6% market share.
- hot_gril 3y agoNo data for this, but I feel like 9% is less than they expected after 5 years of the "frustrate and seduce" strategy, which is why they're even going after ad-blockers now. If anything, they look frustrated. But they probably had to do this.
- emodendroket 3y agoWhy would they want people using an ad blocker to even use the site that much though. They’re denying them revenue while costing them. I mean it’s great as a user but as a service there’s not really much upside.
- hot_gril 3y agoYouTube didn't seem to mind so much before. Maybe they wanted to keep those users' attention on YouTube instead of elsewhere. Now they're a lot more focused on the profits, which is fine.
- tannhaeuser 3y agoI'm not into watching streaming services or TV for that matter, but that would be news to me. Does YT now produce own exclusive content? I think they don't 1. to keep content producers running their stuff on YT rather than acting as competitor 2. to avoid yet another reason for antitrust action (ie. the bad looks of extending their monopoly)
- emodendroket 3y agoThere was something called "YouTube Originals" that's been discontinued but I didn't consider that central to the point I was making.
- lizknope 3y agoCobra Kai started on "YouTube Red" which I think was renamed "YouTube Premium" Then it went to Netflix where it became a big hit. There was another show I liked named Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television. They constantly broke the third wall making fun of YouTube Red being confused with some kind of adult content service.
- bossyTeacher 3y agoIt is not. Think about it. Diversification ensures that if one of your assets degrades in value, you have an unrelated asset that can still do well. Back to Alphabet, if ads revenues disappears overnight, Youtube becomes a dead project. Simples
- kmlevitt 3y agoAt least they have alternate ways of selling ads, though. For example there has been a lot of talk about how their search business ads are threatened by LLMs that answer questions directly instead of giving search results that include paid placements, etc. But even if that happened, it likely wouldn’t affect YouTube ad revenues much.
- emodendroket 3y agoIs it? If some new thing came along tomorrow that made Google's ad exchange obsolete, they could still sell ads on YouTube using whatever the new thing is. Or if YouTube became untenable, they'd have the ad exchange.
- hyperhopper 3y agoYou two are nitpicking over "ads" vs "ads exchange" without saying it or talking about it meaningfully
- hot_gril 3y agoYeah, the point is diversification
- emodendroket 3y agoOK, enlighten us then.
- hotnfresh 3y agoBy that standard, Search is also a diversification from ads.
- emodendroket 3y agoSure. Why not.
- hot_gril 3y agoBut it's not a diversification from what they've always done.
- kevinventullo 3y agoYou may wish to review Google’s sources of revenue. There is one source which contributes over 50%, and it’s not the ad exchange.
- oblio 3y agoHBO? No. NYTimes? Probably. All media is.
- emodendroket 3y agoYour ontology raises more questions than it answers, like how a streaming service/cable television channel is not "media" in your world.
- oblio 3y agoOk, rephrase the last part to "The vast majority of media is". Even HBO is partially an ad company, I imagine their own shows include product placement.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hot_gril 3y agoHBO is paid programming with product placement at most, and NYT sells subscriptions that actually bring in the majority of their revenue. If it were 90% ads, I'd say yeah they might want to reconsider that. YouTube has its own content while Search ofc doesn't, and its advertising model is different. I wouldn't lump it in with Search. But still, they've decided ads aren't enough and they need YT Premium subscriptions.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]