7 ms·

Bingo, YT has always been a loss leader for Google dominance. Only recently have they squeezed the ads knob to maybe generate a profit but I’d bet it’s nothing

by kfarr 2y ago

Bingo, YT has always been a loss leader for Google dominance. Only recently have they squeezed the ads knob to maybe generate a profit but I’d bet it’s nothing like the high margin AdWords cash cow.

dankwizard 2y ago
It's so wild to see people so confidently being wrong in a comment. YouTube has seen profit since 2013, with margins growing each year.
- AlbertCory 2y ago
  it's so wild to see people so confidently wrong. I was there. Were you?
  - paxys 2y ago
    I was there as well, and Youtube was wildly profitable. See how easy it is to make random statements on the internet.
    - AlbertCory 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - pclmulqdq 2y ago
        I don't know why you're getting downvoted. Efficiency projects like the transcoding ASIC are a big part of pushing YouTube to profitability, as well as the alternate revenue streams and heavy increases in monetization. Video serving is extremely expensive and difficult compared to everything else Google does. Ruth Porat has been on record many times indicating that YouTube wasn't profitable in the 2010's. I think her public statements have only indicated that YouTube was free cash flow positive as of the 2020's, but I haven't found exactly where that happened - Google has experimented with a lot of different kinds of breakdowns of its finances. I assume that hiding the economics of YouTube is part of this (as well as protection against a zealous DOJ saying that Google's businesses are separable).
        serial_dev 2y ago
        > I don't know why you're getting downvoted. Because I'm not here to read a wall of text generated by ChatGPT.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        Why are you here, then? Download the financial statements. It's not like they're behind a paywall.
        Marsymars 2y ago
        > Why are you here, then? Different user, but I'm here to read what people are writing. IMO, pasting GPT content is about on par with replying to something with a LMGTFY link.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        LMGTFY is equivalent to "you could look it up, so go do it." I'm not your research service.
        pclmulqdq 2y ago
        I normally hate the ChatGPT spam on this forum, but this was not a bad use for it (assuming it wasn't lying).
        fragmede 2y ago
        > assuming it wasn't lying that's the key issue with this kind of ChatGPT writing. Code you can relatively easily check for correctness - just run it. For analysis on this level, it really had to be based on facts and reality, not generated by a bullshit generator to be of actual use.
        pclmulqdq 2y ago
        I actually went back to the source it pointed out - SEC filings and the call transcripts are all public. It isn't citing the most recent statements on YouTube by far, but the citation of 2017 was at least correct. In this case, digging through all the material to find the factual basis is the hard part, and corroborating it is not (for those who care).
      - elicksaur 2y ago
        The most frustrating thing about this wall of text is that the time it would take to verify all the parts is exponentially more than the time it took to generate.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        so frustrating when you don't have any facts of your own, too. Here's an answer to you & all the downvoters: just download an annual report or a 10-K for Google, for the years in question.
        elicksaur 2y ago
        Telling me to go sift through several 50,000 word documents kind of proves my point. Realize, I’m not anyone up the chain claiming any knowledge about YouTube’s specific profitability in any given year. I’m just commenting about how frustrating the internet is becoming. HN can be cool because you’ll be in threads like this and someone who worked on some original piece of YouTube compression algo might pop in to offer insight. On the other hand, multiple paragraphs of ChatGPT regurgitation are next to useless. If you really want to share that kind of thing, maybe link to the publicly available chat instead of quoting, so people can read it if they want to or ignore it at their leisure.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        It proves nothing. AI is sometimes wrong. So is everyone. Most of the time it's regurgitating publicly-available data. So rather than assserting it's all wrong, why don't you find one thing in it that is?
        otterley 2y ago
        Since you are so certain that the data is available there, please cite the net income for YouTube that is supposedly in it.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
- refulgentis 2y ago
  No. 2013? See GP, see Google financial statements, etc. I do think it started turning a profit over the last 3 years, but can't confirm that.
- squeaky-clean 2y ago
  Do you have any source on that? Google has never released separate revenue/profit details for youtube.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Where is this shown in the 10-K or 10-Q filings? http://abc.xyz/investor http://abc.xyz/investor
AlbertCory 2y ago
There's nothing in the world like the AdWords cash cow. They're a one-trick pony, but it's a really good trick. Content ads: not nearly as much.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Visa and Verisign are comparable cash cows: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/V/visa/profit-margins https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/V/visa/profit-marg... https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/VRSN/verisign/profit-margins https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/VRSN/verisign/prof... Epic electronic health records software is not a publicly listed company, but I would guess they have massive profit margins too.
  - nolongerthere 2y ago
    As long as we’re talking about epic: is it an exclusively self hosted product? I don’t understand how it’s so susceptible to ransomeware compared to nearly every other cloud platform. You never hear about someone’s salesforce being ransomwared or their servicenow being held hostage, but it feels like we can’t go a month without another hospital going offline.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      As I understand, Epic be hosted on-prem or in the cloud. Being in the cloud doesn't eliminate downtime risk from ransomware, though. Even if you treat each PC like a dumb terminal, you're still going to have downtime to replace or repair them when they no longer work. > You never hear about someone’s salesforce being ransomwared or their servicenow being held hostage You may hear about business organizations being unable to do work due to ransomware. Likely nobody mentions their inability to access salesforce specifically, because 1. the data in there usually isn't controlled and 2. likely nobody is going to die if they can't log into salesforce.
mrweasel 2y ago
It's rather interesting that there is the possibility that you can't actually run a good, for profit streaming service, based on ads. The current iteration of the YouTube recommendation seems to suggest that you have to at least remove the "good" part of the equation. You're also correct in that they squeezed the ad knob, but I fear that they squeezed it to much. YouTube is unusable without ad blocking or YouTube Premium. The cost of YouTube Music is $11 and YouTube Premium, which include Music is $14. To me that indicates that you can run YouTube for a given user for around $3 - $5 per month. Trying to watch YouTube with ads, the shear amount of ads and the length, could be a sign that ads on YouTube is almost worthless, at least they seem to struggle to get $5 per user per month. YouTube isn't going to die at the hands of competitors anytime soon though, because the cost will deter anyone interested.
- pests 2y ago
  YouTube Music is just a reskinned YouTube client using the same catalog, playlists, history, likes, etc as YouTube itself. I wouldn't put much into costs based on that price.

by kfarr 2y ago

dankwizard 2y ago

It's so wild to see people so confidently being wrong in a comment. YouTube has seen profit since 2013, with margins growing each year.

AlbertCory 2y ago
it's so wild to see people so confidently wrong. I was there. Were you?
- paxys 2y ago
  I was there as well, and Youtube was wildly profitable. See how easy it is to make random statements on the internet.
  - AlbertCory 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      I don't know why you're getting downvoted. Efficiency projects like the transcoding ASIC are a big part of pushing YouTube to profitability, as well as the alternate revenue streams and heavy increases in monetization. Video serving is extremely expensive and difficult compared to everything else Google does. Ruth Porat has been on record many times indicating that YouTube wasn't profitable in the 2010's. I think her public statements have only indicated that YouTube was free cash flow positive as of the 2020's, but I haven't found exactly where that happened - Google has experimented with a lot of different kinds of breakdowns of its finances. I assume that hiding the economics of YouTube is part of this (as well as protection against a zealous DOJ saying that Google's businesses are separable).
      - serial_dev 2y ago
        > I don't know why you're getting downvoted. Because I'm not here to read a wall of text generated by ChatGPT.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        Why are you here, then? Download the financial statements. It's not like they're behind a paywall.
        Marsymars 2y ago
        > Why are you here, then? Different user, but I'm here to read what people are writing. IMO, pasting GPT content is about on par with replying to something with a LMGTFY link.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        LMGTFY is equivalent to "you could look it up, so go do it." I'm not your research service.
        pclmulqdq 2y ago
        I normally hate the ChatGPT spam on this forum, but this was not a bad use for it (assuming it wasn't lying).
        fragmede 2y ago
        > assuming it wasn't lying that's the key issue with this kind of ChatGPT writing. Code you can relatively easily check for correctness - just run it. For analysis on this level, it really had to be based on facts and reality, not generated by a bullshit generator to be of actual use.
        pclmulqdq 2y ago
        I actually went back to the source it pointed out - SEC filings and the call transcripts are all public. It isn't citing the most recent statements on YouTube by far, but the citation of 2017 was at least correct. In this case, digging through all the material to find the factual basis is the hard part, and corroborating it is not (for those who care).
    - elicksaur 2y ago
      The most frustrating thing about this wall of text is that the time it would take to verify all the parts is exponentially more than the time it took to generate.
      - AlbertCory 2y ago
        so frustrating when you don't have any facts of your own, too. Here's an answer to you & all the downvoters: just download an annual report or a 10-K for Google, for the years in question.
        elicksaur 2y ago
        Telling me to go sift through several 50,000 word documents kind of proves my point. Realize, I’m not anyone up the chain claiming any knowledge about YouTube’s specific profitability in any given year. I’m just commenting about how frustrating the internet is becoming. HN can be cool because you’ll be in threads like this and someone who worked on some original piece of YouTube compression algo might pop in to offer insight. On the other hand, multiple paragraphs of ChatGPT regurgitation are next to useless. If you really want to share that kind of thing, maybe link to the publicly available chat instead of quoting, so people can read it if they want to or ignore it at their leisure.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        It proves nothing. AI is sometimes wrong. So is everyone. Most of the time it's regurgitating publicly-available data. So rather than assserting it's all wrong, why don't you find one thing in it that is?
        otterley 2y ago
        Since you are so certain that the data is available there, please cite the net income for YouTube that is supposedly in it.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
refulgentis 2y ago
No. 2013? See GP, see Google financial statements, etc. I do think it started turning a profit over the last 3 years, but can't confirm that.
squeaky-clean 2y ago
Do you have any source on that? Google has never released separate revenue/profit details for youtube.
lotsofpulp 2y ago
Where is this shown in the 10-K or 10-Q filings? http://abc.xyz/investor http://abc.xyz/investor

AlbertCory 2y ago

There's nothing in the world like the AdWords cash cow. They're a one-trick pony, but it's a really good trick. Content ads: not nearly as much.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
Visa and Verisign are comparable cash cows: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/V/visa/profit-margins https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/V/visa/profit-marg... https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/VRSN/verisign/profit-margins https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/VRSN/verisign/prof... Epic electronic health records software is not a publicly listed company, but I would guess they have massive profit margins too.
- nolongerthere 2y ago
  As long as we’re talking about epic: is it an exclusively self hosted product? I don’t understand how it’s so susceptible to ransomeware compared to nearly every other cloud platform. You never hear about someone’s salesforce being ransomwared or their servicenow being held hostage, but it feels like we can’t go a month without another hospital going offline.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    As I understand, Epic be hosted on-prem or in the cloud. Being in the cloud doesn't eliminate downtime risk from ransomware, though. Even if you treat each PC like a dumb terminal, you're still going to have downtime to replace or repair them when they no longer work. > You never hear about someone’s salesforce being ransomwared or their servicenow being held hostage You may hear about business organizations being unable to do work due to ransomware. Likely nobody mentions their inability to access salesforce specifically, because 1. the data in there usually isn't controlled and 2. likely nobody is going to die if they can't log into salesforce.

mrweasel 2y ago

It's rather interesting that there is the possibility that you can't actually run a good, for profit streaming service, based on ads. The current iteration of the YouTube recommendation seems to suggest that you have to at least remove the "good" part of the equation. You're also correct in that they squeezed the ad knob, but I fear that they squeezed it to much. YouTube is unusable without ad blocking or YouTube Premium. The cost of YouTube Music is $11 and YouTube Premium, which include Music is $14. To me that indicates that you can run YouTube for a given user for around $3 - $5 per month. Trying to watch YouTube with ads, the shear amount of ads and the length, could be a sign that ads on YouTube is almost worthless, at least they seem to struggle to get $5 per user per month. YouTube isn't going to die at the hands of competitors anytime soon though, because the cost will deter anyone interested.

pests 2y ago
YouTube Music is just a reskinned YouTube client using the same catalog, playlists, history, likes, etc as YouTube itself. I wouldn't put much into costs based on that price.