4 ms·

Youtube is such a dominant and ubiquitous monopoly that it is almost easy to forget about it as a monopoly because there is so little competition to contrast ag

by jdprgm 1y ago

Youtube is such a dominant and ubiquitous monopoly that it is almost easy to forget about it as a monopoly because there is so little competition to contrast against and to even remind you that there ought to be. I've wondered for years why it gets so little attention vs so many of the other tech giants that do have more competition.

pembrook 1y ago
YouTube has the highest monopoly tax in all of tech. They take 45% of YouTube premium subscription revenue. That’s higher than the App Store (30%), Spotify (30%), and any other content marketplace on the internet. I think they get a free pass for now because they allow creators to monetize with their own native ads within videos. If I had to guess, this may become a point of contention in the future…
- bitpush 1y ago
  Serving video infinite times is vastily different to serving apps once for installation.
  - pembrook 1y ago
    It’s not 45% of revenue expensive. The fact that we’ve accepted such ridiculously high profit margins from tech companies is simply due to their network effects monopolies, and the impossibility of competing with them. Just look at any other marketplace business with more competition, like say a grocery store or any brick and mortar retail. Their net margins are often sub-5%. Physically shipping goods across the world is far more expensive than delivering video. Only other monopolies, like Governments, can get away with charging 45% taxes. Having known a few Youtube employees and also a few federal government employees, I would say the low stress, low effort, low fear of layoffs, low work output expectations are...ahem...similar.
    - Jensson 1y ago
      > It’s not 45% of revenue expensive. Youtubes profit margin isn't that high so it is pretty close to that, it took a long time for it to get profitable even with Google ads, unlike the digital stores that serves customers for basically nothing compared to how much revenue they bring in. Twitch also takes around that much from streamers and they still aren't profitable since it costs more to serve the streams than they make.
      - dghlsakjg 1y ago
        Does Alphabet split out YT revenue numbers in the financial reports? The latest one listed the YT revenues, but I didn't see where the line item for YT costs was.
    - dzhiurgis 1y ago
      > Only other monopolies, like Governments, can get away with charging 45% taxes. And then charge even higher rate if you give them more money. Ask them how they spend it? Proudly poorly. /rant
    - bitpush 1y ago
      > Physically shipping goods across the world is far more expensive than delivering video. Are you sure? It is a logistics issue, not a technology issue. Streaming video, near instantly, around the world, without any perceivable user-experience issues, infinite times, for infinite users is a massive-massive technology issue. Amazon same day deliver was problably the most revolutionary thing that came to the domain, but otherwise shipping 1000 cars across the world, while impressive, is a pretty straight forward task. The technology that you need are ships and trucks. You can use a 1950s era technology to do that.
      - pegasus 1y ago
        It's not shipping infinite times, the number of views (and hence, cost to stream) are proportional to the fees withheld. Whether 45% is too much, I can't say, don't think it can be determined apriori. It kinda does make sense to me that it would be more than the app store fees, but I also feel those app store fees are too high as well.

by jdprgm 1y ago

pembrook 1y ago

YouTube has the highest monopoly tax in all of tech. They take 45% of YouTube premium subscription revenue. That’s higher than the App Store (30%), Spotify (30%), and any other content marketplace on the internet. I think they get a free pass for now because they allow creators to monetize with their own native ads within videos. If I had to guess, this may become a point of contention in the future…

bitpush 1y ago
Serving video infinite times is vastily different to serving apps once for installation.
- pembrook 1y ago
  It’s not 45% of revenue expensive. The fact that we’ve accepted such ridiculously high profit margins from tech companies is simply due to their network effects monopolies, and the impossibility of competing with them. Just look at any other marketplace business with more competition, like say a grocery store or any brick and mortar retail. Their net margins are often sub-5%. Physically shipping goods across the world is far more expensive than delivering video. Only other monopolies, like Governments, can get away with charging 45% taxes. Having known a few Youtube employees and also a few federal government employees, I would say the low stress, low effort, low fear of layoffs, low work output expectations are...ahem...similar.
  - Jensson 1y ago
    > It’s not 45% of revenue expensive. Youtubes profit margin isn't that high so it is pretty close to that, it took a long time for it to get profitable even with Google ads, unlike the digital stores that serves customers for basically nothing compared to how much revenue they bring in. Twitch also takes around that much from streamers and they still aren't profitable since it costs more to serve the streams than they make.
    - dghlsakjg 1y ago
      Does Alphabet split out YT revenue numbers in the financial reports? The latest one listed the YT revenues, but I didn't see where the line item for YT costs was.
  - dzhiurgis 1y ago
    > Only other monopolies, like Governments, can get away with charging 45% taxes. And then charge even higher rate if you give them more money. Ask them how they spend it? Proudly poorly. /rant
  - bitpush 1y ago
    > Physically shipping goods across the world is far more expensive than delivering video. Are you sure? It is a logistics issue, not a technology issue. Streaming video, near instantly, around the world, without any perceivable user-experience issues, infinite times, for infinite users is a massive-massive technology issue. Amazon same day deliver was problably the most revolutionary thing that came to the domain, but otherwise shipping 1000 cars across the world, while impressive, is a pretty straight forward task. The technology that you need are ships and trucks. You can use a 1950s era technology to do that.
    - pegasus 1y ago
      It's not shipping infinite times, the number of views (and hence, cost to stream) are proportional to the fees withheld. Whether 45% is too much, I can't say, don't think it can be determined apriori. It kinda does make sense to me that it would be more than the app store fees, but I also feel those app store fees are too high as well.