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The subscription revenues is a decent chunk of your lifetime value (LTV) as a customer, but it's not all of it. The goal here is to squeeze as much value from y
by or_am_i 11mo ago
The subscription revenues is a decent chunk of your lifetime value (LTV) as a customer, but it's not all of it. The goal here is to squeeze as much value from you aside from that as possible, measured mostly by two things, really: the direct ad revenue, measured by dollars that go on the balance sheet, and the indirect "engagement" value measured by the KPIs (think daily, weekly, monthly active users) that go into the quarterlies. The more time you spend on the platform, the more "things" you have got used to interacting with (aka day-to-day, week-to-week "retention"), the more they can potentially "sell" to you -- and it's not just ads / youtube subscription upsells, it can be and often is other "products" on the same platform: their music streaming, their search, their documents and emails, maps, drive, etc. etc. And it just so happens that the short format is _really, really_ engaging for many folks.
The more time you spend in the mall, the fuller are the bags on the way out, be it out of chance, habit, or convenience.
- theshackleford 11mo ago> The goal here is to squeeze as much value from you aside from that as possible, measured mostly by two things, really: the direct ad revenue, measured by dollars that go on the balance sheet There are no ads on a sub, this doesn’t make any sense as such to the parents comment.
- pohuing 11mo agoThey mean the premium subscription, not channel subscriptions.
- theshackleford 11mo agoYou don’t get ads with the premium subscription. Have I misunderstood the intent of this correction?
- econ 11mo agoThey also own the ad slots everywhere else.
- piva00 11mo agoYou don't get ads on YouTube with a premium sub, your activity data (views, for how long, what topics, what times of the year, of the day, so on and so forth) is still collected, and appended to your profile, the same profile that is used by AdSense to show you ads around the rest of the web.
- imiric 11mo agoThat's right, but it's not just products that they can "sell" you. It's all about your data, which is worth much more than any upsell opportunity. Whether the user pays for YouTube Premium or not, they still have access to your behavioral data, your interests, they can easily determine your location, and so on. All of these data points contribute to your profile, which is a literal gold mine for their entire business. How much value they extract from it exactly is likely something not even Google knows. But given that it can be exchanged on dark data broker markets in perpetuity, the price can only go up. It's a goddamn racket that needs to be made visible and subject to thorough public and legal scrutiny.
- Aurornis 11mo ago> How much value they extract from it exactly is likely something not even Google knows. But given that it can be exchanged on dark data broker markets in perpetuity, Companies like Google and Meta don't sell your data, on dark markets or otherwise. They keep it in-house for advertising targeting purposes. If they sold it to other companies it would reduce their competitive advantage. It's not even worth it for them. Google doesn't want to sell your data. They want to keep it internal as much as possible so their ad platform is valuable.
- bitmasher9 11mo agoThey won’t sell your raw data, but they will use your data to charge a premium for their ads. It’s indirectly “selling your data”.
- FloorEgg 11mo agoIts monetizing the data. Selling the data (directly or indirectly) is inaccurate.
- hedora 11mo agoCountless studies have shown how to extract personally identifiable information from Google’s monetization platform by giving them money. They sell your data by any definition of “sell” that existed before they redefined the term so that it excludes their businesses.