YouTube never made sense. It was geared to be bought out from the start. I like watching videos on youtube as much as the next person, but according to the num

YouTube never made sense. It was geared to be bought out from the start. I like watching videos on youtube as much as the next person, but according to the numbers ... youtube is in the red (never mind that Google will keep pumping money into it for the time being). Serving up content costs money. Period. And youtube serves up a lot of content. The only reason Google bought youtube and continues to run it at a loss is because they hope to monetize it somewhere in the future. This kind of strategy isn't new (cough XBox cough) and it may or may not pay off somewhere along the line. Google's acquisition of youtube was a gamble and an attempt to move into yet another market. Will this pay off? Who knows, but one interesting aspect is that Google isn't identifying itself branding-wise with youtube. If they flush youtube down the toilet tomorrow it will have an almost minor impact on the Google brand.