4 ms·

It wasn’t just the lawsuits - IIRC YouTube the business was also bleeding money at a terrifying rate thanks to infrastructure costs (servers, bandwidth) even wi

by pja 12y ago

It wasn’t just the lawsuits - IIRC YouTube the business was also bleeding money at a terrifying rate thanks to infrastructure costs (servers, bandwidth) even without the legal problems. When Google took them on they were able to cut their costs to the bone by using capacity on Google’s internal fibre network which had been bought up cheap after the first dotcom crash & moving the data over to Google’s server infrastructure. Could anyone else have bought YouTube & managed to turn the business around apart from Google? It seems to me that YouTube was one of those businesses that had negative worth to all except a very few buyers. Did anyone else have the infrastructure knowledge to do what Google was able to do at the time?

higherpurpose 12y ago
It's interesting to look back from a historical point of view and realize that Youtube would've probably been closed down eventually just like Grooveshark, had Google not bought it and put its very best lawyers on the case. Now look what Youtube has become. Can anyone imagine the world now without Youtube or a Youtube-like service? Who knows what the world could've been if Grooveshark was also acquired by a big company and won its lawsuits. Maybe it would've turned into a major free audio-book platform, or a major podcast platform, or a major indie music artist platform (like how many new artists became popular on Youtube first). The studios really are innovation killers in their quest to only be paid through the old business models. They only change when they have no choice but to accept the change (like when losing lawsuits against certain companies which they try to shut down). Then they act as if they encouraged that sort of innovation in the first place when they testify in Congress for new copyright laws. Anyone still remember Turntable.fm? Yeah, they killed that one, too, and I remember it was seen as a highly innovative service.
- KaiserPro 12y ago
  The problem is that small producers loose out. Unless you are very lucky, its almost impossible to make money. Worse still Google are pernicious in their licensing deals. I would postulate that Google is actually worse for small producers than your traditional record company. At least you could change record company and still distribute material. If you upload to youtube, you loose exclusive licensing rights. worse still because they own the platform as well, you have no choice but to upload to youtube.
  - tajen 12y ago
    > If you upload to youtube, you loose exclusive licensing rights Can you explain more? If a small producer uploads to youtube, they cannot upload to any other platform (eg iTunes)?
    - KaiserPro 12y ago
      Say for example that you shot video A, you upload to youtube, everything is grand. However time goes on, and you become successful, and google starts a netflix competitor, because you have granted google a non exclusive license to syndicate your content as you see fit, you don't get to charge more for your media being used to sell a premium service. Google has the right to federate and syndicate on your behalf. Say you want to create a collection of videos on android in a folio app type thing, charging $1. There is nothing stopping someone else creating a playlist of the same content undercutting your product. Even worse, there is nothing to stop google using your copyright at the original rate, despite charging $1 a play. The problem comes to negotiation, you can't unless you delete your content, and therefore your revenue stream. You have to play by their rules. You have two choices, take the pennies they throw at you, refuse to take the pennies, but google does what it wants anyway(as they already have a license), or delete the content. There are no other options.
      - shakethemonkey 12y ago
        > There is nothing stopping someone else creating a playlist of the same content undercutting your product. You can turn of embed and syndicate permissions, preventing mobile, web and TV access. You can even unlist the video. Some combination of these would certainly stop anyone other than Google from creating a premium service with your videos. > Say you want to create a collection of videos on android in a folio app type thing, charging $1. But if your goal is "folio app type thing", there is no need to use YouTube at all. The whole purpose of YouTube is give your videos exposure and have them mix on a common platform. If you want to hide them, just self-host.
KaiserPro 12y ago
On its own youtube doesn't really make any money. It's only recently that its started to actually champion original content. (as in something approaching a tv station. not just nut shots.) [http://www.quora.com/How-much-money-does-YouTube-make http://www.quora.com/How-much-money-does-YouTube-make] (granted not the best of sources) But we need to separate "value" from viable business. Twitter, unless it changes will go bankrupt. Its loosing around $160 million a /Quarter/ Value is a subjective thing, and can be manipulated to suit the needs of others. Earnings are meant to be empiric. If twitter was any other company, its stock would be worthless. If we take a look at the buisness model of youtube: o Collect all video o Flog adverts on those videos o only take down copyright when notified. o Sign deals to distribute promo material. o Force small producers into exclusive deals with google at discount rates. The signal to noise ration of profit making videos to not is terrible. I suspect that 99% of all videos uploaded to youtube are useless and have less than 100views. (https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html) Without the backing of an extremely profitable company such as google, youtube would have failed. I'd assume it would have been sued out of existence, and if it didn't it'd have died under the infrastructure bills (they basically have free bandwidth and CDN)
- 7952 12y ago
  It strikes me that Youtube compete in several different distinct markets... * Camcorder like footage of friends and family (competition with Facebook). * Music videos (requires expensive licencing deals, competition with Spotify etc). * TV/Films (competition with Netflix, Hulu etc). Youtube has just turned into infrastructure rather than a service or community. It is more like a piece of the OS that is massively useful in a general sense, but not tuned to a particular use. The underlying technology (video that works) is just not special any more. Without help from Google maybe they would have focused on one market and becoming something different.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >On its own youtube doesn't really make any money. It's only recently that its started to actually champion original content. (as in something approaching a tv station. not just nut shots.) Maybe, but the first statement ("doesn't make any money") and the second ("only recently champions original content") have no logical connection whatsoever. The could be making (or losing) billions with the existing videos they have. Making or championing "original content" is totally irrelevant to their money-making. >* I suspect that 99% of all videos uploaded to youtube are useless and have less than 100views. (https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html)* https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html)* They just take disk space then, which is cheap and unimportant.

by pja 12y ago

higherpurpose 12y ago

It's interesting to look back from a historical point of view and realize that Youtube would've probably been closed down eventually just like Grooveshark, had Google not bought it and put its very best lawyers on the case. Now look what Youtube has become. Can anyone imagine the world now without Youtube or a Youtube-like service? Who knows what the world could've been if Grooveshark was also acquired by a big company and won its lawsuits. Maybe it would've turned into a major free audio-book platform, or a major podcast platform, or a major indie music artist platform (like how many new artists became popular on Youtube first). The studios really are innovation killers in their quest to only be paid through the old business models. They only change when they have no choice but to accept the change (like when losing lawsuits against certain companies which they try to shut down). Then they act as if they encouraged that sort of innovation in the first place when they testify in Congress for new copyright laws. Anyone still remember Turntable.fm? Yeah, they killed that one, too, and I remember it was seen as a highly innovative service.

KaiserPro 12y ago
The problem is that small producers loose out. Unless you are very lucky, its almost impossible to make money. Worse still Google are pernicious in their licensing deals. I would postulate that Google is actually worse for small producers than your traditional record company. At least you could change record company and still distribute material. If you upload to youtube, you loose exclusive licensing rights. worse still because they own the platform as well, you have no choice but to upload to youtube.
- tajen 12y ago
  > If you upload to youtube, you loose exclusive licensing rights Can you explain more? If a small producer uploads to youtube, they cannot upload to any other platform (eg iTunes)?
  - KaiserPro 12y ago
    Say for example that you shot video A, you upload to youtube, everything is grand. However time goes on, and you become successful, and google starts a netflix competitor, because you have granted google a non exclusive license to syndicate your content as you see fit, you don't get to charge more for your media being used to sell a premium service. Google has the right to federate and syndicate on your behalf. Say you want to create a collection of videos on android in a folio app type thing, charging $1. There is nothing stopping someone else creating a playlist of the same content undercutting your product. Even worse, there is nothing to stop google using your copyright at the original rate, despite charging $1 a play. The problem comes to negotiation, you can't unless you delete your content, and therefore your revenue stream. You have to play by their rules. You have two choices, take the pennies they throw at you, refuse to take the pennies, but google does what it wants anyway(as they already have a license), or delete the content. There are no other options.
    - shakethemonkey 12y ago
      > There is nothing stopping someone else creating a playlist of the same content undercutting your product. You can turn of embed and syndicate permissions, preventing mobile, web and TV access. You can even unlist the video. Some combination of these would certainly stop anyone other than Google from creating a premium service with your videos. > Say you want to create a collection of videos on android in a folio app type thing, charging $1. But if your goal is "folio app type thing", there is no need to use YouTube at all. The whole purpose of YouTube is give your videos exposure and have them mix on a common platform. If you want to hide them, just self-host.

KaiserPro 12y ago

On its own youtube doesn't really make any money. It's only recently that its started to actually champion original content. (as in something approaching a tv station. not just nut shots.) [http://www.quora.com/How-much-money-does-YouTube-make http://www.quora.com/How-much-money-does-YouTube-make] (granted not the best of sources) But we need to separate "value" from viable business. Twitter, unless it changes will go bankrupt. Its loosing around $160 million a /Quarter/ Value is a subjective thing, and can be manipulated to suit the needs of others. Earnings are meant to be empiric. If twitter was any other company, its stock would be worthless. If we take a look at the buisness model of youtube: o Collect all video o Flog adverts on those videos o only take down copyright when notified. o Sign deals to distribute promo material. o Force small producers into exclusive deals with google at discount rates. The signal to noise ration of profit making videos to not is terrible. I suspect that 99% of all videos uploaded to youtube are useless and have less than 100views. (https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html) Without the backing of an extremely profitable company such as google, youtube would have failed. I'd assume it would have been sued out of existence, and if it didn't it'd have died under the infrastructure bills (they basically have free bandwidth and CDN)

7952 12y ago
It strikes me that Youtube compete in several different distinct markets... * Camcorder like footage of friends and family (competition with Facebook). * Music videos (requires expensive licencing deals, competition with Spotify etc). * TV/Films (competition with Netflix, Hulu etc). Youtube has just turned into infrastructure rather than a service or community. It is more like a piece of the OS that is massively useful in a general sense, but not tuned to a particular use. The underlying technology (video that works) is just not special any more. Without help from Google maybe they would have focused on one market and becoming something different.
coldtea 12y ago
>On its own youtube doesn't really make any money. It's only recently that its started to actually champion original content. (as in something approaching a tv station. not just nut shots.) Maybe, but the first statement ("doesn't make any money") and the second ("only recently champions original content") have no logical connection whatsoever. The could be making (or losing) billions with the existing videos they have. Making or championing "original content" is totally irrelevant to their money-making. >* I suspect that 99% of all videos uploaded to youtube are useless and have less than 100views. (https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html)* https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html)* They just take disk space then, which is cheap and unimportant.