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It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

economist.com

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Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#21

Post by Waterluvian »

osigurdson wrote: post #14

For me, YouTube is the most effective ad sponsored service by far. Users are forced to watch at least 5 seconds of ads before watching any content. This 5 second window is very focused as there is no time to context switch to anything else. Contrast this with Google search - sure there are some ads at the top but these are easy to mentally filter out.

You can’t filter out google ads because you don’t know which are ads beyond the handful they label as such.

Google filters and shapes the results so much now that I’m inclined to say it’s all essentially advertising. That is, Google is giving you want it wants you to see in what order, and lately filters out anything that isn’t helpful for Google.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#22

Post by jsnell »

jl6 wrote: post #7

I always assumed YouTube’s technical foundations were significantly subsidized by the mothership, but I have no data to base that on other than looking at the $29bn/year revenue figure and wondering whether that amount of money would be enough to provision the amount of compute, storage and bandwidth that YouTube needs, plus all other expenses (including revenue sharing with uploaders). Yes, $29bn is a lot of money,…

Note that the content isn't free either; more than half of the revenue goes to the creators.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#23

Post by causi »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #17
osigurdson wrote: post #14

For me, YouTube is the most effective ad sponsored service by far. Users are forced to watch at least 5 seconds of ads before watching any content. This 5 second window is very focused as there is no time to context switch to anything else. Contrast this with Google search - sure there are some ads at the top but these are easy to mentally filter out.

Cue uBlock origin - I don’t recall the last time I watched an injected ad on YouTube. Of course most content these days is peddling some product, or has a quick word from sponsors - but at least I don’t have to put up with unrelated ads in the middle of a stream.

You, my friend, need to install SponsorBlock.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#24

Post by klodolph »

jl6 wrote: post #7

I always assumed YouTube’s technical foundations were significantly subsidized by the mothership, but I have no data to base that on other than looking at the $29bn/year revenue figure and wondering whether that amount of money would be enough to provision the amount of compute, storage and bandwidth that YouTube needs, plus all other expenses (including revenue sharing with uploaders). Yes, $29bn is a lot of money,…

Think of it less as a subsidy. Instead, think of this—

Team A is running a database and needs to buy disks with a certain amount of IO capacity.

Team B is running YouTube and needs to store tons of data.

You add up the IO + storage requirements from team A and the IO + storage requirements of team B and you buy disks capable of providing that combined amount of IO + storage. The resulting cost is much lower than the cost of buying disks for team A and disks for team B separately.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#25

Post by zeckalpha »

kyrra wrote: post #19
pclmulqdq wrote: post #2

It's time for antitrust to hit Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon. At the very least. Amazon: AWS is one of the most valuable businesses ever created. You don't need the retail arm any more, now that it is enshitting itself. Also spin off the media company, comprising Audible and prime video, to make a Disney competitor. Amazon would absolutely be more valuable broken up. Meta: Meta has always run 3 separate products either…

Google side: from maybe a business idea, you could have it work. But from a technical perspective, it would be near impossible without years of engineering effort. Google has a ton of core internal infra that is shared between all the business units at Google. The only reason this is feasible is that the cost of running it is shared between the units. (Googler opinions are my own).

Call it a discontinued tier of GCP that only has a handful of customers, and things could more or less stay the same.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#26

Post by hnbad »

kyrra wrote: post #19
pclmulqdq wrote: post #2

It's time for antitrust to hit Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon. At the very least. Amazon: AWS is one of the most valuable businesses ever created. You don't need the retail arm any more, now that it is enshitting itself. Also spin off the media company, comprising Audible and prime video, to make a Disney competitor. Amazon would absolutely be more valuable broken up. Meta: Meta has always run 3 separate products either…

Google side: from maybe a business idea, you could have it work. But from a technical perspective, it would be near impossible without years of engineering effort. Google has a ton of core internal infra that is shared between all the business units at Google. The only reason this is feasible is that the cost of running it is shared between the units. (Googler opinions are my own).

The fun thing about antitrust is that this is entirely Google's problem.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#27

Post by opdahl »

osigurdson wrote: post #14

For me, YouTube is the most effective ad sponsored service by far. Users are forced to watch at least 5 seconds of ads before watching any content. This 5 second window is very focused as there is no time to context switch to anything else. Contrast this with Google search - sure there are some ads at the top but these are easy to mentally filter out.

Your point is certainly valid, but I have a slightly different perspective on the matter. Google Search Ads hold a certain magic that is unparalleled in the digital marketing world. Unlike video ads, which can be intrusive and irrelevant to a viewer's current needs, Google Search Ads are precisely targeted to solve the exact problem or question a user is currently facing. I've personally experimented with YouTube ads and discovered that while they can be useful for building brand awareness, they don't always lead to direct website traffic. As my company grows, I've realized that spending money on platforms like TikTok or Facebook simply doesn't make sense, as we can't yet promote our products in high enough volumes to truly stick in a user's memory. However, with Google Search Ads, we're able to reach potential customers at the exact moment when our product can be of service, leading to higher click-through rates and ultimately, a higher conversion rate than we could ever achieve with video ads.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#28

Post by taco_emoji »

osigurdson wrote: post #14

For me, YouTube is the most effective ad sponsored service by far. Users are forced to watch at least 5 seconds of ads before watching any content. This 5 second window is very focused as there is no time to context switch to anything else. Contrast this with Google search - sure there are some ads at the top but these are easy to mentally filter out.

As a consumer, this is 90% of the reason I avoid Youtube as much as possible.

EDIT: Also just because people are forced to watch 5 seconds of an ad doesn't mean it's got any measurable positive effect (for the advertiser) whatsoever.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#29

Post by jeffbee »

kyrra wrote: post #19
pclmulqdq wrote: post #2

It's time for antitrust to hit Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon. At the very least. Amazon: AWS is one of the most valuable businesses ever created. You don't need the retail arm any more, now that it is enshitting itself. Also spin off the media company, comprising Audible and prime video, to make a Disney competitor. Amazon would absolutely be more valuable broken up. Meta: Meta has always run 3 separate products either…

Google side: from maybe a business idea, you could have it work. But from a technical perspective, it would be near impossible without years of engineering effort. Google has a ton of core internal infra that is shared between all the business units at Google. The only reason this is feasible is that the cost of running it is shared between the units. (Googler opinions are my own).

Yeah I'd love to know how this "spinoff" would work. YouTube is an arms-length independent company but Google happens to have deployed dedicated, co-designed accelerators around the world to support their use case?

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#30

Post by runako »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #2

It's time for antitrust to hit Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon. At the very least. Amazon: AWS is one of the most valuable businesses ever created. You don't need the retail arm any more, now that it is enshitting itself. Also spin off the media company, comprising Audible and prime video, to make a Disney competitor. Amazon would absolutely be more valuable broken up. Meta: Meta has always run 3 separate products either…

These hypothetical splits show the perils of having outsiders (including regulators) make decisions like these. Just some quick notes:

> You don't need the retail arm any more [...] spin off the media company, comprising Audible and prime video, to make a Disney competitor

The whole point of the conglomerate model they use (following Costco) is that the membership fee grants consumers access to a bevy of services. The services may not work a la carte. Further, spinning Amazon media to become one of the weakest Disney competitors doesn't obviously enhance competition or consumer welfare in media.

> Spinning off the loser (Facebook), and the non-social networking product (WhatsApp) would let Instagram grow wings against TikTok.

The "loser" (Facebook) generates most of the revenue and profit at Meta.

The Google analysis arrives at a viable conclusion (the ads business could be run as a utility), for the wrong reasons. (For ex: Search/YT would not get a bigger premium by treating as first-class other, weaker, ad networks. The near-monopoly is what drives pricing power and is frequently a reason cited for forcing a hypothetical breakup.)

Anyway, this stuff is not obvious or easy, even assuming people can agree on goals (which is difficult).

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