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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?

#221

Post by pradn »

kevincox wrote: post #16
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,…

When I worked at Google I definitely noticed that YouTube was great at (ab)using untracked or very cheap resources. They definitely get huge benifits of otherwise idle data centers in sleeping regions. As the regular service traffic died off YouTube would put those idle cores to work transcoding video. It is definitely the case that YouTube gets lots of really cheap compute by being part of Google. But that isn't a b…

Why would YouTube not get Borg charge-backs? YouTube does pay for the infra it uses. And it's likely much cheaper than it would be if it were an independent company with its own data centers.

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

#222

Post by Retric »

scarface_74 wrote: post #219
Retric wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say it again Microsoft broke the law and lost. The case was more complicated than a simple sound bite which is why you’re confused. People get away with breaking the law constantly, you can do 57 mph in a 55 every day for 60 years and never get a ticket. Shipping Windows with a copy of IE was like doing 57, nominally illegal but not something they would have gotten in much trouble over. But like a speeder they…

This was your original thesis: > Microsoft for example could have spent unlimited money on IE and the justice department wouldn’t have cared as long as it was treated as a business investment. However, leveraging the ability to change windows was seen as problematic. There is no confusion. Nothing came out of the DOJ case with respect to MS bundling IE . Intel has never had a monopoly when it came to x86. IBM insiste…

I said “leveraging the ability to change windows” which is not limited to bundling.

Making it more difficult to install competitors is “leveraging the ability to change windows.”

They very much lost in large part because of a video shown in court of how difficult to install a competitor. They even lied about it by editing their own video which skipped steps showing they knew that behavior was problematic.

As to Intel’s x86 monopoly. Intel paid 1.6 billion in response to a monopoly lawsuit, and the EU fined them $1.45 billion and ordered it to end its customer rebate program. So they where definitely treated like a monopoly.

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

#223

Post by [deleted] »

scarface_74 wrote: post #212
lotsofpulp wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they have to “back out” revenue”? Revenue for one department has to be an expense for another if they are buying and selling from each other, and that would cancel out in the company wide financials. Disney+ buying from or selling to Marvel would not show up as profit or loss for Disney.

Let's take a simpler example. Apple Retail Stores and Apple corporate. For awhile Apple Store profits were broken out separately. Making up numbers: It costs Apple $800 to make a MacBook. It "sells" the MacBook to Apple Retail for $900 wholesale. Apple corporate now has revenue of $900 from the Mac it sold. Apple Retail sells the same Mac to the end user for $1000. Apple Retail now has revenue of $1000. Apple Corpora…

[deleted]

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

#224

Post by dageshi »

JohnFen wrote: post #198
rchaud wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube was the home of AI-generated cartoon videos for kids. Remember the whole uproar about "Elsagate"? That was more than 5 years ago! When you say "SEO crap", you mean text search. But the world is much bigger than text search today, lots of people use YT as a search engine. Because of that, the "Front Page" of Youtube looks like dumpster fire of the worst clickbait you can imagine.

I don't mean to put words in his mouth, but when he said "SEO crap", I think he meant "scummy marketing crap", not SEO specifically.

Yeah basically. If people are watching AI stuff for entertainment, I don't really care or particularly think it's a problem. My issue is the impossibility of finding good information on any kind of paid products or services on the web.

Youtube genuinely does a better job on that and I think it'll be quite a bit harder for AI generated video to game it, if nothing else the sub count on the channel and the comment section (or its status as disabled) will be indicators.

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

#225

Post by JohnFen »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #215
JohnFen wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd gladly pay for ad-free YT Then why don't you? That's been an option for years.

>The problem is that google is already stealing my data. My data is worth much more to me than the cost of a YT sub.

But, as you said, google is already stealing your data anyway. Would paying a bit of money every month really make that any worse?

But aside from that, it's totally possible to minimize your exposure and still pay for Premium. What I do is have a Google account that is only used for YouTube, paid for through a prepaid debit card, and I only watch YouTube on a single tablet that is not used for any other purpose.

It's not perfect protection, but it's also not terrible.

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

#226

Post by WaitWaitWha »

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…

The online retail portion of amazon.com would not survive such a split [0].

[0]: Most recent Amazon.com, Inc. 10-K https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001018724/d2fde7e...

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

#227

Post by wintermutestwin »

JohnFen wrote: post #225
wintermutestwin wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is that google is already stealing my data. My data is worth much more to me than the cost of a YT sub.

But, as you said, google is already stealing your data anyway. Would paying a bit of money every month really make that any worse? But aside from that, it's totally possible to minimize your exposure and still pay for Premium. What I do is have a Google account that is only used for YouTube, paid for through a prepaid debit card, and I only watch YouTube on a single tablet that is not used for any other purpose. It's…

If I give data thieving Google money, I am sending the message that I am OK with their data theft (regardless of going through ridiculous hoops to keep them from stealing it).

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

#228

Post by tshaddox »

ghaff wrote: post #139
tshaddox wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a long time paid subscriber to both Amazon Prime and Costco, and I can’t say I’ve ever thought of the services as particularly similar. Maybe that’s because I rarely use Costco to buy things online (I’ve only ordered a few online-only items and one travel package), which is the primary way I use Prime. Prime certainly feels more like a bundle of unrelated things, with the streaming service, and cloud music/photos…

No one uses Kindle ebooks? People may not read books as much as they used to and many still read physical books but lots of people use ebooks.

I meant "Prime Reading": https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/fd/prime-pr

But I could be wrong about it being rarely used.

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

#229

Post by titaniumtown »

pier25 wrote: post #54
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And so the creators don't get paid when you watch their content. I pay for YouTube Premium. Creators get paid and I don't watch ads. We have a family plan so this applies to the whole family. We spend way more time watching YouTube than Netflix but pay for both.

Youtube ad revenue is a very small part of income made from creating Youtube videos. Most people who makes videos take up sponsorships which are way more lucrative.

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

#230

Post by peoplefromibiza »

PixelForg wrote: post #153
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And so the creators don't get paid when you watch their content. They could ask the users to pay for the content they produce and measure how many microseconds would pass before they switch to someone else's videos. It's an option. I don't want to watch ads, I skip sponsored sections, I feel no guilt about it, if they can't monetize enough and have to shutdown operations, I can survive without that content. What wo…

Your analogy is only correct if you watch content that's recommended to you, but many of us actively watch YouTubers we have subscribed to, in that case it makes sense for the creators to get paid then. Edit - Edited the comment a bit

of course it is fair to be paid, they should be paid regardless by YouTube though, not by me watching the ADS.

If I block the ads, YouTube should pay them nonetheless.

Because I chose to block the ADS, not the content creator.

But it's not my responsibility to watch the ADS or the sponsored content.

The content has been uploaded as "public & free" and I watch it for free.

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