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Originally Posted by sclitheroe
I seriously have no idea what you mean when you say Google's business model is not sustainable..
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Google's is, just not the Youtube part of it - should have made that clear. I can't really find any reliable estimates of its revenue from Youtube, though. Maybe they are making craptons of money, despite infrastructure costs that you would think would be much higher, and effectiveness on getting clicks, which you think would be lower.
Look at it this way. I watch a 3-5 minute Youtube video, I see one ad popup in the window. Do people spend an average of 3-5 minutes on each web page they view? Does the average web page have just one ad? It's simply not even remotely as efficient at delivering click-throughs.
I assume they must be charging big money to advertisers who have the 15-30 second clips that sometimes run at the start of videos. But unlike television, where (until recently), you more or less had to watch the ads, you aren't forced to watch those clips. Even if you are too lazy or technically inept to install browser add-ons to get by them, you can still click past them. And if you start forcing people to watch them, again, how do you stop people from eventually migrating to another source for their videos that doesn't make them do so?
Maybe they are about to launch their own subscription service for premium content. That they are going to do so doesn't make me think that Youtube is making money, though, it makes me think they are realizing that ad revenue is not magic that turns every single "free" product into a profitable one.