Comments on: Would Google ever get rid of YouTube?

Speaking with AdAge, Fliqz CEO Benjamin Wayne says that he can't see how Google can make the YouTube numbers work over time.

[liquidmetalband]

Advertising only works if the person is say, searching for a product, and sponsored links come up with that product.

If you're watching a video or reading an article, you're focused on that. You don't want to click some ad.

[gerrrg]

But if the case is made that Google is losing gobs of money from Youtube, then aren't you bolstering the case for killing Hulu first? More than half their ads aren't even real ads - they're non-profit ads "supported" by Hulu.

[karpenterskids]

Don't the non-profit companies still pay for those ads, though?

[jbuberel]

Here is my guess - somewhere in the near future, Google will analyze the amount of content stored by and streamed on behalf of all of their users. They will then determine where 'free' ends and 'premium' begins in order to minimize the impact on the % of their user base that uploads 1 or 2 videos that are only viewed a handful of times.

They will then announce limits aimed precisely at the heavy uploaders whose content is heavily streamed, and ask them to upgrade to a premium account for a monthly fee. So for most intermittent users it will remain free, but for the heavy users, they will be encouraged and then required to give up real $$ to continue to host and stream their content from Google servers.

But that is just a guess.

[QMT]

There is an old axiom from the Dot-com Bubble of 2001:
A free site that changes to a subscription model instantly loses 90% of its audience.

[monkeyfun14]

The problem with YouTube is that it requires way to much bandwidth possibly terabytes a day of it.

No amount of advertising can possibly make that profitable.

[TV James]

Think people are forgetting

ecosystem (keeping you on a Google property so when you're done watching a video and you want to go somewhere else, you just go up to the top and search and bam... you're on Google, you're seeing relevant ads)

behavioral (Google's keeping track of what you search for and where you go... they can make those pre- and post-roll ads and any other ads on the page more relevant)

branding (which why I'm surprised it's not yet Google youtube or YouTube by Google and not youtube.google.com)

competition-killing (goodbye, Microsoft Soapbox)

white label (it's the support mechanism for private video streams offered within Google Apps used by paying customers - granted, not enough to subsidize the free, but as an offset)

[redmarine]

I doubt Google would even care so much about losing money in one area when they get billions of money in another. Anyway as I see it YouTube is an important part of Google's community and helps to pretty much addicts its users to use Google.

[youtuhbeguru]

if google cant hold it anymore give it to a company that wanted to buy it like aol

why dont they just delete all the content and start over? I know it will annoy thousands but if it keeps youtube alive, i'd be ok with it!

[polyomino]

Eventually, you will pay per bit of data you receive over the wire. It won't be much. You won't worry about it, any more than you agonize over the cost of turning on a lamp when it's dark out. But it will automatically compensate the owners of the wire and the content appropriately.

And, all that user generated novelty content... is free content for google.