how does a website like youtube make money
Other than small ads that came a couple years later after youtube's first launch and paid videos to be displayed as featured videos how can a site like youtube that has so many expenses profit? Where does the money come from?
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Who said youtube makes money? – Littleadv 12 years ago
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It doesn't then whats the point? They're spending miilions of dollars every year to lose money? – Yoyilbey 12 years ago
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Its Google. They have enough to spend. Youtube, to the best of my knowledge, has **never** been profitable. – Littleadv 12 years ago
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they hold on to it primarily to keep someone else from making something better and making it profitable. They also get a lot of worthwhile data from users of the site – Clifgray 12 years ago
2 Answers
how can a site like youtube that has so many expenses profit?As far as I'm aware, I don't think it is making a profit yet.
Where does the money come from?Google owns YouTube - and Google are 'quite' well-off, so that's where the money comes from. ;)
They're spending miilions of dollars every year to lose money?It will make a profit eventually, though even if it doesn't it's most likely a worthwhile investment from Google's point of view. Having control over a resource as large as YouTube is useful from a strategic standpoint.
Think Blu-Ray vs HD DVD. Sony made a loss on every single PS3. Why? Because they wanted to get a blu-ray player into as many homes as possible. That meant the blu-ray 'won' the battle and now Sony are raking it in as a result.
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True but what about people who started youtube and sold to google? How did they make a living til they sold to google? – Yoyilbey 12 years ago
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The wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube) states that the idea for YouTube was developed in the early months of 2005 and that they had raised $11.5MM in funding by November 2005, so they didn't have to go 'unpaid' for long. They will have started the same way everyone else does - either they work regular jobs and work on the project in their spare time, had sufficient savings to quit their jobs and take the 'plunge' or had supportive families. – Anonymous 12 years ago
Youtube has tons of Ads and has a huge revenue. Not sure the revenue does cover all the cost.
Here is a more recent article on it:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/citi-google-local-youtube-1-billion/ Here is an article (a bit old) which says its close to be profitable:
http://www.neowin.net/news/youtube-still-not-profitable-but-its-close
