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It seems that Google isn't actually making any money off of its online video service, YouTube, despite billions of users every month. Financial reports last year reported that YouTube generated $4 billion in revenue last year but the company did not contribute to overall earnings.
YouTube failed to count towards Google's yearly earnings last year, despite making $4 billion in revenue, according to a source speaking with the Wall Street Journal. YouTube even made $1 billion extra in 2014 than it did in 2013 but the company is still just about breaking even.
Google has yet to comment on these claims but if true, it could spell trouble for the company. Clearly YouTube is a very expensive service to run if Google is consistently spending as much as it makes on the service. It's not like YouTube really has much higher to climb either, since the site already has billions of users.
YouTube is making changes to make more revenue as well. Recently the terms and conditions changed to discourage content creators from making pre-roll advertisement or sponsorship deals directly with companies. Google wants all potential sponsors to sign up with content creators through YouTube itself so that it can take a cut, which has caused quite a stir.
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KitGuru Says: YouTube is the biggest online video service in the world and yet apparently it still can't turn a profit, which really says something about how much it costs to run such a service.
Given the company itself, relying purely on revenue from ads and some minor fee for better services. Youtube is going to have to start focusing on live streaming and competing with Twitch for the gold if they want to bring in more revenue.
I’ve played with YouTube Streaming, and compared to Twitch, it is horrid. With Twitch the video comes out smooth. And Twitch is also a lot easier to set up.
The issue is Google does nothing with YouTube, They’ve let the site become a festering pit of “let’s plays” and literally entice quantity over quality to make money, so any talent (they could potentially bank on) that puts effort into their videos gets buried immediately. So the site is collapsing into a top heavy wasteland.
It’s absolute pure luck they don’t have a rival just yet, but with Yahoo and Amazon interested in stepping into this market now, they’ve set themselves up for a huge fall if they don’t clean their act up sharpish.
That’s what happens when you turn a hobby into a job.
and still Usteam owns them both never have a had a live steam buffer on me like on youtube and twitch
Sounds great, the less money THEY get from a free service, the better. Since it isn’t actually google that does the artsy fartsy stuff on there. (except the actual site of course)
Why don’t you want Google to make money off a free service? That sounds pretty weird…
Ustream always buffers for me, whereas twitch doesnt
Sounds wierder if they would make money off it… They aren’t the creators, therefore they shouldn’t get any money at all for others work. It’s logic.
Yeah, I agree, the less the better. So when they don’t even have enough for maintenance they can just close down Youtube. Makes total sense, so logical.
Google makes enough money to maintain it, though. Duh…. Just not from the actual site. And they wouldn’t close it down, because that would be answered by full blown rage from all users.
Strange but i get it depends where the server is that you are connected to
What a stupid argument. It is a business, not a charity.
Of course, but it SHOULDN’T be, considering what it actually is.
Free service? Do you know the trouble it is to keep up that kind of a site up?
you do get that ads are all that keep youtube up right? only about 30% of ad revenue is sent to google while the other 70% are sent to the uploader and other firms they may have to pay royalties to for copyrights and acknowledgement and such. That is the bare simple explaining. it gets really complicated. then lets say google wants to start making more money off youtube, they would say take another 10%. many many people make their livings off of youtube and if the system falters so do they. its a very delicate system and never perfect.
Go and make a counter on the top of the site with information for people to donate for server expenses and staff wages, its better this way than to force us to watch ads….Just a hint +Google
Don’t talk shit, servers and bandwith allocation have a cost so they need money to keep those things running
They are working for maintaining the servers, keeping up the system that lets people distribute the videos. If they don’t make money, they may have to shut down.