You're right that Netflix and Pornhub have both been able to replicate this.

IMO, it might be wise for Netflix to start their own YouTube-like service. For example, subscribe to Netflix, get access to user-created videos on a separate app. The best part is that users would then generate content for a fraction of what they currently pay to produce content, and they could have basically what YouTube has, but ad-free.

Netflix doesn't own it's own infrastructure.

Netflix runs a CDN for the video nodes, but runs on AWS for everything else (eg login microservices). The CDN, which includes hardware deployed inside of ISP), represents a huge capital outlay (over decades) and is a competitive advantage for delivering large amounts of data around the world.

They own their own CDN for content, they don't own their own general web hosting (they famously use AWS).

Surely the CDN for that huge streaming library is the expensive part of their infra.

https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/

Which means its hosting infrastructure is not even as cost-efficient as it could be.

For their use-case it's probably as cost effective as it needs to be. Bring all that cloud hosted infrastructure in house and then you've a whole new set of costs to deal with that aren't present in their current arrangement.

Netflix only provides one very static huge library.

As long as you move a few PB around the globe on your video release date, Netflix is fine.

It's very easy to build a Netflix in comparison to yt.

I would argue that for Netflix going into yt direction would eat up there revenue baseline fast.

Netflix could square the circle by offering "YT for indie filmmakers."

More static content than YT. Better viewer:creator ratio. Fewer content headaches. Content moderation is lower volume and amounts to watching the film. And closer to their existing product fit.

It's actually kind of mind-boggling that Netflix hasn't pivoted into a turnkey solution (standard deal + optional financing support + broadcast platform) for mass-market film-making. Everyone's content starved, it's an obvious weakness that Amazon / Disney / ATT are blind to, and somehow Reed Hastings hasn't pushed in that direction. It's literally what Netflix is famous for doing (twice!): be the platform.

> Everyone's content starved

I've been mostly hearing the opposite, most people feel like they have more content they want to watch than they have time to.

great idea, however I think they would become more like a hosting company with more overheads - so probably better for them to stick to their higher margin service they offer now. also, i bet they doo offer something like "(standard deal + optional financing support + broadcast platform) for mass-market film-making." just not to everyone

what is mean by "PB"?

I think "petabytes"

PB stands for petabyte.

They may not have to even offer a separate service. There's a math tutor sharing his lessons on PornHub already: https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyp8wa/math-tutor-video-less...

Sure, but, assuming it's not already blocked by IT, are you going to be sending out a link to your colleagues/students/professor with the name "pornhub" in the URL?

That was a marketing strategy though. It says in the article that he doesn't post their anymore and only did it to attract attention.

Brilliant.

> Sounds like PornHub or similar could easily branch into providing a separate service for general videos if they wanted. They already have all this stuff down for the most part.

The key part there is "if they wanted."

Any upstart would have to burn who knows how much capital to try and ramp up, hosting videos for free and getting only a tiny fraction of the ad revenue that Google can extract from a video due to their smaller scale. Even if somebody wanted to subsidize this with reserves or VC funding, the endgame is that they're competing directly against Google, and if faced with actual competition Google can always afford to undercut them until they ran out of reserves or VC funding.

Far better for these sites to claim a niche that Google has no interest in and just fly below the radar.

Pornhubs parent-company MindGeek can only be described as shady. [0] As a privately held company, they might also have problems raising the necessary funds for such a large expansion. And of course, there is still a pretty large stigma attached to pornography, so content creators might be a bit shy to associate with them.

[0] MindGeek operates under a complex structure of multiple companies in countries such as the British Virgin Islands, Canada, Curaçao, Cyprus, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mauritius, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[60][8] Its structure has been described as mostly a way to avoid corporate tax by a de facto Canadian company;[8][3][61] with billing companies in Ireland,[62] subsidiaries in Curaçao and holding ones in Cyprus and Luxembourg, all countries that have been identified as tax havens or having lax tax regulations. Canada also has special tax treaties with Luxembourg, the legal headquarters of MindGeek, where a Canadian subsidiary is exempt from taxes paid on royalties to its Luxembourg parent.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek

I don't think ph has any relevant similarity to yt.

Video quality is low.

Video amount should probably be 1000 if not 10000 smaller than yt.

I'm not aware of millions uploading hour and hours of high quality videos to their platform.

I myself only go there for a short period of time.

I know plenty of people who keep streams from yt running in parallel.