Re:It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube
by waboremo on Friday February 24, 2023 @10:38AM
(#34925538)
Anti-trust wouldn't apply here because there is very little stopping someone from creating a video hosting company and doing fine. Plenty of alternatives exist as well here, Tiktok, Vimeo, Twitch, Patreon all to varying degrees of scale.
Where I would try to nail Google/Youtube for with anti-trust is the merging of Music and TV/Movies into Youtube as well as the reliance of Google ads on Youtube. Both of those are incredibly annoying to deal with as a competitor and give Google the ability to corner the market on multiple fronts. Roku has highlighted this themselves, Google leveraging Youtube to make brand deals that other competitors cannot.
Where I would try to nail Google/Youtube for with anti-trust is the merging of Music and TV/Movies into Youtube as well as the reliance of Google ads on Youtube. Both of those are incredibly annoying to deal with as a competitor and give Google the ability to corner the market on multiple fronts. Roku has highlighted this themselves, Google leveraging Youtube to make brand deals that other competitors cannot.