Re:It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube
by scarface_74 on Friday February 24, 2023 @03:08PM
(#34929415)
> But how did YouTube get founded in the first place, and become successful as a video-sharing platform for original content
A "successful" business makes more than it spends so it can be an ongoing concern. Any company can sell a lot of dollars for 95 cents. Youtube was never a "successful" business with a meaningful revenue stream before being acquired by Google.
> Or how did Google come to exist, when the market was dominated by (then-) huge firms like Yahoo, Lycos, and Altavista?
You realize you're arguing against the need for government regulation. This is the market working as it should. But Google became a success initially because Yahoo used it as their "search engine". Google initially offered to be bought up by Yahoo and Yahoo balked at the price. Google wasn't trying to go it alone.
Re:It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube
by anigbrowl on Friday February 24, 2023 @05:39PM
(#34931175)
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Re:It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube
by scarface74 on Saturday February 25, 2023 @02:19PM
(#34939557)
How many years would YouTube run at a lost if they hadn’t gotten sued out of existence first? How much of YouTube’s profitability now is directly related to both being able to leverage Google’s infrastructure at below market cost and being able to leverage Google’s adTech?
And who was going to fund them?
Both companies had a first mover advantage by deploying a more scaleable technical innovation in a somewhat stealthy way. OpenAI is subsidized as you say, but StabilityAI promptly ate their lunch int he image production field and is hoping to do the same with LLMs.