Fortune has little to do with it. Google prioritizes Youtube over other video sites in search [1]. This had even greater impact before Youtube was established as the default video site.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/google-prioritizes-youtube-v...

I've always been curious but never done more than cursory research (which is my own fault), but isn't YouTube operating at such a massive scale and requires so much infrastructure you basically need a true behemoth roughly the size of Google in order to make money or just break even?

I'm not apologizing for Google's monopolistic policies and there are many things I dislike about the company, but despite all its faults YouTube is still one of the gems and miracles of the modern internet. I'm genuinely happy for someone to explain to me why I'm wrong and how this could operate without being attached to a multibillion dollar conglomeration, or just any further data/research about the logistics and costs of operating something like YouTube.

Other, smaller video sites exist and had existed in YouTube's early days. If they were (and are - many are still around) viable, why would growth make them less viable? Economies of scale would work in their favor (and if they didn't, then we would have a multitude of smaller video sites that, together, would sum to the equivalent of a YouTube).

Do those alternatives allow users to upload long (e.g. an hour or more) videos in HD quality? I'm not saying that they don't, that just seems like it could be one area where they might differ.

I think you'll find Vimeo or even Loom could be used, but probably only for private groups. Most people (advertisers) don't want to randomly have graphic violence included in their stream (or pay for it). I'd say if you opt in it's fine, but even then it's really hard to force a for-profit entity to carry violent (or pornographic etc.) content, if they have strict terms of service.

That's because video is ferociously expensive in bandwidth and Google subsidizes it with profits from ads.

This is a pure monopoly that should be broken up by the government for anti-trust reasons.

It's cheaper now

> Zooming out a bit

Pun intended? Perhaps Zoom has an opportunity to enter the video space.