[loftsy]

I've always assumed that Google ads subsidises everything else at Google. So my concern with a split would be YouTube increasing price or less investment in the service.

[nicce]

Youtube just had the revenue of $8.92 billion where the total was $88.27 billion. Not a small number. Is there any information how much is profit from that Youtube part?

[sofixa]

There are no numbers on YouTube costs (which would be astronomical), and IMO it's unlikely YouTube is profitable on its own.

[PittleyDunkin]

I have a hard time imagining that youtube is subsidized given the ridiculous number of obnoxious ads you're forced to watch and the steep price of removing them. Surely if they were subsidized this wouldn't be worth the cost of ruining their product.

[WolfeReader]

The steep price of removing them: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...

[Y_Y]

And what would be the reason for this subsidy? Do they think YouTube is going to keep growing and it's worth waiting for them to become somehow more popular? Would it be catastrophic for Alphabet if other large players entered YouTube's market?

And why would losing a subsidy mean increasing prices? As far as I can tell consumers think YouTube's offerings are overpriced as is and they could probably increase profit by lowering them, especially if it's not their parent's add subsidiary they'd be cannibalising.

[acedTrex]

Because google currently gets valuable ads data from youtube. So even if the product itself runs at a loss the net benefit is positive.

If its spun off then the platform has to stand on its own and it would need to make more money.

[barumrho]

YouTube ads generated almost $9B last quarter. I think that should be a viable business on its own?

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

I'd pay a modest fee for a non-tracking, ad-free, non-enshittified YouTube though. Compete for my money!

[fph]

Like Youtube Premium? https://www.youtube.com/premium

[talldayo]

There are options for you, like Floatplane and Nebula. The problem is universal - their curated content has limited appeal. The YouTube model is more attractive to people, so more people upload content to a larger audience. I have no confidence that a paid-only platform could reach 1/100th of the traffic YouTube gets in a similar timespan.

As a customer you really just have to ask yourself what you're willing to give up when paying for a YouTube analog. Content creators aren't going to engage in a mass exodus unless they're convinced their audience will follow them to other platforms.