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Comment by tomrod | Hacker News Reader

Google really needs to revamp their YouTube model. I'd sign up for an embedding API with a low user fee (~$0.50) and generous low volume (free) and reasonable high volume (>50k requests/month at $0.01/1k). Ad free, of course, because YouTube ads are probably not great money makers for small businesses, hence the awful commercials we see pushed and successful creators reliance on in-video promotions.

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YouTube streamed 21,885,984,000,000 minutes of content in 2023 and made $31.5 billion, which works out to an average of $0.0014 cents per minute.

If you'd be willing to pay more than that to watch videos I am sure they'd take your money.

Given your numbers, you are off by 100x. 31.5 billion / 21,885,984,000,000 minutes is 0.14 ct/minute.

You are correct, thank you. I've updated the post.

Wolfram Alpha helpfully formatted it as "0.14" and I missed the cent sign. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%2431.5+billion+%2F+21%...

All good! Thanks for your intellectual honesty!

What a commendable dialog.

I definitely don't watch 850 videos/mo.

But a blog you host might have 850 views.

Could you point to the source on that figure? I gather streamed means simply “showed to an individual” in this context, but is this figure official or an estimate and does it take jnto account actual viewing time or is it based on an estimate of virwijg time and total video views?

> $0.0014 cents per minute.

0.0014 cents per minute is $0.000014 per minute.

Perhaps you didn't catch my comment's assertions. I stated the model and approximate values I'd be willing pay, given that most creators take in in-stream paid promotions already (above and beyond YT ads) and that general YouTube ads have poor power/are garbage/have low signal to noise ratios.

I don't really care what Google attributes to YouTube indirect or direct revenue and costs on their P&L in the context of average revenue, costs, and approximate minutes streamed, since the marginal costs are ridiculously cheap.

There is a lot of value in Google adopting the first mover advantage in a Bernoulli market. I'd imagine shareholders care about that a lot.

> Perhaps you didn't catch my comment's assertions. I stated the model and approximate values I'd be willing pay

No I understood it perfectly, it is just absurd. You lack power, leverage, or influence over Google so the only lever you have to make a better deal is by offering more money than you are currently to get the terms you'd like.

I don't need power, leverage, or influence to state level of willingness to pay. That's independent of whether Google chooses to service the market segment I belong to. I'm part of the demand side, not the supply side.

They should still rethink their model, regardless.

Why would that make sense for them?

They are artificially suppressing the api value by banning uses people want. If people want to opt out of the recommendation engine and ads that makes hosting cheaper and easier for YouTube. They only do it to leverage market position and imo that's bad.

What factors do you think drives their cost? I doubt it’s recommends. The ads help fund payments to top creators which in turn drives usage.

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