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Is youtube actually profitable?

Depends on your point of view. Certainly it was profitable for the investors. So is the question has YouTube ever been cash flow positive?

I do not believe that Google breaks out earnings specifically for YouTube, and I am not sure that they differentiate search earnings earned through YouTube as AdSense revenue or for YouTube. But YouTube certainly does generate significant revenue for Google.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Company_history

In March 2008, YouTube's bandwidth costs were estimated at approximately US$1 million a day. [...]

In June 2008 a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 revenue at US$200 million

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