Hacker News Reader

Comment by Maarten88 | Hacker News Reader

Compared to recent other aquisitions, 1 billion somehow seems like a bargain. Twitch has clear potential to play an important role in the future in TV and entertainment. Compare that to i.e. Snapchat...

View on HN

$1 billion but all in cash. Sensible sellers...

Well, the buyer also happens to have plenty cash laying around in offshore locations, waiting to be used for things like this.

Can offshore cash be used for acquisitions without being taxed on repatriation?

it'll be taxed on repatriation, but it doesn't have to be repatriated to be used. if you buy something with foreign cash, it's the seller's job to get it into their country.

How much of a bargain does the original Google acquisition of YouTube, for $1.65 billion, seem today? Less than one tenth of what Facebook are paying for WhatsApp!

YouTube wasn't super huge when Google bought them though, I'd suspect twitch has bigger brand recognition now than YouTube had then.

YouTube was THE online video site back then. Twitch is pretty much unheard of these days by the general public other than people following the PC gaming scene.

In 2006 it was competing with DailyMotion and Vimeo at least.

Besides the two mentioned, the other main competition in 2005-6 for YouTube was Google Videos.

Yes I agree totally. Not to mention the crazy growth of eSports.

I agree actually. I hate it when people compare things to Snapchat like Snapchat is silly (it's not) but Twitch could be HUGE. Like huge huge huge.

That's what I mean. It's not a stretch to imagine average people watching Twitch for hours every day, and happily paying for it. And (e)Sports organizers using Twitch to stream/monetize their events worldwide, bypassing the networks.

There is, of course, that network neutrality issue in the US.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com