nanog mailing list archives

Re: Google/Youtube problems


From: Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick () ianai net>
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 08:27:53 -0500

On Nov 19, 2012, at 03:05 , Saku Ytti <saku () ytti fi> wrote:
On (2012-11-18 23:47 +0100), Daniel Suchy wrote:

Is anyone else seeing similar problems with Google/Youtube?

My advice is, host the content locally.

Sound advice, IMHO.


I'm bit curious about market position youtube has. GOOG claims youtube is
making profit, but I think this is because network is considered other BUs
cost and youtube rides on it for free (remember pre-youtube, how GOOG
micro-optimized google front-page to save on network cost, post-youtube
they rightly stopped caring and added predictive input etc.)

I do not work for Google, nor have I asked anyone in Google how they do their accounting.  However, I would be rather 
surprised to find the vast majority of their capacity is charged to the BU using a tiny fraction of that capacity, 
while the BU using the lion's share gets a "free ride".


I can't see how anyone could compete against youtube, I don't believe the
service is anywhere near profitable (it's maybe 10% of Internet, and I
can't see revenue being 10% of Internet), if it would have to pay for the
network itself. Consequently you probably can't compete with them, as you
need to cover the costs from the profits. It is just so ubiquitous service,
that if it does not work your eyeballs will switch to network where it
does, so you will give google free capacity, which you wouldn't probably do
for others web streaming shops.

First, I believe YouTube is > 10% of the Internet.

Second, I see no reason why that requires anything close - not even within a couple orders of magnitude - of 10% of the 
Internet's revenue to be profitable.  Why would you assume such a thing?

-- 
TTFN,
patrick



Current thread: