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Comment by criddell | Hacker News Reader

$4 billion is the lowest estimate I've seen anywhere. Most analysts guess it's about twice that based on what they pay out in ad rev share.

And yes - Wojcicki did say they are still investing in YouTube. Specifically she was talking about adding VR functionality.

YouTube is probably profitable.

I've never seen anybody who's made a serious attempt to look at the numbers claim YouTube is profitable. All say the opposite.

Some random examples:

And none of these include this year's Adpocolypse.

Those are all from 2015 where the weren't profitable. Look for something more recent.

Even if YouTube isn't profitable today (and I think they are), the growth indicates they will be soon.

> And none of these include this year's Adpocolypse.

That's true. That could be interesting for sure. The Variety link talks about it a little bit.