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Comment by paulpauper | Hacker News Reader

google and YouTube generate insane profits. they could show fewer ads and it would not impair the functionality of YouTube

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If they're really generating "insane profits", how do I invest in them and get myself a chunk of those "insane profits"?

Get a time machine. Those profits are already baked into the stock price.

Google might. But does YouTube? Should other Google properties subsidize YouTube if it doesn't generate "insane profits" by whatever metric you're using that word?

YouTube is the largest social media site (or at least was a couple of years ago.) Google gets a lot more value than just cash out of it, otherwise they’d have shut it down.

What value does Google get out of YouTube besides the minuscule profit?

The second largest search engine and all the data that entails.

Having complete control over the vast majority of internet video content

There is nothing stopping content producers from hosting their own content on something like S3+CloudFront or the cheaper (than AWS) alternatives.

and yet they are not doing it

And thus you are stuck with crappy public cable access channel style content…

Who gets to decide what is an "insane" profit? You?

Re-read the post. They could afford to run fewer ads. Right now, google is optimizing for profits at the possible cost of user experience, which may hurt google long-term. It's their right to do that, but I think it's a poor idea in the long term.

Given that Alphabet still refuses to release profit numbers for Youtube, right now, no one but Alphabet.

And given the context of this conversation is about ads, dark patterns, and more broadly, privacy, I think it's perfectly reasonable that we have that conversation.

The Market(TM)

Regulators.

And since the US seems to have abrogated those responsibilities they are falling to the EU.

So you want regulators to decide how much of a profit corporations should have for a non essential service like watching videos?

"So you want regulators to decide how much of a profit corporations should have for a non essential service like smoking cigarettes?

Yes I want regulators to dictate how a behemoth corporate entity like Alphabet uses a platform like Youtube in ways that they both unduly profit from and are unacceptably detrimental to society as a whole.

Entities like Alphabet continue to grow and grow and the corrosive effects of their growth need to be checked some how. If you don't advocate for regulation than what mechanisms are you anticipating will mitigate the negative aspects of these kinds of entities?

And the government still allows you to smoke cigarettes. Just like if you don’t want to risk getting cancer by smoking you don’t smoke.

If you don’t like the shit show that is YouTube - don’t use YouTube.

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