(no subject)

[deckardcanine]

I'm worried about YouTube. IMDb reports that it's losing millions of dollars a day. And unlike Amazon in its early days, YouTube suffers with an increase in popularity.

Maybe they just need to sell more advertising space. On a typical video page, there is none. Yes, people like to gripe about even relatively innocuous banner ads, but the only feasible alternative I know is to stop making the service free to viewers.

Okay, they could ask for PayPal contributions, but just how well would that work? Seems to me that people are less likely to be charitable when it's (a) vastly popular worldwide and (b) not an important cause like combating diabetes.

No matter what happens, the current format is simply too good to last.

Comments

[dhlawrence.livejournal.com]

I think their only alternative is to increase the number of agreements with mainstream video companies to broadcast their content, with or without commercials. That, and have high-resolution/quality content or full screen view only available to premium members who pay a nominal fee.

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

Check out alaskawolf's journal for a post about what's going on over there. The video he links to is a fairly long whine about how changes are affecting the small channels, but there's some food for thought in there.

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Adding commercials would be the most logical choice. People are desensitized to them.

Pay-per-view probably wouldn't work, they'd lose more advertising dollars than they'd gain from the payments, and a no-fee competitor would steal their business.

A modest subscription fee, maybe $10 a year, could work if they give neat extra features to subscribers. But I don't know if that would be enough to break even.