zlacker

>>babelf+(OP)
So basically:

Come up with contrived BS that caters to younger audiences, micromanage anyone who is holding you up, and attempt to game a blackbox algorithm on a site you don't pay for (YouTube)

The whole modern social media / influencer sphere seems like a huge bubble that will pop eventually. Google has already started wiping inactive accounts[0] presumably because storage isn't truly infinite or cheap. I imagine YT will also take the same path eventually.

0: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290?hl=en

>>hypeat+s5
How does it fall under the definition of a bubble? Sure, view counts contribute to more views. But that's not the main retention mechanism of these videos.

>>j_maff+a6
I see it as a bubble because they don't have to pay anything to host or publish content even though there is a cost there (storage, streaming, etc..) so they're essentially hoping that YT can keep providing a free service with ads even if they're running at a loss.

It's not clear if YouTube is specifically profitable, because Alphabet only separates revenue, not profit. But, I would imagine they're not running huge margins or even at a loss given their recent crackdown on ad-blockers and Google's overall fight against them with things like manifest V3.