You hate ads on YouTube, but what do you actually want?

Opinion post by

C. Scott Brown

When Google bought YouTube in 2006, the young site was unprofitable. It was already a cultural phenomenon, with viral videos consumed millions of times daily, but it didn’t make any money. It wasn’t until 2009 that Google first profited from its $1.65 billion investment in the video-sharing site. Google achieved this through one singular revenue stream: advertisements.

Since 2009, Google has continued to mostly depend on ad revenue to keep YouTube afloat. The introduction of YouTube Premium — a paid subscription that provides ad-free YouTube and YouTube Music — bolsters revenue a bit but is still a drop in the bucket compared to what Google makes from ads, which was over $29 billion in 2022 alone.