YouTube has all the mindshare -- it is synonymous with short video hosting for most people. It's a free offering that's been improved with Google's deep pockets and infrastructure. Its gigantic existing 'back catalog' provides deep lock-in -- for both uploaders and fans of existing material/watchlists. Its video results even seem to be favored in Google search, and immune to the 'DMCA notification volume penalty' Google recently announced would be affecting other sites.
Any economist (like say the PhDs on Google's staff) could explain there are large returns to scale, lock-in effects, and cross-subsidization and product tie-ins affecting this market, and GooTube is way out in front. It doesn't reduce to a binary "either there's a market... or not" and it's absurd to claim "Google's incumbent position doesn't come into it at all". The existing offerings by incumbents with brand, scale, contractual agreements, Android integration, and specific preferred models they're defending absolutely matter.
Let's call the hypothetical ad-free subscription kid service 'KidTube'. I'm not saying it'd necessarily be impossible to launch, just made a lot harder by YouTube's dominance.
The KidTube strategy would have to assume Google's resistance to easy migration of YouTube videos, for example via a bulk side-loading facility, even if the original uploaders wanted them reused. KidTube would also have to assume that if they got scale and traction, they would face a free competitor subsidized by Google's other revenues and product/promotional tie-ins. (For example, does your Google+ profile indicate you have children? Here's a targeted ad for our own kid service, the only one with all the videos your child already loves! All they have to do is create a juvenile Google+ profile! Please be sure to enter their real full name and birthdate.)
YouTube has all the mindshare -- it is synonymous with short video hosting for most people. It's a free offering that's been improved with Google's deep pockets and infrastructure. Its gigantic existing 'back catalog' provides deep lock-in -- for both uploaders and fans of existing material/watchlists. Its video results even seem to be favored in Google search, and immune to the 'DMCA notification volume penalty' Google recently announced would be affecting other sites.
Any economist (like say the PhDs on Google's staff) could explain there are large returns to scale, lock-in effects, and cross-subsidization and product tie-ins affecting this market, and GooTube is way out in front. It doesn't reduce to a binary "either there's a market... or not" and it's absurd to claim "Google's incumbent position doesn't come into it at all". The existing offerings by incumbents with brand, scale, contractual agreements, Android integration, and specific preferred models they're defending absolutely matter.
Let's call the hypothetical ad-free subscription kid service 'KidTube'. I'm not saying it'd necessarily be impossible to launch, just made a lot harder by YouTube's dominance.
The KidTube strategy would have to assume Google's resistance to easy migration of YouTube videos, for example via a bulk side-loading facility, even if the original uploaders wanted them reused. KidTube would also have to assume that if they got scale and traction, they would face a free competitor subsidized by Google's other revenues and product/promotional tie-ins. (For example, does your Google+ profile indicate you have children? Here's a targeted ad for our own kid service, the only one with all the videos your child already loves! All they have to do is create a juvenile Google+ profile! Please be sure to enter their real full name and birthdate.)