YouTube has garnered significant revenue through its advertising model, particularly evident in its Q4 2023 financial results where ads generated over $10 billion. Despite widespread complaints about intrusive ads, this revenue model remains profitable, with a notable boost attributed to election-related spending that nearly doubled compared to 2020. CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted that 45 million viewers engaged with election-related content on the platform during the election day. For those looking to evade ads, YouTube Premium is available, though many perceive its cost as steep.
Given how offputting and utterly detrimental to the experience its ads are, you might fairly wonder why YouTube keeps shovelling them on. Why does it work so hard to make YouTube worse?
Alphabet's Q4 financial results reveals that YouTube ads raked in more than $10.4 billion in the quarter... a staggering amount of money for three months of ads.
In its earnings call, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai attributed much of that jump to the US election, noting combined spending on YouTube ads by both parties was almost double what they spent in 2020.
It's possible to dodge the deluge of ads, of course, by signing up for the YouTube Premium subscription service, which goes for $14 per month or $140 per year.
Collection
[
|
...
]