Why is YouTube, the world's largest revenue earner, not making money?

Video websites have been very popular these days. Chai Jing's personal independent news documentary "Under the Dome" has triggered a climax in video dissemination. Almost all major video platforms have been pushing it like crazy. According to relevant statistics, the number of views on major video websites such as Youku , Tencent Video, LeTV, and Sohu exceeded 100 million within 24 hours. The sudden explosion of video news seems to indicate that the spring of video websites has arrived. Let's take a look at the survival status of YouTube, the world's largest video website, sorted out by Titanium Media authors:

He who wins over the losers wins the world. This has almost become a new creed for success in the industry, especially in the Internet field, where its power has been proven many times. But in fact, there are always "exceptions". In the video industry, let alone losers, even those who can gather a large number of video users such as local tycoons, geeks, otakus, rotten girls, literary youths, and ordinary youths dare not say that they have succeeded.

YouTube, the leader of the video industry with 1 billion monthly users, is still not making money after being "acquired" by Google for nine years - in 2014, YouTube's total revenue reached $4 billion, but it has not yet contributed to profits. There are many reasons for this "barely maintaining survival", many of which are "similar to the downturn in the domestic video industry".

Low loyalty, users are rootless

With 1 billion users per month, YouTube is the king of video websites in the world. But despite such a large number of users, in fact, the loyalty is not high. This is mainly because users do not directly click on the YouTube website to watch videos, but click to watch through links from social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook and other websites. Powerful websites represented by Twitter and Facebook have begun to build their own video platforms, which are diverting YouTube users. Under such circumstances, the scale of YouTube users seems huge, but it is not stable, and there is naturally no income to speak of.

Domestic video websites also have the problem of low user loyalty, which is even more serious. Users are like rootless duckweed, going back and forth between multiple video websites. The most typical example is that in order to compete for users, almost all video websites have invested huge sums of money to purchase copyrights of film and television dramas, variety shows, etc. The final result is that copyright fees have risen sharply, and video websites have killed one thousand enemies but lost eight hundred of their own. No one can get a good deal, and users still go back and forth between multiple video websites to find their favorite videos, and the stickiness is almost zero. Even Tencent's QQ Dafa and WeChat Dafa have lost their inherent power in video.

There are many clickbait headlines, and the content is mixed.

There are many wonderful videos on YouTube, and the number of views is also frighteningly high - "Gangnam Style" has over 2 billion views! And based on Google's search technology, the ability to search for wonderful videos on YouTube is unquestionable. But despite this, YouTube is still full of "clickbait" videos with low content quality, and even looks like a pile of "garbage". YouTube is like an ocean, and these garbage contents are like oil pollution, causing great damage to its brand image. Many video authors and users have begun to change platforms.

Domestic video websites are also full of meaningless, unethical, unscrupulous and even outdated videos. For example, on Youku, you can often see videos with eye-catching titles but empty content, wasting users' enthusiasm and waiting time for ads, which in turn affects the overall impression of Youku. Users are naturally unwilling to pay for Youku's many value-added services.

The profit model is single, and advertising is the only means of making money

For video websites, network equipment, bandwidth, copyright fees, bonuses for video authors, etc. are all considerable expenses. However, their profit model is very simple, often based on advertising. Even YouTube is no exception. After launching skippable ads in 2010, YouTube's revenue has grown rapidly. But today, five years later, this model is still the same, with almost no major changes, and it has completely failed to keep up with the development of the times and changes in user payment and consumption habits.

Not to mention domestic video websites, which are just a copy of YouTube in terms of profit model, with advertising and membership as the main source of income. Even though many so-called smart hardware products have been launched, they have not been accepted by the general public. The single profit model has directly led to the fact that the revenue of the entire video industry has not shown explosive growth and is not proportional to the overall development of the industry.

Actively turn around, new measures will highlight the importance

As the world's largest video website with the largest number of users, YouTube's current situation represents the dilemma faced by the entire industry. To get rid of this "half-dead" situation, it must actively turn around and seek incremental changes through the latest means. Improving user loyalty is an urgent issue, and to achieve this, it requires the joint efforts of multiple parties.

Currently, YouTube plans to launch an autoplay feature similar to Vine and Instagram to improve the user experience. This is worth learning from for domestic video websites. In addition, streaming subscription services are the subscription consumption model that users currently like, and they must join in. Last November, YouTube launched a paid music subscription service, YouTube Music Key, on an invitation basis. After the promotion period, the monthly fee is $9.99, there are no ads, and offline playback and background playback on Android devices are available. This move can not only improve user experience and loyalty, but also obtain more stable and predictable revenue.

Domestic video websites do not need to follow YouTube step by step, but should formulate reasonable and practical new methods according to the specific conditions of the domestic video market, user consumption habits and payment scenarios, so as to continue their sustainable development. Only in this way can they ensure that they will not be eliminated in the fierce market competition.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.