LogFAQs > #926888347

Dikitain posted...

Another thing to consider is that for a long time YouTube wasn't making any money. Up until about 2015 Google hadn't broken even on its $1.2 billion purchase of YouTube, and during the whole "Adpocalipse" YouTube was loosing something like $2 million a day.

Yeah, but that also kind of falls into the same category as Hollywood accounting and like when you hear things about how Amazon has never turned a profit. Basically, you have a scenario where the company is actually making shit-tons of money, but is then constantly reinvesting the money or spending it in extravagant ways that ultimately leave the final bottom line showing a loss. At which point, the answer isn't "Well, we have to fuck over the users to generate more revenue!" as much as it is "Run your company better, asshole." (see also, the US Post Office in specific, and the US government in general). Or worse, "Stop fudging your financial records and then crying poverty, asshole."

But the other thing to consider is that the fact that Google overvalued the purchase in the first place to generate "debt" isn't something the end user should give a single shit about. It's the same reason why gamers are still fully justified in complaining when a company like EA buys a productive, popular studio, runs it into the ground via terrible management and piss-poor decisions, then guts the company and moves on to their next victim. Sound financial strategy and the ability to cater to and satisfy an audience aren't necessarily equivalent skillsets. Whether or not something is financially viable to operate has a direct and justifiable impact on user experience, but whether or not something is financially recouping prior investment really, really doesn't.



Yellow posted...

This is what I was saying when the Epic store popped up. YouTubers were spinning it as anti consumer just to ride the drama bandwagon, despite the fact that any objective view would tell you it's not.

The problem is, while the concept of attempting to establish a monopoly-breaking alternative that will spur both options to competition that will improve service for end users (as opposed to two alternatives that collude to control the market and still exclude others and screw over users) is a noble goal, they've still gone about it in some of the scummiest, anti-consumer ways possible. So the professed noble intentions tend to fall on deaf ears when you're acting more like a Mafioso or a hostage-taking terrorist.

At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, it's like rooting for Stalin when he shows up to kick Hitler in the dick. Sure, Hitler bad, but Stalin's still pretty much an equally terrible (if not more so) piece of shit. The only idea scenario for everyone else is if they both simultaneously kick each other in the dick so hard they explode.

That being said, I don't really have a dog in that fight because I'm a console gamer and I treat PC gaming like the plague, so I always sort of chuckle at PC gamers frustrated that they can't have all of the games because they're suddenly dealing with artificial platform exclusivity. I've been living that life for 37 years now.
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