Youtube isn't making money, they are in fact losing money. Google has to cover their losses year after year. It's a big debate whether or not Google let it continue just to drive traffic, since Youtube is one of the largest sites around and Google can afford to let them run a small deficit. Much better for Google than eventually having a competitior showing up who could threaten their model. As long as Google can afford to cover their losses, nothing will be done about it. When Google becomes a cable/network operator with their own network accross America they will even get the bandwidth for free, and thus in theory making Youtube profitable since they can use the bandwidth for free within the company family.
I'm pretty sure when Google bought out YouTube 4 or 5 years ago, they put in more money than YouTube has even made. They're still in debt as of today 2010, which is pretty crazy. Although that's also the same case for Twitter and Digg, too.
Are you asking how people make money with their videos? If so most use YouTube as a marketing channel. If you are asking how Google (who owns YouTube) makes money they integrate ads, they dominate search etc... and eventually will likely have an AdWords for Video option ;-)
Google is probably hoping YouTube will be the cable TV of the future ... hence they are willing to keep loosing money.
The best part of this company Google, is just not making money - but making life awesome. That's exactly why, a company with such rapid growth, could sustain it. Not just youtube, google maps, gmail and so many of their products are going to be the best for a century to come. I must say. Google is a pretty awesome guy, eh?
Youtube makes more money per day then they spend.. they changed there whole design to save bandwidth. Plus they have so many different type of ads they never had before. Youtube makes $100k+ per day just for the large banner on the site.
They have ads, they charge $xxx,xxx to feature a video, and theyre not really a profit site anyway...
I'm surprised that youtube could not make money advertising, since they are a very popular site that just about everyone in the world uses, they could easily charge 25K per AD, how in the wolrd are they losing money? Are they really spending thousands just to host there site? I doubt they spend money on advertising... -Zeke
I wonder where peope get their data regarding google's losses and profits. Neverthless google is kind and we owe a lot to them. Many extreemly useful free products,....brilliant