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- Night Light | YouTube's $100 Billion Miss
Night Light | YouTube's $100 Billion Miss
Reed Duchscher
February 10, 2023
Reed of the Week
Alphabet's most recent earnings report was released late last week, and it included some surprising metrics about the health of YouTube's business: they missed on their Q4 revenue target and earnings were down 8% YoY. The stock price is also down over $100 Billion since then. I've been asked by people what I think this downturn means for creator earnings potential on the platform and I think it's important to remember a few factors that go into this.
1. Non-monetized shorts viewership has cannibalized some of YouTube's monetized long-form viewership. YouTube has seen a small decline in long-form viewership in exchange for massive growth on Shorts in the past year. As YouTube rolls out monetization features for Shorts, Ad Revenue to creators should bounce back.
2. YouTube is facing higher than ever competition from other digital distribution platforms.Creators who use a single channel - long form on YouTube in this case - may see lower earnings than in the past, but there's never been a better time to be an omni-channel content creator.
3. In spite of the above, YouTube still remains the dominant form of digital content consumption. There's still no better place to build a content career than on YouTube, as it still sees significantly higher share of viewership among Gen Z audiences than any of its competitors.
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