With around 2.5 billion users, YouTube is the world’s largest video platform. In Germany alone, one in three people uses the portal every day. YouTube is completely free to use, whether you’re watching videos or uploading them. You can even earn money with it.
The YouTube success model
In recent years, YouTube has been able to assert itself against competitors such as Clipfish, Vimeo and MyVideo. The main reason for this is that YouTube is financed by advertising and is therefore free for users. But also that users can earn money from the advertising revenue. For example, 45 percent of the advertising revenue is paid out for all videos uploaded. This ensures a lot of new videos and, as a result, more and more users.
Google has been trying to increase YouTube revenues for a few years now. Since 2018, YouTube Premium has been an ad-free option. This subscription also includes the option to download videos and a music streaming service. Google also shares the revenue from the premium subscription with the video creators. This means that they receive more money per click from a premium user than from pure advertising financing.
More and more advertising
If you decided against the new premium subscription, you saw more and more advertising in recent years. Since 2023, there have even been non-skippable spots before the videos that have to be watched to the end. YouTube is also engaged in an arms race with ad blockers and is increasingly trying to ban them from the platform.
Now a completely new type of advertising is being introduced. With pause advertising, users are shown advertising as soon as they pause a video. However, this is not a video, but a classic advertising banner. This has been tested on smart TVs in recent weeks, but is now also being used on PCs and in the app on smartphones and tablets. So far, only a few users have seen the new advertisements. In the coming weeks, however, these will be shown to all users without a premium subscription.
