The mind-blowing thing about this I found out recently, is that analysts think that Youtube is still losing money, even after making $31.5 billion in revenue!
Part of this could be because they pay out roughly 40-60% of the revenue to the content creators, that leaves Google / Youtube with half the revenue that they use to pay salaries, maintain infrastructure, including storage, hosting and serving content.
From 2015 "Some unnamed person at Google reportedly said that the site is "roughly break-even." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-... which in turn quotes https://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-f...
From March this year (2024): "Analyst Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson estimates that YouTube TV will become profitable this year" https://www.newscaststudio.com/2024/03/29/youtube-tv-profit-...
Part of this could be because they pay out roughly 40-60% of the revenue to the content creators, that leaves Google / Youtube with half the revenue that they use to pay salaries, maintain infrastructure, including storage, hosting and serving content.