YouTube has a shut off valve...

YouTube isn't dead. Not close... But it does have a shut-off valve.

Jeff mentioned this in his post about Amanda, but I want to draw it out a little...

$12 million for bandwidth? A joke. Come on. It's supply and demand. That's like saying mySpace is doomed because it uses too many servers.

Bandwidth is artificially scarce in this country. It won't be if demand exceeds supply.

Boring content? 100 million streams a day says you're wrong.

Look at television. Shows that are good but get no ratings get cancelled. Shows you think are stupid but get good ratings go on forever.


Bad press? Poor resolution? You're wasting our time.

Okay, now here comes the "but"...

Anyone who thinks the whole copyright thing is not a big deal is wrong.

Forget the press, it's about the litigation.

Right now, YouTube is arguing fair use, and that's fine. But when they start selling ads based on the content, that argument is out the window for them period.

And that means that huge multi-national corporations with millions of dollars dumped into tv and movie franchises will sit and wait.

And when they're ready, they'll say, "I want to buy Youtube for $200 million dollars."

And YouTube will say, "no, we want a billion."

And the media mogul will say, "okay, never mind." and slap the biggest lawsuit you've seen in your life on their asses.

And then YouTube will go away and the Multi National will start their own YouTube...

A shut-off valve. Anytime they want.

That's why Youtube isn't worth a billion dollars. And won't ever be worth more than the big content owners feel like paying for it.

Unless they find a solution to the copyright problem... a tech solution or a legal solution.

If they can do that, the rest is gravvvy.

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