The subscription revenues is a decent chunk of your lifetime value (LTV) as a customer, but it's not all of it. The goal here is to squeeze as much value from you aside from that as possible, measured mostly by two things, really: the direct ad revenue, measured by dollars that go on the balance sheet, and the indirect "engagement" value measured by the KPIs (think daily, weekly, monthly active users) that go into the quarterlies. The more time you spend on the platform, the more "things" you have got used to interacting with (aka day-to-day, week-to-week "retention"), the more they can potentially "sell" to you -- and it's not just ads / youtube subscription upsells, it can be and often is other "products" on the same platform: their music streaming, their search, their documents and emails, maps, drive, etc. etc. And it just so happens that the short format is _really, really_ engaging for many folks.

The more time you spend in the mall, the fuller are the bags on the way out, be it out of chance, habit, or convenience.

▲

theshackleford an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> The goal here is to squeeze as much value from you aside from that as possible, measured mostly by two things, really: the direct ad revenue, measured by dollars that go on the balance sheet

There are no ads on a sub, this doesn’t make any sense as such to the parents comment.

	▲	pohuing 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		They mean the premium subscription, not channel subscriptions.

▲

imiric an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That's right, but it's not just products that they can "sell" you. It's all about your data, which is worth much more than any upsell opportunity.

Whether the user pays for YouTube Premium or not, they still have access to your behavioral data, your interests, they can easily determine your location, and so on. All of these data points contribute to your profile, which is a literal gold mine for their entire business. How much value they extract from it exactly is likely something not even Google knows. But given that it can be exchanged on dark data broker markets in perpetuity, the price can only go up.

It's a goddamn racket that needs to be made visible and subject to thorough public and legal scrutiny.

▲

Aurornis an hour ago | parent [-]

> How much value they extract from it exactly is likely something not even Google knows. But given that it can be exchanged on dark data broker markets in perpetuity,

Companies like Google and Meta don't sell your data, on dark markets or otherwise.

They keep it in-house for advertising targeting purposes.

If they sold it to other companies it would reduce their competitive advantage. It's not even worth it for them.

Google doesn't want to sell your data. They want to keep it internal as much as possible so their ad platform is valuable.

▲

bitmasher9 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

They won’t sell your raw data, but they will use your data to charge a premium for their ads.

It’s indirectly “selling your data”.

	▲	FloorEgg 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Its monetizing the data. Selling the data (directly or indirectly) is inaccurate.

▲

imiric 33 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Whether they're directly doing business with data brokers or not is not the point. They're indirectly profiting from the profiles they build by selling access to them via their advertising platform. It's just a roundabout way of doing business, as is common in advertising.

Besides, even if they're not selling these profiles, they will end up on data broker markets one way or another. Whether their lack of security allows companies to export it, as in Meta's case, or simply by using their tools to gather as much information about people as possible.

The reality is that nobody outside of these companies, and likely only people in executive positions, knows how they operate internally. They have an army of PR and legal people to do their bidding. Whatever practices the public thinks these companies are or aren't involved with is mere guesswork, but one thing is certain: they don't maintain their size and power by keeping their hands clean. But then again, I'm probably on the wrong forum for this line of thinking.