• existential_crisis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t get why Twitter didn’t try to make a Youtube-like video platform before? I wonder if it’s because venture capital has caused brain rot in the executive teams at these tech companies? It seems obvious to launch something like that, and they 100% have (had) the talent and infrastructure to build and support it. Even if it isn’t massively successful on day one, it could be successful in the future with a strong marketing effort.

      If I didn’t know that these companies were run by incompetent idiots, my first suspicion would be some kind of collusion. Trying to do it now that Twitter is a sinking ship is laughable.

      • ozymandias117@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They didn’t have anywhere close to the infrastructure to compete with YouTube

        Based off earnings from before Twitter was purchased, they were making less money than Snapchat - and Snapchat is having to close down gfycat due to the cost of serving gifs - much less having the main focus be long form videos

        • existential_crisis@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That doesn’t really matter, unless you expect the video feature to be unprofitable. With ~300m or whatever active users, it would not be hard to raise money if they need it to launch a major product like that.

          • ozymandias117@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There’s 0 chance it would be profitable. They probably could have built it with a lot of external funding, but it would probably never have become profitable

            Google is still trying to figure out how to make YouTube profitable

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          If he just brought over a few really big creators, he wouldn’t need all of YouTube’s infrastructure.

          OTOH, even just a tiny fraction of YouTube’s infrastructure is massive compared to what Twitter does with video. It’s like someone suggest that a newspaper start using his home printer instead of their printing presses.