So the long speculated purchase of Youtube by Google finally happened for a whopping $1.65 billion (pocket change for Google). However I think this wasnt the right time and that they could of gotten it for cheaper.
Youtube had a cost of over a million dollars to run a month with very little revenue. So in my opinion eventually it was necessary for a big company like Google to step up and buy it, but why not wait for them to be sortof desperate for money. Most people arent gonna invest $2 million just to keep a site up for a month and a half or so without any return on investment, it is just not economically smart. Another thing Google could have waited for would have been for Youtube to get sued by some movie company for copyright infringement. If this happened Youtube could have fallen hard and most movie companies wont have that hard fighting a company with no money in court. However I dont know if any company can match the money Google could spend in court over copyright infringement. So in that situation I think it would be a win win, we would still have Youtube (maybe a few Google ads here and there) and most likely Google would win the case leading to a big step in iptv content.
Most people see the value of Youtube as advertising material. Oh think of how much money they could make putting an ad before each movie. That is the short term way of monetizing it, the real moneymaker for any of these online video sites with a TOS (which no one probably reads) is that when a video is put on their they own it. They can sell it to whoever as long as you keep it online. This now makes Google one of the largest media content owners in the world. Also as more and more people start using their services and iptv really gains some momentum you could start to see some sortof itunes music store type features on Google. Why go with Apple to sell your shows and your movies if Google has the power and the money to reach every person on the internet.