YouTube As Monetizable as a Newspaper?

"User-generated content" is proving to be a financial albatross, says Farhad Manjoo, Slate's technology columnist.

YouTube, for example, sells ads on fewer than 10 percent of its videos, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. But the costs of storing and serving up 75 billion video clips a year costs Google $360 million a year, the analysts estimate. Add in all other expenses, and the cost of running YouTube for one year exceeds $700 million. But YouTube will make about $240 million in revenues for 2009.

Oddly enough, YouTube loses more money on its content than a daily newspaper.

http://slate.com/id/2216162