A kid-friendly, ad-free video network is a great idea.
Unfortunately GooTube's dominant, almost monopoly incumbent position in short videos makes it hard for others to offer such a service with a competitive video selection.
And while Google's strategic priority is fattening their marketing dossiers on everyone, and offering 'free'/subsidized loss-leader products as a moat around their search monopoly, it's unlikely Google would offer such a niche service.
Maybe someone could make it work, inside or outside the Googleplex, but in the meantime a 'complaining' blog post like this is perfectly appropriate and valuable, explaining a troubling trend and unmet need.
"Unfortunately GooTube's dominant, almost monopoly incumbent position in short videos makes it hard for others to offer such a service with a competitive video selection."
Complete bullshit. Google does not exclusively own the video on Youtube. There is either a market for an ad-free, kid-friendly for-pay video subscription service, or there isn't. Google's incumbent position doesn't come into it at all.
YouTube has all the mindshare -- it is synonymous with short video hosting for most people. It's a free offering that's been improved with Google's deep pockets and infrastructure. Its gigantic existing 'back catalog' provides deep lock-in -- for both uploaders and fans of existing material/watchlists. Its video results even seem to be favored in Google search, and immune to the 'DMCA notification volume penalty' Google recently announced would be affecting other sites.
Any economist (like say the PhDs on Google's staff) could explain there are large returns to scale, lock-in effects, and cross-subsidization and product tie-ins affecting this market, and GooTube is way out in front. It doesn't reduce to a binary "either there's a market... or not" and it's absurd to claim "Google's incumbent position doesn't come into it at all". The existing offerings by incumbents with brand, scale, contractual agreements, Android integration, and specific preferred models they're defending absolutely matter.
Let's call the hypothetical ad-free subscription kid service 'KidTube'. I'm not saying it'd necessarily be impossible to launch, just made a lot harder by YouTube's dominance.
The KidTube strategy would have to assume Google's resistance to easy migration of YouTube videos, for example via a bulk side-loading facility, even if the original uploaders wanted them reused. KidTube would also have to assume that if they got scale and traction, they would face a free competitor subsidized by Google's other revenues and product/promotional tie-ins. (For example, does your Google+ profile indicate you have children? Here's a targeted ad for our own kid service, the only one with all the videos your child already loves! All they have to do is create a juvenile Google+ profile! Please be sure to enter their real full name and birthdate.)
I like how you can not write a single sentence in that message without accusing google of being the devil incarnate that eat babies. That makes the whole thing unreadable.
YouTube is the dominant, almost monopoly provider of short video hosting/viewing. It would not, by its terms of use policies, let a competing subscription service reuse its videos.
Google's strategic priority is improving its marketing targeting capabilities. This is widely understood by Google observers, and sometimes explicitly stated by Google itself, as the motivation behind the deep "Google+" integration across all services, and requirements like the 'real names' policies.
Google has a de facto monopoly in search and search-linked advertising: the largest index, the largest audience, the largest physical plant in a industry which has returns to scale, the largest broker position in the two-sided advertising auction markets. This gives them super-normal margins in that core business. Profits from that core business are used to subsidize lots of other adjacent businesses at a loss.
None of this accuses them of evil motives or actions. Their strategy has generally been legal and effective; other competent managers would be doing much the same thing provided with the same starting conditions and competencies.
Still, we should be able to honestly recognize their market power and strategies for what they are. Google's overwhemingly dominant position and preference for advertising/"sell-the-audience" models are facts about the terrain. These facts enable certain opportunities and preclude others. Projecting some sort of Manichean good/evil dimension onto the situation clouds rather than helps business analysis.
Unfortunately GooTube's dominant, almost monopoly incumbent position in short videos makes it hard for others to offer such a service with a competitive video selection.
And while Google's strategic priority is fattening their marketing dossiers on everyone, and offering 'free'/subsidized loss-leader products as a moat around their search monopoly, it's unlikely Google would offer such a niche service.
Maybe someone could make it work, inside or outside the Googleplex, but in the meantime a 'complaining' blog post like this is perfectly appropriate and valuable, explaining a troubling trend and unmet need.