Will YouTube go belly up?

July 8, 2009 • 4:29 pm • POSTED BY lhendler

Pretty interesting article exploring the idea of “freeconomics” and whether the 3rd most viewed site (averaging 345 million visitors worldwide each month) can continue to operate with crushing operating losses estimated anywhere from $174million-$470million. Despite thier advertising revenue of around $240million this year, it is not even enough to cover overhead costs and copyrights for thier content. And more importantly, what does this mean for the future of Web business models, which may no longer be able to offer the free content we have grown so accustomed to?