Yesterday, in 2005, the first ever YouTube video was uploaded. It is called "Me at the zoo" and has over 317 million views. Don't go watch it, there is nothing special about it other than being a historical milestone. The video hosting site founded by former PayPal employees (pictured below) was snapped up very quickly by Google just 20 months later for $1.65 billion.
Fast forward to 2024 and YouTube has 2.49 billion monthly active users, 100 million of whom are paying subscribers. These users spend on average 48.7 minutes a day on the site, watching 1 billion hours of videos a day. The more recently created product called YouTube Shorts which competes with Instagram stories already has 70 billion views per day.
Last year YouTube crossed $30 billion in ad revenue. Advertisers are finding the platform very effective. It makes perfect sense, if I am watching 'travel to Italy' content, then show me adverts for hotels in Italy. Happy 19th birthday YouTube, we are very happy shareholders.