So, Google is about to cough up $1.6 billion for YouTube! Apart from the fact that this will make every one of YouTube’s 25 staff members a millionaire, and 29 year old founder Chad Hurley a billionaire, I still have to wonder, as I have in previous posts, if this is a smart acquisition for whoever buys the company. Firstly, the well known possible legal problems that will inevitably come along as a consequence of a great deal of the content being created out of ripped off or modified copyrighted material. But equally important, what’s the advertising model? OK, you could do what most of the regular “business” sites do and make people sit through a thirty second commercial before they get to the clip they wanted to see in the first place. The YouTube audience haven’t had to do that so far. Will they accept it, or will they move on to the next commercial free site? It’s the same conundrum MySpace will face as it morphs into a Fox Network shilling machine. 
This won't hurt, I promise. Besides which you'll be a billionaire!
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