YouTube’s growth struggles to load

Google’s Search and Cloud businesses may be loading at lightning speed, but YouTube’s is buffering.

YouTube was the weakest link in Alphabet’s earnings report this week. Alphabet saw 23% growth to $68B, and YouTube even grew 14% to $6.87B, but the video unit fell short of the 25% growth analysts expected.

So what happened?

• TikTok and more streaming options than ever, happened. There’s only so much time in a day.
• Ukraine: Alphabet execs said Europe saw a pullback in ad spending since Russia’s invasion.

What’s YouTube doing now?

Working on Shorts, the company’s TikTok clapback. YouTube launched the format in 2020 free of commercials and financed it with a $100m creator fund. Now, execs say the plan is to introduce ads.

Haha: Naturally, Reddit users pointed out that YouTube should be making YouTube Shorts-branded shorts.