Back in 2005, YouTube was created by Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley. It started as a dating site but quickly became the top free video platform and the second most visited website. Now, it’s a huge place for all sorts of videos.

Google recognized the massive potential of YouTube and bought it in 2006 for $1.65 billion. At that time, YouTube had 65 employees and was not making a profit. Today, it has grown significantly with 2,800 employees and earns most of its revenue from advertising.

While ads bring in a lot of money for YouTube, the platform has also found additional ways to make money, such as through channel memberships, selling merchandise, and its premium subscription service.

YouTube has 2.70 billion registered users, with 81% being between 15 and 25 in age. The United States makes up the majority of traffic (16.4%), followed by India (9.2%) and Japan (4.8%). However, there are over 100 countries and 80+ languages represented. On average, 500 hours of video are uploaded every minute globally, with mobile devices accounting for 87.7% of all views.

As of Q3 2023, YouTube’s worldwide advertising revenues amounted to $7.95 billion, showcasing a healthy 12% increase compared to the same period in 2022. This makes YouTube the industry leader in online video.

Who is YouTube’s Biggest Competitor?

Vimeo, a video-sharing network with 230 million globally registered users, over 60 million content creators, and 1.24 million paying subscribers, stands as YouTube’s most significant competitor. With 1,236 employees (as of December 2022), it generated $433 million in revenue in 2022.

How YouTube Generates Revenue?

• Advertising

YouTube’s primary income comes from ads. They insert ads in or around the videos users upload, and advertisers pay for each second the ad is shown or when users interact, like clicking on the ad. The creators of the videos then receive a share of that money.

In 2019, the company generated $15.1 billion in sales. Since then, YouTube’s income has experienced substantial growth. In 2023, the platform’s global advertising revenues reached 7.95 billion U.S. dollars per quarter, totalling approximately 31.8 billion dollars annually, marking a 12% increase compared to the same period in 2022.

• Premium Memberships

YouTube Premium is a subscription service that offers users an ad-free experience, background play, and exclusive content. Subscribers pay a monthly fee, and a portion of this revenue is shared with content creators based on the watch time of their content by Premium subscribers.

Additional Methods

• Channel Memberships

Content creators can offer channel memberships to their audience. Viewers pay a monthly fee to access exclusive perks provided by the creator, such as badges, emojis, and other member-only content. While creators receive 70% of channel membership revenue, YouTube takes a 30% cut, contributing to its income.

• Super Chat and Super Stickers

Super Chat is a feature in live streams where viewers can pay to have their messages highlighted during a stream. This adds an interactive and financial element to live content. Similar to channel memberships, YouTube takes a 30% cut of the revenue generated from Super Chat and Super Stickers used during live streams.

• Merchandise Sales

YouTube allows creators to sell branded merchandise directly through the platform. This feature enables content producers to monetize their brand and engage with their audience through physical products.

• YouTube TV

YouTube TV is a live TV streaming service offered by YouTube. Subscribers pay a monthly fee to access a bundle of live television channels. While it’s a separate service from traditional YouTube, it contributes to the overall revenue generated by the platform.

• Launched in: 2005
• Founders:  Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley
• Headquarters: San Bruno, CA, U.S.A.
• Employees: 2,800

YouTube Competitors and Alternatives 2024

YouTube faces competition from other video platforms like Vimeo, Wistia, Dailymotion, Twitch, Sprout Video, IGTV, Veoh, TikTok, Facebook Watch, and Dtube. These are YouTube alternatives where people can watch and share videos, giving YouTube a run for its money.

#1. Vimeo

Vimeo, an online video-sharing platform owned by the InterActive Corp (I.A.C.) group, was established in 2004 by filmmakers Jake Lodwick and Zach Klein. They aimed to create an easy and fun way to share videos with friends.

Currently, Vimeo has 230 million registered users globally and over 60 million content creators. It stands as a significant competitor to YouTube, with 1.24 million paying subscribers. As of December 2022, Vimeo employs 1,236 people and generated $433 million in revenue in 2022.

The service is free and lets you do things like share, download, comment, and connect with others. Users pay a monthly or yearly fee for using cloud-based services. With these services, users can create, host, stream, make money from, analyze, and share online content on various devices.

• Launched in: 2004
• Founders:  Zach Klein, Jake Lodwick
• Headquarters: New York City, U.S.
• Employees: 1,236

#2. Facebook Watch

In the past few years, Facebook has emerged as a significant competitor to YouTube with its video platform called Facebook Watch. Similar to YouTube, users can watch videos from creators and companies on this platform. Creators have the option to upload videos and earn money through ads and fan subscriptions.

Facebook Watch is a major player in video streaming with more than 3.05 billion active users every month. It provides creators with the opportunity to connect with a large global audience.

Facebook has made it easy for creators to make money from their videos. They can earn through ads, fan support, and partnerships. Tools like Ad Breaks, Stars, and Creator Studio assist creators in increasing their earnings.

In 2021, Facebook’s total ad revenue was $114.9 billion, with the video platform (Facebook Watch) playing a significant role in contributing to this substantial figure. While video monetization was a large contributor, it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact figure due to how Facebook integrates various ad formats across its platforms.

However, in 2023, Facebook’s overall revenue went up, exceeding $152 billion. While specific video platform (Facebook Watch) revenue isn’t broken down, industry experts predict continued growth in video-driven ad income for Meta.

• Founded in: 2004
• Founders:  Mark Zuckerberg
• Headquarters: Menlo Park, California
• Employees: 66,185

#3. Wistia

Wistia is a video software and audiovisual content company created in 2006 by Chris Savage and Brendan Schwartz in the United States. It now employs over 100+ employees and generates $40 million in yearly sales. It serves approximately 500,000 customers in 50 countries, including HubSpot, MailChimp, Starbucks, and Sephora.

For hundreds of industries throughout the world, the company has become a provider of solutions for creating and distributing videos, measurements, and databases. It also helps businesses grow their brands by allowing them to generate long-form video content.

• Founded in: 2006
• Founders:  Chris Savage and Brendan Schwartz
• Headquarters: Cambridge, MA, USA
• Employees: 112

#4. Dailymotion

Dailymotion, a French video-sharing platform, founded in 2005 by Benjamin Bejbaum and Oliver Poitrey, is a popular global site where users share videos. It’s available in 183 languages and has 43 versions for different regions. Owned by Vivendi, it has about 100 million users. In 2021, it made $19.6 million in revenue, showing efforts to make money from its large audience.

Dailymotion offers powerful algorithm-based recommendations and the opportunity to find content from across the world in sports, music, politics, fashion, and eSports. The integrated player has been used to watch over 3.5 billion videos. All users are free to share their videos, and the platform provides creators with cutting-edge technology, freedom, and visibility.

• Launched in: 2005
• Founders: Benjamin Bejbaum and Olivier Poitrey
• Headquarters: Paris, France
• Employees: 450

#5. Twitch

Twitch is an American video game and eSports streaming network founded by Justin.tv in 2011 and bought by Amazon for $1 billion in 2014. It made $2.8 billion in 2022 with 1,800 employees. It has three revenue streams: subscriptions, advertising, and the selling of “bits,” which users use to tip broadcasters, share emoticons with friends, and cheer on their favourite streamers.

Twitch is one of the most popular entertainment sites among persons between the ages of 18 and 34. Every month, 3.2 million people stream live, and there are 124 million videos available on demand. The service has simultaneously broadcast video to 245,000 people across the world. It is the most widely used video service for fans of eSports and video games.

• Launched in: 2011
• Founders:  Justin Kan
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States.
• Employees: 1,800

#6. SproutVideo

SproutVideo, established in 2010, continues to be a major player in video solutions, offering hosting, marketing, security, storage, and streaming capabilities. Headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, the company currently employs around 10 to 20 employees.

While traffic data suggests an average of 190,300 monthly visitors in 2023, their website traffic appears to be increasing. SproutVideo relies on a subscription-based revenue model, with plans starting at $25 per month. Though the company doesn’t publicly disclose its financial details, sources like Similarweb estimate their annual revenue to be closer to $1-2 million.

SproutVideo’s goal is to help lots of organizations do well with their online videos. They have millions of videos on their platform that are shared worldwide. The platform can handle any video format, including high-definition and ultra-high-definition. They use a global Content Delivery Network to ensure that videos play well and look great.

• Launched in: 2010
• Founders:  Adam Podolnick
• Headquarters: Brooklin, New York.
• Employees: 10 to 20

#7. IGTV

IGTV is a video service introduced in 2018 by Instagram. In this Facebook-owned image-based social network, users can upload long-form films accessible to both their followers and the wider public. Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media networks, created in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in the United States. Facebook purchased it for $1 billion in 2012, and it now has 2.4 billion monthly active users who share over 100 million images and videos every day.

Its primary source of revenue is advertising, which may be featured in any of its formats: pictures, videos, stories, dynamic carousels, or IGTV, earning $50.58 billion in worldwide revenue in 2023. IGTV is a long-form vertical video channel that can be accessed from both Instagram and a separate app. Its content is intended to endure longer than IG Stories, and regular users create 10-minute or longer movies.

• Launched in: 2018
• Founders:  Kevin Systrom
• Headquarters: Menlo Park, California.
• Employees: 450

#8. VEOH

Veoh is a video service founded by Dmitry Shapiro, an American entrepreneur, in 2005 and was officially launched two years later. Its performance was not up to par until it was bought by the Israeli firm Qlipso for an undisclosed sum in 2010 when it was on the point of declaring bankruptcy.

Veoh is a movie and TV shows streaming service that competes with YouTube. It includes a bookshop with over 1 million videos from a variety of sources, including the world’s most well-known television networks as well as user-generated content. It features high-definition video, which users may watch online or download to their mobile device for offline viewing.

• Launched in: 2005
• Founders:  Dmitry Shapiro
• Headquarters: San Diego, California.
• Employees: 500 – 999

#9. TikTok

TikTok is a smartphone application for iPhone and Android that lets users post music videos or recreate scenes from movies and television shows in short forms of up to one minute (Now up to 3 minutes). The platform was developed by the Chinese start-up ByteDance in 2016 and is known as Duoyin in China.

It has over 500 million users worldwide, and in 2018, ByteDance produced $8.4 billion in revenue, the majority of which came from China. It has 1.5 billion monthly active users and 700 million daily active users across all of its applications.

• Launched in: 2016
• Founders:  ByteDance
• Headquarters: Culver City
• Employees: 8,424

#10. DTube

DTube is a decentralized video network with no administrators that pays its members using bitcoin and blockchain technology. Steemit, a social network founded by Ned Scott and Dan Larimer that allows users to control their data, started the service in 2016. The firm has a market capitalization of $68 million.

DTube employs a novel approach that includes a transparent voting system that determines content popularity and revenue sharing while avoiding censorship. It offers a financial system based on the blockchain concept that allows users to receive incentives while avoiding collecting personal data. The registered users receive 90% of the revenue.

• Launched in: 2016
• Founders:  Ned Scott, Dan Larimer
• Headquarters: New York, NY, USA
• Employees: 13

Conclusion

YouTube is a giant in the online video world, but there are still many potential competitors that could challenge the platform. While it may be difficult to beat YouTube, any alternatives listed above could make some noise in the future. 

It’s worth exploring these alternatives for a more diverse experience and to discover different types of content. So if you’re looking for an alternative to YouTube, these platforms provide a great starting point. And who knows, one of these sites may even become the next YouTube in the years to come.