YouTube starting to play hardball to keep Netflix from poaching its posters

The top 3

  1. Who Leads in Global Viewers and Daily Usage?: YouTube boasts approximately 2.7 billion monthly active users worldwide as of January 2024, surpassing Netflix, which had around 780 million monthly average users and 325 million paid subscribers in June 2026; YouTube also overtook Netflix in average daily viewing time globally in 2025, with its users averaging 99.1 minutes per day compared to Netflix's 93.4 minutes.
  2. Revenue Giants: Comparing Their Financial Clout: YouTube generated $36.1 billion in revenue in 2024, with its annual revenue topping $60 billion in 2025, while Netflix reported approximately $38.9 billion in revenue for 2024, forecasting an increase to $43-44 billion in 2025.
  3. Original Content Investment: Who Spends More?: Netflix invested approximately $17 billion in content in 2023, with plans to increase to $18 billion in 2025, while YouTube's reported $32 billion content spend in 2024 primarily represents revenue shared with its creators, music licensing, and NFL Sunday Ticket.

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