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I'm not sure we can still view Netflix as worth more than Youtube. It is probably the other way around.
Youtube has continued to draw market share while Netflix is mostly range bound (7.5% to 8.5% of market). In June, in the U.S., Youtube was up to 12.8% of market share. It was hovering around 10% last June/July. What's telling to my mind is that Youtube's growth is slow and steady. It is suggestive of a widening moat with respect to a particular kind of content.
The monthly figures:
https://www.nielsen.com/data-center/the-gauge/From a recent Barron's article:
These two streamers come at viewers in different ways. Netflix’s income comes largely from subscription sales, and YouTube is primarily an ad-based service. But each is sliding into the other’s business model. Netflix has successfully launched a less-expensive ad tier to its offerings. YouTube now gets substantial subscription revenue from streaming cable channels on YouTubeTV, the valuable NFL Sunday Ticket package, and other services.
The financials tip even more in YouTube’s favor. Netflix saw sales of $39 billion last year, and on Thursday it raised the midpoint of its 2025 revenue guidance to $45 billion, up 15% on the year. According to Melissa Otto, head of Visible Alpha Research at S&P Global, analysts’ expectations are for ads to provide about a third of that growth.
All of that pales in comparison to what is happening at YouTube. Analyst Laura Martin of Needham estimates that YouTube revenue was $58 billion in 2024, and will be $70 billion in 2025, with $30 billion of that coming from subscriptions. She projects that a stand-alone YouTube would have a market capitalization of $720 billion. Netflix has a market cap of $556 billion.
YouTube became No. 1 by capturing a young demographic and holding on to those viewers as they aged. In doing so, it disrupted how people thought of “television” and who made it. This provides a great financial advantage to YouTube. In the second quarter, 52% of Netflix’s costs were content expenses. YouTube passes these expenses to its creators, keeping it relatively asset-light and increasing profit margins. Available here if you Apple news:
https://stocks.apple.com/AWn_itis0TXKoP3zRIhsTLADifferent business models, of course. But depending on you break things up, YouTube is the number 2 search engine in the world, behind its parent Google and ahead of Amazon. And it has a very large presence with younger demographics.
Netflix's market cap is down to $515 billion since that was written. I'd say $720 billion for Youtube is overpriced, and I don't know what exactly I'd fairly value Netflix at, but I'll take the "over" if the bet is against Netflix going forward.
