Two of the most successful social media companies are Youtube and $META. The difference between the two is that Youtube pays its creators a cut of the ad revenues while Meta doesn't pay their creators anything.

Since paying creators in July, X has paid creators $20 million collectively so far. With that, CEO Linda Yaccarino sees X becoming profitable by early 2024.

When comparing it to Youtube, the story looks interesting. Before being acquired by $GOOGL in 2007, Youtube was focused on growing. After getting acquired by Google, Youtube started adding ads to the platform and started giving creators a share of the ad revenues. The road to profitability was long for Youtube. During the Great Financial Crisis, Youtube was seen as a cash furnace for Google. From a WSJ article in 2015, Youtube was still not profitable despite having over a billion viewers. For Google's 2019 annual report, the world learned that Youtube made $15 billion in revenue for the year but we still don't know its actual profits. Until Google can provide us with more information on Youtube's actual financial condition, all we can do is assume that it's profitable.

Youtube is widely acknowledged to be profitable. Even if they pay creators a portion of the ad revenues. With it, it's widely acknowledged that Youtube will have much lower profit margins than Meta and even $PINS and $SNAP because of these creators. At least they're assumed to be profitable.

If Youtube can continue to grow and remain profitable while paying creators, I think X can do the same. X already has the large user base that continues to grow and that will allow it to reach profitability sooner.