It's largely been the advertising people/tech that has made Youtube profitable. Not infrastructure effectiveness. (Sure, I imagine infra cost effectiveness was very important during a few key growth years pre-acquisition.)
YT is worth so much because it is a monopoly. To make it monopoly it is today, Google had to have: extremely deep pockets, efficient infrastructure. Very few other companies could have accomplished that.
I thought they had to sell YT because they were starting to get sued into the ground because it was mainly hosting SNL and South Park clips at the time
It's largely been the advertising people/tech that has made Youtube profitable. Not infrastructure effectiveness. (Sure, I imagine infra cost effectiveness was very important during a few key growth years pre-acquisition.)