Youtube had massive free promotion too but according to the book 'In the Plex' by Steven Levy, Youtube's founders and VC backers knew the only viable path forward was an acquisition. In that case Youtube's massive fees for sending data and lack of advertising system were going to result in continued massive losses unless someone who had a structural advantage in reducing those costs acquired it. Google did: (at the time of the acquisition the book says Google with its fibre and agreements could ship Youtube's data for $83m a year vs c. half a billion for anyone else). Google could also leverage its advertising infrastructure to increase revenues. Given how other commenters are highlighting the massive employee bloat at Twitter, especially in the advertising department, I can see this being the case here too (and am somewhat surprised at the report based on anonymous sources that Google are out of the bidding).
I was illustrating another situation where the only viable path forward was an acquisition in response to the parent comment. I was not suggesting that there would be comparable hardware cost savings at Twitter. The comparison which I did make to Twitter was regarding advertising delivery where I said "Google could also leverage its advertising infrastructure to increase revenues. Given how other commenters are highlighting the massive employee bloat at Twitter, especially in the advertising department, I can see this being the case here too (and am somewhat surprised at the report based on anonymous sources that Google are out of the bidding)."
