1. Stupidly obvious wins. Filesharing caught on because people wanted to download music for free. Youtube was the obvious next step — share video.

2. Push the rules. More than a few people have said Youtube is a copyright infringdement honeypot. Neither Napster nor Kazaa had the law on their side. Why should Youtube?

3. Social networking is very profitable. At least, it can be profitable for you if you can exploit its traffic stream.

4. Sometimes it pays to be a big loser. Youtube has been footing a bandwidth bill big enough to rival a mega-yacht’s fuel bill at full power. Hosting videos when no advertising is displayed compounds the problem.

5. The big three rivalry can be your gain. Google wants to be first. So does Microsoft. So does Yahoo. The worst case scenario for a company looking for a buyout is having one company being in the market to buy you. Three companies with obnoxiously deep pockets? Home run.