Nest is the Second YouTube

For Google, Nest is the second YouTube. Many are still raising their eyebrows learning the amount Google paid for Nest. Bit it is not much different to the purchase of YouTube for $1.65B back in 2006. Today YouTube remains one of the reasons Apple cannot force Google out of their platform. Just think about iPhone or iPad NOT being able to access YouTube. And with the accumulated content and audience it is probably not possible today to launch a service that would take the traffic away from YouTube. And YouTube is far from a funny cat videos site anymore. It is an extremely powerful educational platform. The most popular site from rural Vietnam to Manhattan to learn how to cook pancakes or replace a hard drive or make manicure. And now it is about to introduce a premium subscription service that will probably kill dozen of existing music streaming sites.

Back in 2006 Google envisioned the role of Internet video in the next decade. In 2014 they envisioned the role IoT ecosystem will play a few years from now. So they bought Nest, to get a head start with IoT. There was simply no better candidate and they woke up realizing either they'd do it or somebody else would.