When most people think of online video they think of a couple sources.  YouTube and Google Video are probably in most people's Top 5 places to find online video.  And since YouTube really is Google now, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that most people think of Google when it comes to online video.  And indeed they should.  With it's purchase of YouTube last year, Google firmly secured the top spot for online video distribution.

And that's why I found an article at Yahoo News about the issues facing the Internet as a whole because of the rise of online video and file sharing.

Of all the companies to take a firm stand against the Internet as a conduit for online video, Google wouldn't be the group that I'd guess would make an appearance.  But they didn't just make an appearance.  At the recent Cable Europe Congress, Google's head of Television Technologies, Vincent Dureau, had this to say:

The Web infrastructure, and even Google's (infrastructure) doesn't scale. It's not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect.

Dureau went on to tell those in attendance, which included heads of major European cable companies, that the Internet was not designed for television and 'wanred' companies thinking about distributing video programming over the Internet that such a move could hurt the Internet has a whole.  But that wasn't all Dureau said:

Google instead offered to work together with cable operators to combine its technology for searching for video and TV footage and its tailored advertising with the cable networks' high-quality delivery of shows. 

Ok.  Step back for a moment.  This is all coming from the reining king of distributed online video.  Google and its services send more video through the pipes that any other single company.  Sure… people share videos through P2P networks and the like.  But as far as corporations go, no one is more into the online video scene right now than Google.

At first I was a little confused about Google's reasoning for issuing such a warning.  Why would the company that has more to do with online video than anyone else be telling a huge a group of influential cable television executives that the Internet was not "made for TV"?

Well it didn't take long for me to figure it out.

First of all, Google doesn't want any real competition.  Scary warnings and talk about the destruction of the Internet might just be enough to keep new companies from trying to come in and take over the space.  I mean… who wants their company to be credited with killing the Internet… right?  And speaking to cable company leaders is a perfect way for that message to get passed along to networks and content providers.  The message is pretty simple:

… don't try to start your own branded online video solutions… because you might destroy the Internet… but look… YouTube can already handle it… just use them…

And second of all, Google's offer to work with cable companies just sounds like a back door into another industry.  Of course Google wants to get its advertising system integrated with the television!  Other than service as a place for more ad revenue, what does Google's "tailored advertising" have to do with the Internet's inability to handle online video?  The two are not related in the least.

Google wants to scare new companies, cable companies, and networks away from online video.  At the same time, they want to get their advertising fingers in on the game.  And who'd need Google for advertising if all the networks had their own online video solutions?  An ad-subsidized deal to distribute television content in channels on YouTube makes more sense for Google. 

Sneaky, sneaky tactic, Google.

I'm not an engineer so I can't say whether there's any merit to Google's claim about the inability of the Internet to handle online video.  And do I think it's a bad thing that cable companies have to keep investing just to stand still?  No.  Not at all.  Cable companies charge outrageous prices for their service.  Do you think prices would suddenly drop if they didn't have to invest that money into staying afloat?  Of course not.  So I have no pity for huge cable corporations that complain about having to spend money to keep their companies going.  It's called "business".