So to buy YouTube will set you back $1.5 billion, which seems high at first, but not so high if you consider all the eyeballs honed on it (100 million videos watched a day?!?), and all the VCs and companies looking for an exit strategy or vindication that the next big thing is really here and now.

As a user, I like YouTube and they pretty much burst onto the scene in the form of work emails linking to funny videos. They made web video easy: instant play; no more QuickTime, Real, or Windows Media players, and no ads.

The second novelty was allowing users to embed YouTube videos in their own websites by pasting code, no strings attached. This strategy spread links back to YouTube and all the bandwith is YouTube’s problem.

The last surprise is that there are so many people willing to film themselves and upload clips to YouTube. Who knew there was an audience for bored suburban teenagers lipsyncing to Aqua in their bedrooms (maybe the same teenagers are the audience)?

That said, is all this worth $1.5 billion? Who knows, but if YouTube is sold for anywhere near that price, it will blow open Web 2.0 like Netscape’s IPO in 1995. If you think there are too many Web 2.0 video sites right now (173!), soon every MBA will be pitching one.

I’ll play it safe and say YouTube will be sold but at a much lower price. Most users just want to watch videos, and I don’t think it matters to them that said videos are hosted on YouTube in particular. Second, it’s unknown if people will continue to watch YouTube videos once advertising comes into the picture, which will likely be a necessity if YouTube wants to ever make money. Lastly, if there’s a crackdown on copyrighted content, it may cost YouTube some users. I think the audience of bored teenagers can overcome this issue, however.

Guess I’m really riding the fence here, but it will be interesting to see how things go either way.

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