There's the obvious "eyeballs to ads" thing, but this snippet from Slashdot makes an interesting point:

Google's core business model revolves around "fair use" and similar provisions of copyright law. I think they are most vulnerable in this area-- look at Belgium. So Google needed to buy YouTube for a couple of reasons related to this.

The first is because YouTube's business model also revolves around many of the same "fair use" provisions, and if YouTube loses its upcoming court cases, the fallout could fatally poison Google's business model. It would be very hard for Google to immunize itself from any judgments against YouTube that changed the interpretation of copyright law. Purchasing YouTube allows Google to directly counter such an attack with all its resources. It also decreases the likelihood of such an attack, since all the ambulance chasers who were smacking their lips in anticipation of an easy meal from YouTube's carcass are now slinking away, looking for easier prey that won't be able to fend them off for years with delaying tactics.

Under that theory, Google is a net loser if an (un-acquired) YouTube gets sued into oblivion, setting ugly fair use precedents on their way down. This way, Google gets to make their case (with their own high priced lawyers) if it comes to that. Note that Google went to visit Fox (MySpace) yesterday; they have a lot more clout in that meeting than YouTube would have had.

So to summarize: the YouTube buy wasn't just forward marketing, it was a defensive ploy. I might just buy that.

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