YouTube now has over 1.8 billion users every month, within spitting distance of Facebook's 2 billion

• YouTube is now pulling in over 1.8 billion users every month - and that's just the people who are logged in.
• That makes YouTube Google's most popular service, with even more users than Gmail.
• YouTube's monthly user number is nearing that of Facebook, the world's largest platform, which has over 2 billion users.

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YouTube is even bigger than Gmail, and nearly as big as Facebook, with over 1.8 billion monthly logged-in users.

The absurdly high user number was announced by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki on Thursday night during the company's annual Brandcast advertising event, according to Variety.Alongside the user number, Wojcicki unveiled YouTube's plans to renew several shows that've been a hit with viewers: Two shows from comedian/actor Kevin Hart, and "The Super Slow Show" from The Slow Mo Guys. Additionally, a new show is coming from musician Demi Lovato.

But let's not kid ourselves: Most of the 1.8 billion people watching YouTube are watching for YouTube stars like Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg. His channel alone has over 62 million subscribers.

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The top channels list on YouTube is dominated by popular YouTube producers like PewDiePie, and musicians like Justin Bieber. All of which is to say one thing: Though YouTube's pushing hard into scripted content, it's unlikely that said content is driving much of the huge user numbers YouTube is seeing.

Either way, the video streaming service is absolutely dominant - there's no real comparison to YouTube in terms of competition. And now, with over 1.8 billion logged in users, it's harder than ever for another company to catch up.Get the latest Google stock price here.