Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

theregister.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 99 posts

Re: Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

#41

Post by gyardley »

btilly wrote: post #30
ubernostrum wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument, in a nutshell, is "two wrongs do indeed make a right"?

I fail to see the second wrong. What did Google do? They built their own unlocked phone following the open reference platform that they helped create. And now they are trying to sell that phone on the open market. How is this wrong?

It's not wrong for end-users. But that's not what's being discussed.

The wrong is to mobile device manufacturers and networks, who were presumably led to believe that they would not be competing directly with Google itself. If they knew now what they knew then, they would have been much less likely to utilize Android. They feel misled.

When competing directly with your partners, it can sometimes be challenging to keep them as partners. But this is nothing new for Google.

Re: Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

#42

Post by JadeNB »

kl4m wrote: post #37
JadeNB wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cell phones are the internet. What?

He means "Cell phones ∈ Internet"

I'm not sure that I buy that one, either. Perhaps “Cell phones ⊆ Internet-accessing devices” or, for whimsy, something like “Cell phone :: Person → Internet”?

Re: Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

#43

Post by JadeNB »

btilly wrote: post #29
JadeNB wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cell phones are the internet. What?

In large parts of the world most people access the internet over their phone, not a computer. For example India. Even here in the USA people are moving towards using their phone as a primary way to connect with services delivered over the internet.

Sure, I would have bought some statement like “For many people, their cell phones are the way they access the Internet”; but “cell phones are the Internet” seems bizarre.

I didn't know that about India! When I was last there, it was all still Internet cafés. (Well, it was 8 years ago, so I guess it's no surprise that a lot has changed—besides which, I get the impression that the current generation is a lot quicker than Americans to pick up on new tech trends as they become available.)

Re: Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

#44

Post by JadeNB »

kl4m wrote: post #36
gaius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they aren't really cheating the consumers at all. If anything, they've been great to us The thing is this: the relationship that exists between me and T-mobile is, I pay them money and they provide me with voice and data and BlackBerry services. Now I'm obviously just one individual, but I am fairly representative of a high-value subset of T-mobile's customer base and as a collective, T-mobile's interests are well al…

How is it really different? If Google don't get you to use and keep using their service, they lose you as a product to sell to their advertising clientele. Users are still indirectly their revenue source.

> Users are still indirectly their revenue source.

It's not clear to me that that's enough. I think that a lot of the current state of the world can be explained by the inability of people—and companies are run by people, and, much as one would hope stupidity would experience destructive interference, it doesn't seem to do so—to pay attention to indirect effects of their actions.

(Maybe Google will avoid this trap—they have so far, emphasising discreet and inoffensive ads over the in-your-face ones that advertisers seem to prefer—but I wouldn't bet on it forever.)

Re: Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

#45

Post by bbuffone »

SwellJoe wrote: post #9

Since we've all been screwed by the mobile industry for the entirety of its existence, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel indignant towards Google for pissing off said industry. There are very few industries more arrogant and abusive than the telcos (at least in the US; I dunno about the UK), and if Google wants to take their place, I'm all for it. Instead of playing the consumer-screwing game better (like Apple d…

Everyone complains about the mobile industry but if I listed the industries that have or are currently screwing me mobile isn't even in the top 10.

Health-care, Insurance, Oil, Headphones, Government, Credit cards, Banking, Financial, Video Games, Cable then maybe mobile.

My mobile plan is one of the lowest monthly bills that I have based on amount of usage. To my knowledge it is one of the least subsidized industries. Are there issues? Sure. Could coverage be better? Sure. Would it be nice to have true consumption $/Mb pricing? Sure. Are they too locked down, Definitely, but the iPhone showed them what unlocking the phones to 3rd party developers can do.

I am not sure what another unlocked phone is going to do. The life-cycle of phones is shorter than the term of a mobile contract. So it really doesn't help me. If the phone allowed me auto-switch between AT&T and Verizon based on the best coverage and I paid Google on a $/Mb. That would be a game changer and push the mobile industry farther.

Re: Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

#46

Post by grogers »

btilly wrote: post #27
gaius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they aren't really cheating the consumers at all. If anything, they've been great to us The thing is this: the relationship that exists between me and T-mobile is, I pay them money and they provide me with voice and data and BlackBerry services. Now I'm obviously just one individual, but I am fairly representative of a high-value subset of T-mobile's customer base and as a collective, T-mobile's interests are well al…

Not exactly. The relationship you have with T-mobile is that they have signed you to a contract that locks you in to their service. At every turn T-mobile's goal is to lock you in, and once you're locked in they don't care about you. By contrast Google sets things up so that you can switch at any time, and they constantly have to keep you happy.

Not true. T-Mobile is one of the only carriers (at least in the US) that offers month-to-month service. If you don't like them then you can just switch to a different carrier and pay no penalties other than what you've already paid for that month.

So far I've been very happy with my service, but if a cheaper US nationwide GSM operator came on the scene, you can bet I'm going to switch if T-Mobile doesn't drop their price to match.

Re: Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

#47

Post by gaius »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #39
gaius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true, tho'. Come contract renewal time they are very accomodating. Or call them up and get through to Customer Retention and again, they'll bend over backwards. But my point stands. T-mobile is interested in keeping me happy, over the long term. Google is interested in keeping its advertisers happy. Given the choice between you or I and them, it will always choose them. That's why it wants all your…

Well sure. They'll seem like they'll do anything for you. But if you look at the cold, hard numbers you'll realize that the average phone contract sums out to maybe $1-2k over its life, with a pretty hefty profit margin. Of course they're going to "bend over backwards" for you at contract time. The used car salesman does the same thing. The rubes fall for the shtick nearly every time and the salesman laughs all the w…

Well, sure. Profit isn't a dirty word. But it is a mutual relationship in most cases, cash in return for goods or services. My relationship with Google is far murkier. I can't look at my account and see what is the cash equivalent I've paid them for Gmail this month - and make no mistake, if we weren't providing Google with something of cash value in return, we wouldn't be getting all these "free" services. What am I worth to Google as a "customer"? I've no idea. What level of service do they "owe" me? Well, none actually, there's no contract between us. That's a little disconcerting.

Re: Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

#48

Post by sokoloff »

bbuffone wrote: post #45
SwellJoe wrote: post #9

Since we've all been screwed by the mobile industry for the entirety of its existence, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel indignant towards Google for pissing off said industry. There are very few industries more arrogant and abusive than the telcos (at least in the US; I dunno about the UK), and if Google wants to take their place, I'm all for it. Instead of playing the consumer-screwing game better (like Apple d…

Everyone complains about the mobile industry but if I listed the industries that have or are currently screwing me mobile isn't even in the top 10. Health-care, Insurance, Oil, Headphones, Government, Credit cards, Banking, Financial, Video Games, Cable then maybe mobile. My mobile plan is one of the lowest monthly bills that I have based on amount of usage. To my knowledge it is one of the least subsidized industrie…

The Headphones industry is screwing you?

And specifically screwing you worse than the others you list later? I'm very curious to hear more about this...

Re: Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

#49

Post by fauigerzigerk »

gaius wrote: post #10
alexgartrell wrote: post #2

So, I'm kind of torn here. We're watching Google ascend to a position where they can bend numerous markets to their whim, but they aren't really cheating the consumers at all. If anything, they've been great to us. Beyond that, as a college kid with an interest in distributed systems/networks, I should probably be angling to try to work there someday. But still, I'm scared, because it's hard to trust a company that b…

they aren't really cheating the consumers at all. If anything, they've been great to us The thing is this: the relationship that exists between me and T-mobile is, I pay them money and they provide me with voice and data and BlackBerry services. Now I'm obviously just one individual, but I am fairly representative of a high-value subset of T-mobile's customer base and as a collective, T-mobile's interests are well al…

Tech support is one thing but the more problematic thing is that they have an incentive to spy on us to increase value for their actual customers, the advertisers.

But I'm torn, because google also has an incentive to make content available for free, which also makes it available anonymously.

Re: Google to mobile industry: 'F*** you very much'

#50

Post by ytinas »

jnovek wrote: post #32
ytinas wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until now every company has had a weakness. Namely, dominance in some other market could be used to undercut them on price. The way to battle such companies has been to undermine their dominant market, or use the same strategy with a different market. Advertising is so unquantifiable at the moment that you can't undermine Google's market by simply selling advertising more cheaply. You could try to make a better searc…

Substitute Google with Microsoft and the products with MS products (say, Windows and Office) and you would have a common doomsday monopoly prediction ca. 1998. You can probably do the same with IBM before MS, but I'm too young to know. 20 years from now you'll wonder what you were so afraid of. Google is in its golden age, but it won't last forever.

But MS had exactly the weakness I was talking about. If someone gives away their OS for free what will you do? Giving away advertising for free wont affect anything.
Post reply on HN