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Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

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Re: Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

#111

Post by mc32 »

bobdole1234 wrote: post #104
rhino369 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>More than 90% of their profits come online advertising, something that can be easily blocked for life with a simple browser extension/plugin. If I were Tim Cook, I'd be at least a little tempted to update iOS and OSX to include adblocking on by default.

The Google infrastructure now powers a chunk of icloud. I don't see apple killing the revenue stream that feeds their bottomless pool of capacity.

They are far from the only game in town, so why would Apple care if its a casualty of some business Realpolitik.

Re: Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

#112

Post by jfoster »

prostoalex wrote: post #105
f_allwein wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving cars: imagine you could just tap a button on your phone and a car came along to take you to your destination - you would not need to own a car anymore and instead pay a monthly fee to Alphabet (or whoever). The fee will be even lower if you agree to watch ads during the ride. ;-) But the big opportunity is that they could offer you a car-as-a-service for much less than the current cost of a car. Today's…

If you look at the financials of car rental companies, markets are not too eager to pay premium for a business that has high upfront capital cost (buying/manufacturing the vehicles) as well as high operating costs (car washes, maintenance, repairs). You could argue that Alphabet's margins will be so good as to obliterate those concerns, but then why haven't other operators in the space (GM owns some car rental busine…

The margins on Uber-like trips in self-driving cars might be better than the margins on day rental of conventional vehicles.

Self-driving changes quite a bit about cars. If accident rates can be low enough, they don't need as much conventional safety measures; air bags, metal armour that crumples, etc. Less weight there means lower fuel costs. The way they drive should mean lower maintenance & fuel costs compared with human drivers.

Re: Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

#113

Post by maxxxxx »

CydeWeys wrote: post #90
maxxxxx wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just shows that the smartest people in the world working on cool tech doesn't necessarily mean business success. It's a different kind of smarts.

Alphabet is the second largest publicly traded company in the world ... if that's not business success, what is? I think in these kinds of conversations we sometimes lose a little perspective.

Sorry, my post was not complete. No doubt they are doing great with their ad business. But they seem to struggle with making money from any of the other things they do. And to justify their valuation at some point they have make massive amounts of profit. Much more than they do now.

So it seems to me that some of the smartest guys doing the coolest tech in the world is not sufficient to making money.

Re: Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

#114

Post by trg2 »

mediocrejoker wrote: post #60
avar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't they sell products and be like an Apple, Oracle, Microsoft. Econ 101 on HN again. Aside from what Google's doing. You're assuming that the value someone personally derives from using something is the value other people derive from pushing it to them. I.e. you have ads on Google, some of which cost >$10. To the companies paying for them that makes sense, because they might be selling a product that costs $50…

Are the companies paying $10 per click? Otherwise I'm not sure you're making the appropriate comparison.

"mesothelioma attorneys" is $50+ per click.

Expected value of a class-action asbestos lawsuit = Millions? 10s of millions?

Re: Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

#115

Post by jfoster »

tma-1 wrote: post #11

Long-term, I am not very bullish on Google/Alphabet. More than 90% of their profits come online advertising, something that can be easily blocked for life with a simple browser extension/plugin. Some worrying figures[1]: * US ad blocking grew by 48% to reach 45 million active users in 12 months up to June 2015. * Ad blocking grew by 41% globally in the last 12 months. * US ad blocking grew by 48% to reach 45 million…

They can definitely have more of an effect against ad blocking if they choose to:

- Disable ad blocking in Chrome

- Block browsers blocking ads from Google search

- Release tools for AdSense that block content when ad blockers are detected

The downside to this would be in the backlash that would follow, but they will resort to these measures if ever their business is truly threatened by ad blocking.

Re: Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

#116

Post by jfoster »

bpodgursky wrote: post #59
tma-1 wrote: post #11

Long-term, I am not very bullish on Google/Alphabet. More than 90% of their profits come online advertising, something that can be easily blocked for life with a simple browser extension/plugin. Some worrying figures[1]: * US ad blocking grew by 48% to reach 45 million active users in 12 months up to June 2015. * Ad blocking grew by 41% globally in the last 12 months. * US ad blocking grew by 48% to reach 45 million…

If adblocking becomes a serious problem for Google, they can (and will) block the relevant extensions in Chrome. Also, mobile chrome (increasingly dominant worldwide) doesn't, and won't, have adblocking. Yes, I'm ignoring numerically insignificant installs like rooted hosts redirects, firefox mobile, opera, etc. Those aren't going to impact revenue.

Exactly. The main "real" concern would be iOS. Even that can be handled, though.

Re: Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

#117

Post by themartorana »

maxxxxx wrote: post #113
CydeWeys wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alphabet is the second largest publicly traded company in the world ... if that's not business success, what is? I think in these kinds of conversations we sometimes lose a little perspective.

Sorry, my post was not complete. No doubt they are doing great with their ad business. But they seem to struggle with making money from any of the other things they do. And to justify their valuation at some point they have make massive amounts of profit. Much more than they do now. So it seems to me that some of the smartest guys doing the coolest tech in the world is not sufficient to making money.

The struggle is moving the relative needle. I doubt they have trouble making money, but is it going to move that $20.3B number? Because in order to actually move it, it needs minimum revenues of $100,000,000.

I'm sure they make money in other pursuits (I'm sure GCE is doing some, and I hear their government contracts are sizable) but $100m just to tick up the revenue decimal point...

Re: Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

#118

Post by toomuchtodo »

maxxxxx wrote: post #113
CydeWeys wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alphabet is the second largest publicly traded company in the world ... if that's not business success, what is? I think in these kinds of conversations we sometimes lose a little perspective.

Sorry, my post was not complete. No doubt they are doing great with their ad business. But they seem to struggle with making money from any of the other things they do. And to justify their valuation at some point they have make massive amounts of profit. Much more than they do now. So it seems to me that some of the smartest guys doing the coolest tech in the world is not sufficient to making money.

How long did it take for Google to really start printing money? 5? Maybe 10 years? Think of those projects now not wildly profitable as the seeds of new, profitable businesses down the road.

Short term thinking, that's the problem with the equities market.

Re: Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

#119

Post by 1123581321 »

arthurcolle wrote: post #107
empath75 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the ads business goes to shit, the cloud business takes a beating, also.

Cloud is basically SaaS which is the antithesis of the advertisement model. But okay, I guess you must know better.

I believe the person to which you replied meant that a lot of cloud platforms/hosting revenue depends on ad-funded customers. If the customers go out of business and aren't replaced, subscription revenue suffers.

Re: Alphabet slides 5% after missing earnings expectations on revenue of $20.3B

#120

Post by rdtsc »

bpodgursky wrote: post #59
tma-1 wrote: post #11

Long-term, I am not very bullish on Google/Alphabet. More than 90% of their profits come online advertising, something that can be easily blocked for life with a simple browser extension/plugin. Some worrying figures[1]: * US ad blocking grew by 48% to reach 45 million active users in 12 months up to June 2015. * Ad blocking grew by 41% globally in the last 12 months. * US ad blocking grew by 48% to reach 45 million…

If adblocking becomes a serious problem for Google, they can (and will) block the relevant extensions in Chrome. Also, mobile chrome (increasingly dominant worldwide) doesn't, and won't, have adblocking. Yes, I'm ignoring numerically insignificant installs like rooted hosts redirects, firefox mobile, opera, etc. Those aren't going to impact revenue.

What can they do for Firefox then? I am already using, not because of ads, just because I like it better. But imagine as soon as they do something like peole will immediately switch their browsers.
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