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Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

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Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#161

Post by ForHackernews »

user5994461 wrote: post #144
ForHackernews wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really hard problems, problems that might reveal that Google is not omnipotent, where Google might not succeed, Google pulls back from. I've heard this phrased as "Google has the good fortune to be operating in a field where being 90% right 90% of the time is more than good enough" If the search result you want is number 3 instead of number 1, that's totally acceptable. If your ad-targeting is good but not perfect,…

> "Google has the good fortune to be operating in a field where being 90% right 90% of the time is more than good enough" I don't think it's an accurate view. It was good enough when they started. Now they are doing a lot better than that. The results are moved dynamically per user over hundreds of criteria. It really is not a dumb search/ad engine that anyone could replicate easy. They have evolved to be damn effici…

> It really is not a dumb search/ad engine that anyone could replicate easy.

I'm not saying it's simple or could be replicated easily. I'm saying that the marginal improvements they've made don't really matter that much to users.

I mostly use DuckDuckGo these days, and its native search results are markedly inferior to Google's, but it basically doesn't matter because I still almost always get what I want on the first page of results.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#162

Post by shuntress »

thearn4 wrote: post #97
matwood wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of Valve's no manager management style: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-04-27/why-there... When you have a lot of money, a lot of things work because you have a lot of money. You often see the same thing with people trying to emulate pro-athletes training methods. A genetically gifted pro-athlete can often succeed in spite of their training, and not necessarily because of their training.

The endless spigot of cash from Steam is something that does enable Valve to take some very experimental leaps (VR, Steam machines, SteamOS, etc.) In my opinion, Valve also has the same shortcomings as google: practically zero customer support, and an un-curated app platform full of shovelware (finding gems on the Steam and the Google Play & Chrome Web Stores can be tricky). But there is still a ton to admire in both…

You don't use steam to find gems. Steam is just where you go to buy them.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#163

Post by DamnYuppie »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #46

That Porat person is a serious contender for buzzkill of the year. Google makes tons of money with ads and spends it on geeky experiments to try to push a futuristic envelope (and create an environments where they can sell more ads, like a self-driving car) we'll all benefit from eventually and she gets to be the person that locks the toys away because "financial discipline".

I don't think that is necessarily true. I am hard pressed to think of anything out side of search that Google has released that has really pushed a futuristic envelope.

I feel their current approach is sensible. Research at a for profit organization has to have a path to profitability. Long term this will enable them to more efficiently distribute their funds to projects that will see the light of day, generate revenue, and feedback into the cycle.

M(r)?s. Porat is merely efficiently carrying out financial accountability, which is what your CFO should be doing. Their job title should simply be "Boring Buzzkill", which if they live up to it they are doing a fantastic job!!

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#164

Post by Animats »

“No one wants to face the reality that this is an advertising company with a bunch of hobbies.”

Remember Nokia. They produced mobile phones with excellent quality, extreme ruggedness, good battery life, and good voice quality. Their manufacturing was highly automated and their costs were low. They focused on their core business. Recently, their CEO said "We did everything right, and we lost anyway".

On the other hand, Google has repeatedly failed to develop a second big money-making product. They failed at social. They failed at fiber-to-the-home. Android is a loss leader to drive ad traffic. Automatic driving may pay off, but that is being a component supplier to an car company, not a high-profit business. Google's second venture into smartphones might be a success, but that remains to be seen.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#166

Post by Animats »

dispose13432 wrote: post #73
vkou wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, free markets beat out top-down managed economies because they have competing teams seeking to provide the same services. Tech is, to an extent, a winner-takes-all market. If you build out two competing products internally, in the long run, it will cost you less then building one product, and having an outside competitor fight you for market share, by building that second product. Case in point: I'm sure that Fac…

They don't seem to play free market. They seem to play "new guy takes all". For example, Google Voice was put in maintenance mode and Hangouts took off. Then Allo, then ... ? They very rarely actively push two products with the same purpose.

Google Voice, previously Grand Central, was in maintenance mode from when it was first acquired. Google never improved it much.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#168

Post by bad_user »

user5994461 wrote: post #132
sahaj wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"All of Google's products are complementary products that create lock-in" I disagree. Chrome was created to be a standards based browser, Android to unify the different phone operating systems circa 2004. I picked Google products because they allowed me to get out if I needed to. Gmail provides IMAP, POP. Docs and Music let you take out your data as needed. Google intentionally creates a way to get your data out. All…

They're just ad distributing products. Ever tried to install an adblocker on Android? There isn't anything you can do without rooting your phone. Seriously, it should be called Addroid. Ever tried to install adblock/ublock on Chrome? only to find out that it doesn't exist in the chrome store or was removed again.

Well, actually Android is the most friendly mobile platform for ad-blockers, or other hacks.

What you're complaining about is Chrome for Android, but then again Android is also the only mobile platform supported by a real Firefox implementation that has plugins, including ad-blockers.

You're talking about rooting the phone, I guess you want /etc/hosts or something, but you know, even on the desktop that kind of solution requires sudo rights. This one is entirely about security and really, Android is not that hard to root.

And even though I'm a Firefox user on the desktop, I've also used Chrome with AdBlock Plus and then uBlock Origin and never had any problems.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#169

Post by sbov »

user5994461 wrote: post #156
dionidium wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't missing that point. They are making the opposite point. Google had a great product at the right time and they executed well. Now it makes billions . All the other stuff is most likely incidental.

And I'm making the point that they executed well because of what they are, and were from the start. Google didn't suddenly transformed to being Google overnight the day they reached the first $1B.

How many successful companies do the exact opposite of Google? Have you done any research to determine which company succeeded: in spite of, because of, or no effect, from these models? What about the - surely - hundreds or thousands of companies that failed with Google (or not Google's) model?

Trying to imitate success seems to turn into a cargo cult. For whatever reason people seem to shutoff their brains when talking about this.

Re: Google Makes So Much Money, It Never Had to Worry About Financial Discipline

#170

Post by VikingCoder »

shuntress wrote: post #162
thearn4 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The endless spigot of cash from Steam is something that does enable Valve to take some very experimental leaps (VR, Steam machines, SteamOS, etc.) In my opinion, Valve also has the same shortcomings as google: practically zero customer support, and an un-curated app platform full of shovelware (finding gems on the Steam and the Google Play & Chrome Web Stores can be tricky). But there is still a ton to admire in both…

You don't use steam to find gems. Steam is just where you go to buy them.

Why don't they let people offer curated lists, right in Steam?
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