There isn't enough evidence to back up his claims, especially about artificial intelligence. His claim that Amazon with Alexa will succeed in the marketplace is not definite at all. It's true Alexa has a head start, but Google is catching up to it. The situation kind of reminds me of android in 2010 vs. the iPhone. Look what happened there.
How Google Could Collapse
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Re: How Google Could Collapse
#12"Ads are cool as long as they are relevant to me," said no one ever (who wasn't in the business of selling online advertising). (EDIT: typo)
I've said this. I signed up for Blue Apron from a Facebook ad, and it's one of the greatest things to happen to me. I think that's the only time that's ever happened for me, tho.
yeah, i click on ads all the time - the ones i've opted into via email or that are very well targeted at what i'm currently searching to buy.
companies run specials and i buy stuff if i need it. it's pretty simple, i don't see why people on HN are so insanely negative about it.
Re: How Google Could Collapse
#13So short it
Exactly, they are still at almost $20B in quarterly ad revenue. Facebook is their only competitor because of its captive and mobile audience. Plus they are already diversifying with more bets on the cloud plus things like Waymo, etc. Edit: misquoted data thinking it was yearly not quarterly.
More like nearly $80 billion in yearly ad revenue. $20 billion is their profit.
Re: How Google Could Collapse
#14Maybe.
My own experience is quite the opposite, though. As a user, I dislike ads and run uBlock Origin everywhere.
But as a seller (Amazon FBA), I have found Google Ads to be incredibly effective. Much more so than Sponsored Products on Amazon, which goes on to suggest that not all product searches start on Amazon.
Also, using Amazon tools for sellers is not a very pleasant experience. Everything is either broken or extremely complex, or inconsistent, or all three at a time. And let's not mention MWS (just look at the API documentation, it doesn't seem to have been updated since 1999).
AWS is still fantastic, but clearly Seller Central wasn't built - and isn't maintained - by the same team!
I think it's very possible that Amazon could collapse on its own weight -- if for example amazon.com became unavailable for a few days, and then had a hard time coming back up, etc.
Amazon is a machine of infinite complexity, and the way they deal with it is to add more people, which makes it super bureaucratic (very far from the lean mean machine they project to the outside world).
We'll see.
Re: How Google Could Collapse
#15Relevant Taleb tweet: "A man is honorable in proportion to the personal risks he takes for his opinion."
Re: How Google Could Collapse
#16For context, Here's Alphabet's quarterly financial results released yesterday: https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2017/Q1_alphabet_earn... Revenue is up 24% year over year. Beat analyst expectations, so the stock jumped ~4% yesterday.
And even if revenue did start dropping, unless it totally collapses overnight, Alphabet's enormous cash stockpile buys a lot of breathing room.
Re: How Google Could Collapse
#17There isn't enough evidence to back up his claims, especially about artificial intelligence. His claim that Amazon with Alexa will succeed in the marketplace is not definite at all. It's true Alexa has a head start, but Google is catching up to it. The situation kind of reminds me of android in 2010 vs. the iPhone. Look what happened there.
Honestly in my mind Google is already passing Amazon and their Alexa.
They just released an update to their Google Home which does individual voice recognition per person to offer individualized results for each, even going as far as to play my favorite playlists when asked, and my wife's when she asks.
Re: How Google Could Collapse
#18Maybe. My own experience is quite the opposite, though. As a user, I dislike ads and run uBlock Origin everywhere. But as a seller (Amazon FBA), I have found Google Ads to be incredibly effective. Much more so than Sponsored Products on Amazon, which goes on to suggest that not all product searches start on Amazon. Also, using Amazon tools for sellers is not a very pleasant experience. Everything is either broken or…
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Re: How Google Could Collapse
#19Summary: more people are blocking ads and starting product searches at Amazon, so Google will lose their core business.
And yet, the growth of Google's core business isn't declining and it hasn't even leveled off -- growth is actually accelerating!
Year-over-year revenues are growing faster now than they did last year.
Same thing with earnings.
And margins are expanding instead of shrinking.
Source: https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2017/Q1_alphabet_earn...
Not exactly what you'd expect to see from a business model in decline.
Re: How Google Could Collapse
#20I find it hilarious that people think something like Alexa / Google Home is anything but a gimmicky ad, let alone the future of computing. Like other ad supported content--Gmail for example--it has some useful features. Also like other ad supported mechanisms of the past, it's a huge invasion of a user's privacy for little gain. When this thing is actually "smart" (whatever that means) enough to do something useful without phoning back to Amazon and when that thing isn't just buying useless shit from Amazon, let's revisit. Until then, let's remember that this is just another medium for advertising. Nothing more. Nothing less. Google does, however, specialize and excel at one thing: advertising. I wouldn't count them out just yet.