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Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

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Re: Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

#81

Post by Eridrus »

Animats wrote: post #46

$19bn. We all knew about Google paying Apple to stay on the iPhone. That's $3bn.[1] There's the old deal with Mozilla to be the default search engine in Firefox, but that's over. But there must be a lot of other deals to add up to $19 billion. That Google has to pay to be on the front of Android handsets is surprising. Isn't that enforced by the bundling agreement Google requires to use the Google-proprietary parts o…

Microsoft gives OEMs a $10 discount if they use the "Windows with Bing" edition: https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-81-bing-costs-10-oems...

I think Android has some revenue sharing agreements with handset manufacturers that are more generous, but Android manufacturers theoretically have more options than Windows OEMs.

Re: Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

#82

Post by Eridrus »

shubhamjain wrote: post #12

I wonder how worse it'll play out if Google pulled the plug and stopped paying these fees. These companies would be left with nothing but inferior alternatives (Bing, Yahoo, maybe DDG?). Mozilla tried this by cutting out Google for its default search engine and I don't think it made any meaningful difference. I think, in a certain sense, Google is a risk-averse company. It simply won't gamble with its user base, no m…

I found some statistics a while ago that seemed to indicate a big chunk of Firefox users who got Yahoo as the default, kept Yahoo as the default.

Re: Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

#83

Post by racer-v »

wil421 wrote: post #68
Larrikin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple thriving app stores in the global android market

I’ll take one App Store over many anyday if it severely lessons the chance of getting malware.

Would you also take one news source over many if it lessens the chance of seeing "fake news"?

Re: Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

#84

Post by scholia »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #71
psykotic wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and the AFA has a pro-developer and pro-consumer side by reducing fragmentation. But I think it's important to understand that the open source aspect of Android is a small part of the story in practice for device makers. The narrative that Google is just "giving it away for free" is naive at best for the very reason you state: they're a profit-driven megacorp.

Can you name another OS that has had as many forks as Android?

Unix ;-)

Re: Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

#85

Post by rayiner »

mankash666 wrote: post #17
psykotic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's rather sad that Google needs to pay Android makers a fee for installing it's apps, given how Google gives away source code that makes Android exist in the first place. This is a very innocent view of Google's business practices in this area. Google has a tight hold over most device makers through anti-fragmentation agreements and other contracts if they want GMS and want early access to the non-public AOSP tre…

You're free to run your own app store, like Amazon fire devices, and not subscribe to GMS. Why shouldn't Google get something in return for enabling phone makers with an OS and app store? They're a for profit company after all

Wouldn’t it be better to just sell a product in exchange for money, instead of all this backdoor stuff? Like the good old days of Symbian.

Re: Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

#86

Post by kibwen »

Eridrus wrote: post #82
shubhamjain wrote: post #12

I wonder how worse it'll play out if Google pulled the plug and stopped paying these fees. These companies would be left with nothing but inferior alternatives (Bing, Yahoo, maybe DDG?). Mozilla tried this by cutting out Google for its default search engine and I don't think it made any meaningful difference. I think, in a certain sense, Google is a risk-averse company. It simply won't gamble with its user base, no m…

I found some statistics a while ago that seemed to indicate a big chunk of Firefox users who got Yahoo as the default, kept Yahoo as the default.

My own anecdote: when Yahoo became the default for Firefox, the drop in quality was noticeable, but not enough for me to abandon it immediately. I gave it time to see whether the difference in quality was only because of the extensive profile that Google has on me. After a while I stopped realizing that the search results weren't Google (it helps that Yahoo revamped their results page to imitate Google, which was probably a very wise decision); it turns out, that for most of my searches, Google-level quality doesn't matter (e.g. "apple turnover recipe"). I switched from Yahoo to Bing once the Verizon buyout began. Nowadays I only search Google when I need to find an obscure and specific page that isn't already in my browser history (since Firefox's history search via the URL bar is damn good).

Re: Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

#87

Post by kibwen »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #23
shubhamjain wrote: post #12

I wonder how worse it'll play out if Google pulled the plug and stopped paying these fees. These companies would be left with nothing but inferior alternatives (Bing, Yahoo, maybe DDG?). Mozilla tried this by cutting out Google for its default search engine and I don't think it made any meaningful difference. I think, in a certain sense, Google is a risk-averse company. It simply won't gamble with its user base, no m…

>Mozilla tried this by cutting out Google for its default search engine Did Mozilla really cut out Google or did Google not want to renew the deal after it expired?

Word on the street is that Meyer was desperate enough for market share that they actually outbid Google for the Firefox deal. I think Mozilla is supposed to publicly release financial data every three years, and the last time was 2014, so we might know for certain soon.

Re: Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

#88

Post by scholia »

simonh wrote: post #9
mankash666 wrote: post #2

It's rather sad that Google needs to pay Android makers a fee for installing it's apps, given how Google gives away source code that makes Android exist in the first place. On the contrary, Apple's ecosystem is completely closed, app cut fairly high and non-negotiable at 30% and app store rejections arbitrary at best and blatantly anti competitive at worst. In the name of user centricity, their platform places arbitr…

The thing is if you sell a device running your software, there's no law that says you have to build in features and support for anyone else to install their own software. Feature phones are also computers, but there's no mandatory regulation compelling vendors to allow installation of third party software. Going a step further, if you sold a device with a proprietary only app store, so it can only run software you pr…

Android market share in Europe is around 75%. When you have a monopoly market share, you get treated differently, as Microsoft found.

Otherwise, Google wasn't found guilty of anything to do with software or apps. It was found guilty of abusing its monopoly market power by promoting its own shopping comparison service at the expense of rivals.

I think we all expect Google to deliver honest and fair search results. When it delivers results that favor its own properties, users are being cheated.

Re: Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

#89

Post by msie »

holtalanm wrote: post #47
_ea1k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with some of your critique, but I also think you are giving Apple a little too much credit. Yes you can compile and install your own software, but AFAIK, you have to pay a yearly fee for the privilege of doing so. This isn't nearly as open as Android phones, where it is a simple matter of checking a box. I definitely agree with you that Google isn't giving away the code for philanthropic reasons, though. I ca…

>Yes you can compile and install your own software, but AFAIK, you have to pay a yearly fee for the privilege of doing so Yes. And you have to own one of their overpriced computers too.

Really tired of this argument. Do you really expect to do software development with little to no investment in software and hardware? Even if you are just developing for Android you need to buy a PC and an Android device. If you want to test Android software on a PC be prepared to spend money to get a machine powerful enough to run Android emulators at a tolerable speed.

Re: Google's $19B Black Box Is Worrying Investors

#90

Post by scholia »

fleitz wrote: post #36
mankash666 wrote: post #2

It's rather sad that Google needs to pay Android makers a fee for installing it's apps, given how Google gives away source code that makes Android exist in the first place. On the contrary, Apple's ecosystem is completely closed, app cut fairly high and non-negotiable at 30% and app store rejections arbitrary at best and blatantly anti competitive at worst. In the name of user centricity, their platform places arbitr…

Likely Google because Apple doesn't enjoy significant market share in the EU

iOS market share in the UK is generally over 40% and has approached 50%.

http://uk.kantar.com/tech/mobile/2017/april-great-britain-sm...

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