How did Google get so big? • Hacker News Board

Re: How did Google get so big?

#321

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 2:49 AM UTC

tylerhou wrote: post #166

zjaffee wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are their products that good? What is it that makes content creators publish on youtube rather than on other platforms. I'd argue that a huge part of this is the fact that youtube gives creators more visibility than other places, and since google is able to leverage search in addition to their advertising business to bring more eyes to youtube is the reason for the platforms success. I think your confusing google…

There are Google products which are inferior compared to their competitors, and usage rates show that as well: YouTube Gaming/YT livestreaming are basically platforms that only host people banned from Twitch.

Youtube live will keep vods for life and has had a DVR feature since release. Twitch doesn't do either.

They tend to release great products, their problem is that they just don't always do it first.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#322

Post by themacguffinman » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 2:49 AM UTC

zjaffee wrote: post #146

bepotts wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I really don't understand why people try and muddy the waters around Google products. I'm not forced to use Google; Google products are just damn good. Having a monopoly in a market due to the fact that your product is just that good isn't a bad thing, and punishing companies for being successful sets an awful precedent (which is why breaking up Google isn't going to happen). From search, maps, email, YouTub…

Why are their products that good? What is it that makes content creators publish on youtube rather than on other platforms. I'd argue that a huge part of this is the fact that youtube gives creators more visibility than other places, and since google is able to leverage search in addition to their advertising business to bring more eyes to youtube is the reason for the platforms success. I think your confusing google…

I still see plenty of other video listings from other sites in my Google search results, and even if they're ranked above equivalent YouTube results I always pick the YouTube listing.

I have no doubts why I do this; YouTube provides a far better experience. It's incredibly bandwidth efficient even when my connection is slow, it's very responsive when seeking, and their time-to-first-video-frame is really good. And perhaps most importantly, it's consistently good. I don't get UI or playback issues every 10th video.

I cannot say the same for any other video host I've come across in my life. It's ridiculous how far ahead YouTube is on technology alone, and I still haven't found any site that can match it.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#323

Post by jotz » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 2:50 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #315

jonny_eh wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase is not the next Google. They provide no actual value, beyond making it easy to join a bubble. Google's value proposition in the early days was enormous, very obvious, and continues to this day.

If you have already accepted cryptocurrencies as the wave of the future, Coinbase provides enormous value. You can't do much in the crypto world without owning some cryptocurrencies, and they are the largest, easiest to use, and generally most trusted way to exchange $USD for Bitcoin or Ethereum. Most Americans have not accepted that premise (and I don't exclude myself...I'm on the fence as for whether crypto is a bu…

In 1996 the internet was in every imp University campus worldwide and every CS dept had multiple labs working on a lot of the what most people take for granted today that allowed the internet to scale.

No such thing is happening with bitcoin. You can't scale something to internet levels if its banned in half the worlds research labs.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#324

Post by acct1771 » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 2:52 AM UTC

karmelapple wrote: post #272

buboard wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google didn't invent online ads, not even the auctioned ones. Also, their innovations in the online ad space were generally limited to their search-based ad business.

And Apple didn’t invent the smartphone, but they reimagined it in a way that basically made things 10X better in UX, just like buying ads on google is 10X better than the process described earlier.

s/better/easier, to be safe

Re: How did Google get so big?

#325

Post by trishume » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:09 AM UTC

hellllllllooo wrote: post #75

ur-whale wrote: post #25

Why is Google being big a problem? Who are they hurting by being big at this time? [edit]: to elaborate, I was under the impression that the whole point of anti-monopoly regulations was to protect consumers from monopolistic predatory practices, not to prevent monopolies from actually existing per se. Hence my question: is there anyone actually being hurt by the currently limited choice of search engines or phone ope…

One example: By preventing phone manufacturers who use Android and Google services from also selling phones with other operating systems they are killing the opportunity for another phone OS from gaining traction. We could have missed out on the opportunity for something better than Android being developed and we'll never know. It's called dumping; flooding the market with something free to kill competition and make…

If I'm not mistaken, they contractually limited manufacturers from selling devices with Android forks, according to Google to avoid experience fragmentation.

AFAIK the terms didn't limit any other operating systems not based on Android.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#326

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:21 AM UTC

acover wrote: post #30

wilsonnb2 wrote: post #6

So if Google is a monopoly, what should be done about it? Split it up into separate, competing mini-Googles? Keep fining them more and more money until they stop anti-competitive practices? Split off Maps/Android/Drive/etc into separate companies so that Google can't use their search monopoly to dominate those fields? I'm genuinely not sure what the best way to go about this would be.

Technology often leads to a natural monopoly as it has high fixed costs and low variable costs. One way I can see changing this dynamic is using open source services. That way anyone is able to clone, improve or change them. Provide consumer choice. However businesses are aiming for monopolies. Crowd funding and open source might change the dynamic. It's probably too late for search as the lead is too far. I also dou…

True, though I'm coming to conclude that's only explaining a portion of the dynamic. Technlogy also produces points of control -- either of exclusion or coercion.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#327

Post by orteam » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:34 AM UTC

hellllllllooo wrote: post #75

ur-whale wrote: post #25

Why is Google being big a problem? Who are they hurting by being big at this time? [edit]: to elaborate, I was under the impression that the whole point of anti-monopoly regulations was to protect consumers from monopolistic predatory practices, not to prevent monopolies from actually existing per se. Hence my question: is there anyone actually being hurt by the currently limited choice of search engines or phone ope…

One example: By preventing phone manufacturers who use Android and Google services from also selling phones with other operating systems they are killing the opportunity for another phone OS from gaining traction. We could have missed out on the opportunity for something better than Android being developed and we'll never know. It's called dumping; flooding the market with something free to kill competition and make…

This is false. Samsung and others made Microsoft phones as long as it was a viable alternative. Google restricted others to prevent a split of their own platform - Android.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#328

Post by fooker » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:39 AM UTC

dmead wrote: post #313

wallflower wrote: post #8

If I could give a six word response for the technical side: "Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat and team". To paraphrase some Cal/UC Berkeley professor that I cannot remember, he said that the problem with scaling is that when you go up a magnitude or more, you may need a qualitatively different solution for the same problem. Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat and their team have time and time again managed to design and build st…

"And now their team's attention is on AI..." is quite the hype thing to say. Just because you can build a bigger bridge doesn't mean you're a good car designer.

They have proven they are a good 'car designer' too over the last 3 years.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#329

Post by ebikelaw » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:47 AM UTC

kimdotcom wrote: post #125

tinbad wrote: post #17

"Some were investigated, but only superficially, the government just really isn't enforcing our antitrust laws. And that's what's happened. None of these acquisitions have been challenged." Behemoths like Google emerge every time new inventions lead to the creation of new markets followed by mass adoption during a relatively short timeframe, when regulations don't exist yet. It has happened in history time and time a…

Why did Google succeed and Yahoo fail?

At the same time google was stocking every level of their org chart with legendary engineers, Yahoo appointed a demented Scientologist from Hollywood as their CEO. Yahoo for some reason thought they were in the show business. They could not have succeeded on that premise and it’s a miracle the company even survive the reign of Terry Semel.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#330

Post by fooker » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:52 AM UTC

c3534l wrote: post #102

zjaffee wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much they are hurting anyone, since they have made it virtually impossible to compete with them. Say you do a search for a particular location, the first thing that pops up to the the top of the page is a box with some information pulled from wikipedia and a link/image of it on google maps. Search for a band, and you see the same with links to youtube and google music. Search for online storage and you se…

Bing works just fine, but people don't use it because it's not what they're used to. Rarely does Google have an actual monopoly where new competitors can't enter the field - in fact, for every Google product I can give you a viable alternative. The only difference is that Google is winning.

Bing works fine for a rather narrow subset of queries most people need.