Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe • Hacker News Board

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#21

Post by adventured » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

octosphere wrote: post #9

Anyone find anything that Google does these days to be aggressively competitive? As a one-man startup guy, I feel everything I do pales in comparison to what Google are doing and I feel nothing more than /eclipsed/ by them. I have found myself wondering: "If you can't beat them join them" on many occasions. I probably should just merge into Google one day and stop my worrying?

Google isn't doing anything new + interesting at all.

I consider Google to be one of the giants that are entirely irrelevant in competitive terms. They almost comically stay in their lane: search, YouTube, search, Gmail, search, search, ads, search, Android, search, search, Google Cloud, search. Every ten years or so maybe they'll add something.

I consider Google to be a company that never has to be considered when I'm thinking about building something.

I have no plans to launch my own massive operating system (what small team is going to do that anyway). I have no interest in doing a common search engine. Competing in the streaming space with YouTube, Netflix, & Co. is a nightmare of licensing & rights problems (and it's very saturated). The last thing I'd ever want to do is run an email service (thankful for those that do it well). AWS, Azure, and 37 other cloud service providers already exist, no need to reinvent that wheel and compete with Google Cloud (they're not the most competitive there anyway).

Google search is 21 years old. Gmail is 15 years old. YouTube is 14-15 years old. Android is 11 years old. Google is gray.

So what else is there? That just leaves 99% of everything else that I never, ever have to worry about Google competing seriously in.

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#22

Post by satanspastaroll » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #19

satanspastaroll wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct, google is trying to cover all sectors they can, and offer tools to join them even at a loss. After they own everything, they can start raising prices, dictate web standards and so on

Your worst case scenario has never happened.

I'm quite sure a monopoly is not that alien a concept

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#23

Post by YinglingLight » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #13

octosphere wrote: post #9

Anyone find anything that Google does these days to be aggressively competitive? As a one-man startup guy, I feel everything I do pales in comparison to what Google are doing and I feel nothing more than /eclipsed/ by them. I have found myself wondering: "If you can't beat them join them" on many occasions. I probably should just merge into Google one day and stop my worrying?

It's easy: find a niche which is too small for Google or any other large company to bother with. There are plenty of those, especially if you look for something tied to the physical world (serving real businesses around you) and if you avoid the SV echo chamber (which means HN much of the time, too). In other words, don't try to be another Google, Facebook, Uber, or Bird. Do something specialized. (I'm a self-funded…

And if your work is any means creative, 1000 true fans principle: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fan...

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#24

Post by seszett » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #8

M2Ys4U wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God I hate Oath's awful privacy modal.

>God I hate Oath's awful privacy modal. What is "Oath"?

It's some kind of entity that is responsible for the full page GDPR popups that block the access to many websites like Techcrunch, Tumblr or Slashdot.

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#25

Post by ok_coo » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

octosphere wrote: post #9

Anyone find anything that Google does these days to be aggressively competitive? As a one-man startup guy, I feel everything I do pales in comparison to what Google are doing and I feel nothing more than /eclipsed/ by them. I have found myself wondering: "If you can't beat them join them" on many occasions. I probably should just merge into Google one day and stop my worrying?

People once felt the same way about Microsoft. There’s ways to be competitive with Google for whatever you’re interested in. You can compete by having good customer service for your product. They’ve given that up to the algos.

I know I personally highly value the ability to talk to an actual human if I’m having a problem.

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#26

Post by close04 » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:51 PM UTC

ok_coo wrote: post #25

octosphere wrote: post #9

Anyone find anything that Google does these days to be aggressively competitive? As a one-man startup guy, I feel everything I do pales in comparison to what Google are doing and I feel nothing more than /eclipsed/ by them. I have found myself wondering: "If you can't beat them join them" on many occasions. I probably should just merge into Google one day and stop my worrying?

People once felt the same way about Microsoft. There’s ways to be competitive with Google for whatever you’re interested in. You can compete by having good customer service for your product. They’ve given that up to the algos. I know I personally highly value the ability to talk to an actual human if I’m having a problem.

As any sector matures it becomes harder and harder to truly "disrupt" (not talking about "fake disrupt" by being better because you take shortcuts even if it breaks the law). You see it in many other sectors, consolidation is key. Standing out, while not impossible, is improbable. This is not meant to discourage people from trying, you never know until you do.

But if big IT has learned their lesson they won't wait until you're too big to run you over. It's why everyone is on acquisition sprees these days, or simply incorporate tech and ideas into their products and use their sheer market share to drown smaller competitors they borrowed the idea from.

A niche may be different since no company can cover everything. But it's still uncertain when they choose to go there and go head to head with you. Google didn't overtake MS by playing in a niche. So I guess it depends on what your targets are.

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#27

Post by shmageggy » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:51 PM UTC

M2Ys4U wrote: post #6

tpmx wrote: post #4

Working link: https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/20/google-is-investing-3-3b-t...

God I hate Oath's awful privacy modal.

Anyone got a source that doesn't require an afternoon's worth of work to set your privacy options? I clicked through a bunch of menus to try to opt out of personalization and got nowhere and gave up

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#28

Post by tudelo » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

satanspastaroll wrote: post #12

octosphere wrote: post #9

Anyone find anything that Google does these days to be aggressively competitive? As a one-man startup guy, I feel everything I do pales in comparison to what Google are doing and I feel nothing more than /eclipsed/ by them. I have found myself wondering: "If you can't beat them join them" on many occasions. I probably should just merge into Google one day and stop my worrying?

You are correct, google is trying to cover all sectors they can, and offer tools to join them even at a loss. After they own everything, they can start raising prices, dictate web standards and so on

They may run some operations at a loss, but overall?

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#29

Post by tudelo » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

grezql wrote: post #3

This is not relevant to the article, but why is there so many full screen popups with newsletter on american websites? I have never ever written my email on such form. The first thing I do when I see it is to close it and think its a low-budget website or something.

Plenty of high budget websites have this, and often they come back if you dismiss them. I would rather the site just deny me up front.

Re: Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe

#30

Post by nabla9 » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 2:57 PM UTC

The Hamina data center is close to Russia without being in Russia. I guess it's the closest Google is comfortable at being when serving Russian customers.

In the north data centers can double as heating power plants when coupled with district heating. It's unfortunate that Google puts the excess heat into the sea. Yandex has a big data center in Mäntsälä. Their cooling water is used for heating the area. There are also data centers in Helsinki where heat is used in district heating.