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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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your worst case scenario has never happened.
I'm quite sure a monopoly is not that alien a concept
Most monopolies have been government granted - railroads through free land, AT&T by creation, etc.
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
- Google Search/Ads and Google Cloud are money makers. They are constantly improved, handled with care and have prices comparable to the competition, maybe slightly lower
- Chrome is costing massive amounts of money. Between the massive development effort and the big worldwide marketing campaigns Google must have spent billions on Chrome in a play to protect their other services and dictate web standards. Android also belongs in this category, dictating a massive portion of the mobile market
- GMail/GSuite, Youtube, Google Home etc probably about break even. Like the previous category they are strategic plays aimed at controlling a market, and they are great for the brand. But since their markets are less valuable they are the step children
- lastly we have the experiments. Google has cut most of them, and you are probably better off not using them at all
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm quite sure a monopoly is not that alien a concept
A monopoly that keeps prices artificially low for years, drives everyone out of business, and then raises prices to make up for the years of lost profit -- I'd like to hear one example - it's never happened as far as i know. Most monopolies have been government granted - railroads through free land, AT&T by creation, etc.
It used it's massive, over 90% share of the market (and it's vertical supply chain) to deter competition, and made deals with other suppliers to make the inertia of competing a herculean task
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…
Google is the first company that started to spend money on productionize self driving technology. It takes time to get to market, because the problem is super hard.
If you want something newer that probably won't go away any time soon, Tensorflow is a few years old, and TPUs are also just a few years old. Google has many of the best and biggest number of AI researchers, and it's not shy to use the AI infrastructure in production.
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?
This means that you could be the best in your field for hundreds of miles around, but your neighbors might still go on Amazon and order a product manufactured in China.
I worry about this.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm quite sure a monopoly is not that alien a concept
A monopoly that keeps prices artificially low for years, drives everyone out of business, and then raises prices to make up for the years of lost profit -- I'd like to hear one example - it's never happened as far as i know. Most monopolies have been government granted - railroads through free land, AT&T by creation, etc.
Google is undercutting everyone in the mobile OS market. What once was a varied market died completely because nobody could compete with Android's "it's free if you agree to preload a bunch of Google apps" (iOS isn't really on the market since its Apple exclusive, LG can only reasonably choose Android). Google makes all that lost income back because this creates a monopoly for the Play Store, and massively helps other Google services.
Not really textbook examples, but that's because the textbook example of selling at a loss to kill all competition and then raise prices is illegal in most cases