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Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

cnbc.com

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Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#411

Post by scarface74 »

notjustanymike wrote: post #365
scarface74 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What long and successful history? The only one that I can think of that was a definite success is Android. Their only notable hardware acquisitions that I can think of were Motorola which was a disaster, Nest which is barely muddling along, and the semi-acquisition of HTC’s hardware team that made the Pixel. While the Pixel may be a great phone, it isn’t taking the world by storm

Android comes to mind...

According to information that came out during the Oracle lawsuit, Android had only made Google $23B in profit over its entire lifetime. While nothing to sneeze at, considering the number of Android phones sold during the time period, it's not that much.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oracle-google-lawsuit/ora...

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#412

Post by yumraj »

tolger wrote: post #289
yumraj wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO giving your health data to China is worse than giving to Google.

Why?

Consider the recent stories where LinkedIn was used by China to recruit spies.

Now consider a person with health issues, whatever they may be. Many people can be turned by using their or their loved ones' health issues. Whether it's the money for health payments, promise of new treatments, organs transplants ... I leave to imagination.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#413

Post by lern_too_spel »

scarface74 wrote: post #249
_ea1k wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree, but it has also improved Google Maps, so maybe it is still a plus for the business overall?

I hate to be a cold hard capitalist. But how has improving Google Maps helped its profitability? Would a competitor have taken market share away from Google Maps if they hadn’t acquired Waze? But more importantly, would it have decreased as revenue?

By keeping its competitors utterly uncompetitive. There remains no good alternative to Google's maps for consumers. Waze would have jumpstarted a competitor's mapping efforts.

For stupid acquisitions, look no further than everything Andy Rubin bought, from Motorola to robotics companies.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#414

Post by braythwayt »

CydeWeys wrote: post #367
qubex wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Argument by analogy is very powerful and utterly fallacious” — my high-school Theory Of Knowledge teacher (Mr Dawson you’re the best) That said, I’m really not enthused by this under either the business (relevant case history: Nest) or privacy perspective.

A common antipattern here in HN comments is someone using an analogy (which is almost always bad), and then the responses devolving into arguing over how the analogy isn't correct. I honestly think a "no analogies" rule for commenting would do more to facilitate good discussion than the existing "no jokes" rule. Analogies are almost never useful. Even the ancient Greeks realized this.

"You're painting analogies with an awfully broad brush."

----

"Painting with a broad brush" probably began as an analogy, but once enough people use it, it becomes an idiom. If understanding is shared between speaker/writer and listener/reader, idioms are a useful shorthand for sharing some commonly understood argument.

So useful, in fact, that people often forget what the original analogy was. For example, the verb "rewind." How many people using it think of reel-to-reels, cassettes, or videotapes?

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#415

Post by cletus »

hcnews wrote: post #401
cletus wrote: post #325

Oof. Goodbye Fitbit. Or, rather, welcome to the world where you're a pawn in internal politics. You may think you have a product but you don't. If your product survives (as in, Google didn't buy you just for the team), your product schedule will have to survive the interests of every other PA/team in Google. - You think you have software to run your products? Ha. The Android team will have a different opinion. - Even…

Sundar has been leading Google for a few years now. Larry/Sergey have been out and about for a while now. I am a Xoogler myself.

Yes and no. Sundar has no more vision than Larry does yet somehow is paid $200m+ a year and in my mind is the most unjustifiably overpaid CEO by a huge margin. At least Larry founded the company and contributed to turning into the behemoth it is. Sunday is a random associate product manager who somehow managed to ride the wave of Chrome to somehow becoming CEO.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#416

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

blotter_paper wrote: post #404
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works at Google and who used to think these things were true, I can say that most of this is simply not true. We store hardly any data about users. Far from everything we get. Of the things we store, hardly anything gets stored longer than 30 days. So, no, we do not store a constant audio stream from everything in your house for all of eternity. We don't store every website you visit in chrome for all…

From the perspective of a user this sounds positive, but do you have any idea why they don't store more data? Worry about public backlash? Lawsuits over data breaches? There would seem to be a financial incentive to store more given how cheap storage is and the fact that seemingly unimportant data could be useful in future models.

I mean, I'm new and just a lowly engineer, so I can't speak too much for the company.

I do work in analytics / logging, so I do have pretty decent insights into our different storage systems and logging policies.

The people that I interact with view data as a liability, not an asset. I think this is because of lawsuits mostly. We've been bitten by a few big ones. But also, storage is expensive, and even storing a Boolean on one type of log, we could get billions of those logs per day. It starts to add up and cost money.

I think we're pretty confident in our security and take it very, very, very seriously. So I don't think we're worried about necessarily a specific piece of data being stolen. If anything is stolen at all, that would be viewed as an existential catastrophe. So I don't think there's too many pieces of data that we'd care about specifically.

But again, I'm not anyone important here. And I'm new. And I don't know that much.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#417

Post by psweber »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #395
cdnsteve wrote: post #339

Google makes 80% of revenue from ads. It covers the entire web with adsense/adwords, records anything you search, has users login to chrome, scans gmail for purchase history, tracks your gps location and where you live and work with your commute + waze.. plus much more through android. It has microphones in homes and knows about all your iot devices with nest, it knows about any other online accounts you have because…

As someone who works at Google and who used to think these things were true, I can say that most of this is simply not true. We store hardly any data about users. Far from everything we get. Of the things we store, hardly anything gets stored longer than 30 days. So, no, we do not store a constant audio stream from everything in your house for all of eternity. We don't store every website you visit in chrome for all…

Google (and similar businesses) get into trouble because they have to do enough surveillance and algorithmic profiling to make their advertising effective. You have to admit that it's a stretch to ask us to trust them.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#418

Post by synaesthesisx »

I had a feeling this was long coming - I loaded up on some Fitbit stock in early 2018 (when there were reports of their acquisitions in the glucose-monitoring space). I believe Fitbit was a target for acquisition by Apple/Google/etc due to their health patents.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#419

Post by arbitrary_name »

scarface74 wrote: post #379
ConceptJunkie wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google isn't in it for just the money. They want to control our thinking as well, and given the kind of censorship that is happening on YouTube, if it is operating at a loss, they may not mind because it has other less tangible benefits.

For profit public corporations do everything for the money. There is no ulterior motive.

Gas stations make hardly any profit on gasoline. The margins on snacks, on the other hand...

Youtube or other platforms may not make strong profits themselves, but contribute strategically or operationally to the overall Alphabet bottom line.

So the discussion here is not 'Is Youtube making a profit' but 'Does Youtube contribute, directly or indirectly, to the overall Google/Alphabet enterprise strategy?'. In that case, it is entirely possible for major acquisitions to not appear to be 'for the money' but are still essential in driving shareholder value.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#420

Post by sitkack »

braythwayt wrote: post #377
qubex wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Argument by analogy is very powerful and utterly fallacious” — my high-school Theory Of Knowledge teacher (Mr Dawson you’re the best) That said, I’m really not enthused by this under either the business (relevant case history: Nest) or privacy perspective.

I agree with Mr. Dawson. Argument by analogy is weak. Communication containing analogies is powerful. I do not find it useful to say "If A is like B, then all the things about B must apply to A." This forces us to find perfect analogies, and encourages too much bickering over how well the analogy applies. But I do find it useful to use an imperfect analogy to illustrate something that you have already established dir…

If I can dynamically alter the spacing between the services ... or take a service out of the fall path before the crush comes. :)

Welcome back! I very much enjoy your meta cognitive viewpoint.

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