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Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

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Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#561
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…

forgive my ignorance, but what's a xoogler

The Microsoft variant would be xing, I presume.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#562
post #550

Expect the Google fit app to have these branding changes over the coming years : Fit - > Fitbit -> Google Fitbit -> Android Fit -> Finally back to Google Fit in 2023

Except in China where it will simply be: Fit -> We know where you are -> We're gonna make you into mush with tanks. Thanks for the help, Google.

Google is banned in China along with almost all other US & European tech.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#563
Maybe someone can explain this to me.

Why does Google want to compete in wearables? Why do companies feel the need to spend time/money investing in a product for no apparent reason besides the fact they aren't? Google (and tech) has always found its success in developing new markets, not chasing existing ones. That's some Balmer era Microsoft group-think.

Is it just investor pressure?

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Analogies are almost never useful That statement is too broad to possibly be true.

And demonstrably false: what are numbers and arithmetic if not metaphors for acts performed on actual objects? “Get three apples, give away two, share what’s left with your sister” is encoded in the arithmetic analogy (3-2)/2.

Analogies... are more pernicious than you think.

Indeed, if one wishes to be extremely extreme, one might go as far as to argue that all language is ‘analogy’, insofar as it assigns symbolic monikers to real-world objects. Furthermore, phonetic encodings (alphabets) are a further level of analogy, as they posit that (for example) the “in” in “indeed” is “similar enough” to the “in” in “insofar” to be denoted with identical symbols. Those symbols are, themselves... you guessed it... analogies, metaphors, and other various kinds of abstractions.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#566
post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t care about the product in so much as they care about the avenue to suck up more data, no?

Actually, no. I find this whole "they're selling your data" trope to be trite and just annoying at this point. I actually expect this more a reaction to Apple's pivot into health with the Apple Watch (people seem to forget the ex-Burberry CEO positioned the Apple Watch 1 as a luxury product--anyone remember the Apple Watch Edition for $10k?--health came later).

While I sort of agree, I think the problem is that "they're selling your data" misstates what actually happens.

Facebook and Google want to collect your data and keep it. What they're selling is indirect access to you: the more information they have on you, the more precisely they can theoretically target advertising and content to you. Keeping the data they have on you to themselves is literally their business model.

Two points, though. First, of course, that's still essentially what's been dubbed "surveillance capitalism"; it's still something someone may be uncomfortable with for a variety of reasons. Your data is being indirectly monetized, but it's still being monetized, and you still have very limited insight into the extent of that data and how it's being used. Second, adtech isn't the business model of everyone who collects data -- and one could argue that the more businesses a data-collecting company is in, the more moral hazards pop up. How much data will Google give over to law enforcement when there's a warrant, for example? What if we see a Facebook Health initiative that allows medical providers and insurers selective access to what Facebook "knows" about you within the limits of regulations and the law? (Do you know what those limits are? I don't.)

I actually expect this more a reaction to Apple's pivot into health with the Apple Watch...

Expect what, privacy concerns? While I understand that, I'm not sure much health information collected by Apple devices ever leaves your "local ecosystem" (i.e., your personal set of devices). Also, the Apple Watch Edition notwithstanding, I'm not sure I'd say its original incarnation was positioned as a luxury product -- yes, you could pay $10,000+ for it if you wanted to, but it still started at $349. But it was certainly positioned as a fashion product at its introduction, which they've dialed way back on since.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#567
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting idea but the reason investors + creditors can get these is because they have leverage and can negotiate for them. They are not always able to secure them. Consumers currently have no such leverage. The best avenue to this kind of leverage is probably legal?

The leverage of the consumer is the government whose legislators they elected.

Incorrect. That is an avenue of leverage. Currently driven more by corporate interests than citizen interests.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by this comment. To me, Garmin is the only company here that does a good job with the "hardcore fitness" market, but why does that matter in the first place? The better market to compete in is the "fitness amateur" market, which I see as being many times the former in size. Fitbit competes well here, and Google has no offering to speak of. Seems like a successful diversification move for Alphabet's portf…

> "fitness amateur" market ... Fitbit competes well here I'm not so sure about that. For simple activity monitoring by way of step counting, movement time, sleep time, and similar simple metrics, there is a lot of competition. This isn't just from the extremely cheap (but probably not very good) options, there are several devices out there at about half the price of FitBit's cheapest that seem to do the job just as w…

All those fancy Christian signs. Do you know the hotkeys or do you keep a Christian cheat-sheet just to keep things real?

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#569
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm on the outside but always had the impression Eric Schmidt was calling most of the "do evil" important things.

I don't really have any special evidence to the contrary, but I suspect Schmidt gets a bad rap simply because of his appearance and demeanor of looking a bit stodgy like a bureaucrat from the federal Gov or something. He also has a very serious face. I think he was basically a competent CEO who steered the company away from risky businesses.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#570
post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber has never made a profit. If I had a business that everyone used selling dollar bills for 95 cents would you consider it successful? That’s basically what Uber is doing.

Except that Uber is not doing that at all. They do make a gross profit on each ride. Its more like asking if you were successful if you were generating a lot of revenue by selling people dollar bills for $1.15/each, but losing money because of very high operations costs. The answer would be "it depends".

Yes and WeWork was profitable when you use their made up metric "Community Adjusted Ebitda".

Isn't that true for every money losing company? They make money as long as you ignore expenses?

The usual retort is "our addressable market that we have only started to penetrate will allow us to have a large enough marginal profit to cover our fixed cost".

But isn't that also in the pitch deck of every startup looking for funding? "There are x number of dog owners in the world. The total addressable market is ten gajillion if we capture 10% of that we will be worth $some_outrageous_number"

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