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$800M to support small businesses and crisis response

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31–40 of 92 posts

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#31

This is NOT funding : - $250 million in ad grants ... - $340 million in Google Ads credits ... - A pool of $20 million in Google Cloud credits ... A company that has a Bazillion $ in the bank, has means to really make a difference. This is not. Edit/Clarification: The original title was: "$800M funding and grants to support ..". Now they changed it. I take issue with the claim of providing funding, and all they offer…

The title of the blog post says "funding and grants". If it was all funding, they could have just written "funding", but they didn't.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#32

Google is helping small businesses by providing Ad credits? Of all things a small business may need, Google thinks Ads are the solution? The response to this crisis has my cynicism and disdain for our system growing every day.

They should be giving agencies free ad credits then, because a lot of small/medium sized businesses outsource their ad work to agencies...so this doesn't accomplish all that much imo.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, when the time comes, (but only when the time comes), small business are going to need to tell their customers that they are back and available. Ad spend is a major expense for small businesses like restaurants and small boutiques, and not having that expense will be a big help to getting these companies operating again. But Google is doing a lot more beyond that: "A $200 million investment fund that will support…

There’s something called the advertisers dilemma (akin to the prisoners dilemma) for a reason- game theory suggests advertising has become de facto necessary only because other parties do it. In other words, small businesses would choose NOT to advertise if they all cooperated and chose not to. And I owned a restaurant. Restaurants, by and large, do not advertise on Google Search. If they do, it’s a small fraction of…

So many things in the economy have turned into arms races. Property prices, advertising spending, education spending, status symbols. If we could somehow get out of it we'd have fewer $100m pieces of artwork and a lot more housing and free time.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, when the time comes, (but only when the time comes), small business are going to need to tell their customers that they are back and available. Ad spend is a major expense for small businesses like restaurants and small boutiques, and not having that expense will be a big help to getting these companies operating again. But Google is doing a lot more beyond that: "A $200 million investment fund that will support…

There’s something called the advertisers dilemma (akin to the prisoners dilemma) for a reason- game theory suggests advertising has become de facto necessary only because other parties do it. In other words, small businesses would choose NOT to advertise if they all cooperated and chose not to. And I owned a restaurant. Restaurants, by and large, do not advertise on Google Search. If they do, it’s a small fraction of…

> There are many ways to get the message across, like actually being good and having a connection with recurring customers.

The situation is pretty novel since there are significantly less options for offline interaction available this time. I don't think local businesses can cover most of the loss only with recurring customers this time.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#35

Google is helping small businesses by providing Ad credits? Of all things a small business may need, Google thinks Ads are the solution? The response to this crisis has my cynicism and disdain for our system growing every day.

Any accountants here? Isn't this just an accounting trick? They're going to lose revenue. But can't they now issue this "grant", and then pretend they aren't losing revenue -- they're just issuing a grant? Or is that not how it works? I don't know, but would like to know.

They're still losing revenue in that, when these ad credits are spent, they're not receiving any actual money from advertisements that would have shown up in place of these free ads.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#36

If Google wants to help small businesses, they should start by stopping their practice of defrauding it's Adsense publishers. $30k MRR gone overnight alongside $40k already earned in Adsense income siezed by Google. All this happened early this month of March, effectively crippling our ability to take care of employees and survive the Covid-19 crisis. Such hypocrisy.

In an attempt to cut its own cost, Google effectively automates everything, even in terms of detecting abuse (eg. clickjacking or click fraud) and advertisements that go against their rules (I think even in terms of mentioning Covid-19 in ads since I haven't seen any ads mentioning anything about "virus"/"covid"/etc at all this month). I wouldn't doubt you got hit by this automated system. Maybe you should write a bl…

You would think that by making them so much money (they take 40% of income), you would be entitled to speak to a human. We have always followed their guidelines and just appealed to them but from researching others who have had similar issues, I'm assured that is a big black hole.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#37

Google is helping small businesses by providing Ad credits? Of all things a small business may need, Google thinks Ads are the solution? The response to this crisis has my cynicism and disdain for our system growing every day.

It's what they have to offer...

I understand G-suite has had some adjustments regarding limits and such.

I can't fault them for some effort even if it is hardly front line virus fighting. They're just not in that position.

I think your cynicism is just cynicism.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#39

Google is helping small businesses by providing Ad credits? Of all things a small business may need, Google thinks Ads are the solution? The response to this crisis has my cynicism and disdain for our system growing every day.

I pay for Google ads to generate leads for my business. We've seen a drop in conversion rate, but we're still generating leads which we really need right now to continue to operate. The problem is that the cost per lead just went up dramatically. These ad credits will solve that problem for us and allow us to continue to generate leads. This is exactly the kind of help my business needs right now.

If they hadn't injected this credit you would see your CPMs decline and you'd be able to generate a better margin. Now your ad dollars have to compete with all of this free money until it runs out. You and I will receive no benefit from this.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#40
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's ridiculous that Google has to It doesn't have to. This is a choice Google is making on how it wants to conduct charity. >The federal government should be providing interest-free working capital and guaranteeing the sale of every glove and mask Sale at what price? It has to be bounded or else it sounds ripe for fraud (people are monsters). > anyone can produce. So is the loan for anyone that wants it? Or just fo…

I think you are misunderstanding the parent's point. The basic gist is that any glove, mask, and ventilator manufacturer should at the very least get immediate working capital loans/grants from the government to expand production. Guaranteeing the sale means that the manufacturer will assume no risk for overproduction. The price would be whatever the prevailing market price was before the crisis or maybe with a sligh…

What makes you think this is not already the case?
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