11–20 of 196 posts
Here's the rub: I strongly suspect that YouTube is not profitable, or is just barely profitable, such that it would be difficult to run as a separate company from the rest of Google. This is even more true for Maps. Breaking apart Google would substantially risk those businesses. On the other hand, maybe that's a good thing.
Generally interesting article. Makes his case pretty well "But YouTube definitely has to be its own thing; it’s got no real synergy that I can detect with any other Google property." This is a funny observation because YouTube was originally an acquisition and its integration with other Google products is very strange. It has at most points in time had its own rules about anonymity, privacy, multiple accounts, etc. S…
There's a pretty good case for breaking up Google, but this article doesn't make it. The word "monopoly" doesn't appear once in the whole article, which is pretty weird in an article about how to break up Google and the justifications for doing so. It lists six reasons, and not one of them is about how anybody would be better off if Google were broken up, nor are there any about the legal burdens that must be satisfied to do so.
Instead, we get reasons like "YouTube has become the visual voice of several generations and is too important to leave hidden inside an opaque conglomerate." That's not even an argument. "The world needs Google Cloud to be viable?" That's an argument AGAINST breaking up Google.
Here's the rub: I strongly suspect that YouTube is not profitable, or is just barely profitable, such that it would be difficult to run as a separate company from the rest of Google. This is even more true for Maps. Breaking apart Google would substantially risk those businesses. On the other hand, maybe that's a good thing.
How could that be? Server costs? Seems like YouTube would be raking in the cash.
Let’s force Google to be like every other company in needing to constantly extract money from every project quarter by quarter.
Not to mention that it is not clear that any except advertising are viable businesses by themselves.
YouTube wasn’t profitable for a while. Even if it is now, it is probably barely so.
Not sure how Maps would make sufficient money without deep integration with advertising.
Android would just be dead.
These type of posts are now starting to sound like propaganda. Just emotional catharsis of some sort. There are plenty of large companies on this planet. Why do you focus on Google? and why do we see these posts frequently making it to top ten of hacker news?
Because there's no thing one hate as much as the one that one loved and that then betrayed you I guess.
(Note: I neither loved Google nor hate it now but I'll go as far as admit to being a big fan earlier on and really disappointed now.)
> and why do we see these posts frequently making it to top ten of hacker news?
Because so many of us agree with them. (FTR, I'm an oldtimer with a fresh account.)
How do we decide which companies to break up ? Similar argument can be made for any big conglomerate. Look at Reliance in India or Samsung in Korea, they sell anything and everything possible. Could it make companies hide businesses as well, just to not want to break up.
Well, this is not a new problem. Antitrust enforcement and breaking up companies has been a thing for decades (if not at least a century) Starting with companies that make over a billion dollars a year and are in multiple markets seems like an uncontroversial place, though.
The problems don't occur when companies are in multiple markets, arguable that is better for competition and hence the person on the street. The problem is when a company or two dominates a single market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How could that be? Server costs? Seems like YouTube would be raking in the cash.
Their transcode, storage, and compute costs are what lead me to also believe YouTube is not profitable, or just barely profitable.
Here's the rub: I strongly suspect that YouTube is not profitable, or is just barely profitable, such that it would be difficult to run as a separate company from the rest of Google. This is even more true for Maps. Breaking apart Google would substantially risk those businesses. On the other hand, maybe that's a good thing.
How could that be? Server costs? Seems like YouTube would be raking in the cash.
Here's the rub: I strongly suspect that YouTube is not profitable, or is just barely profitable, such that it would be difficult to run as a separate company from the rest of Google. This is even more true for Maps. Breaking apart Google would substantially risk those businesses. On the other hand, maybe that's a good thing.
How could that be? Server costs? Seems like YouTube would be raking in the cash.