Break Up Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Break Up Google

#51

Post by jhowell » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

jaspax wrote: post #9

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.

> I strongly suspect that YouTube is not profitable, or is just barely profitable

Why suspect when you can Google...

"On an annual basis, Google says YouTube generated $15 billion last year and contributed roughly 10 percent to all Google revenue. Those figures make YouTube’s ad business nearly one fifth the size of Facebook’s, and more than six times larger than all of Amazon-owned Twitch."

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-al...

Re: Break Up Google

#52

Post by peteretep » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

aliante wrote: post #35

peteretep wrote: post #22

> Page and Brin each own 25.9% and 25.1% of Alphabet's voting power, respectively, accounting for over half of the company's controlling shares. That's because of Alphabet's super-voting structure, which gives 10 votes per share of its Class B stock. also: > Mark Zuckerberg owns the majority of the voting rights to Facebook due to a dual class structure that weights certain shares over others. I would like to see emi…

> the unelected Page and Brin having all that power with no recourse for the market The effective market when it comes to voting shares consists of hedge fund managers like Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman. Nobody else is organized enough to beat the activist investors and they do all sorts of terrible things with that kind of power.

> Nobody else is organized enough to beat the activist investors

I mean, except each other, and I think I'm OK with that? I'm not saying this is a whole solution, but making Zuck and co accountable to investors is an _excellent_ start. We got the Magna Carta as a result of rich people competing with other rich people.

Re: Break Up Google

#53

Post by akira2501 » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

nabaraz wrote: post #34

Is anyone else tired of seeing the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day. So, we want to break up Google because it has gotten too big. What about Luxottica? It has over 80% market share on eyewear brands. What about Pearson? It has over 60% market share on testing market? What about Paypal? It has over 80% market share on online payments. What about Aetna (merged with Humana) on health care…

All these companies obtained this market share by purchasing competitors or integrating surrounding businesses. You're right though, they're all problems and shouldn't have been allowed to acquire so casually to their current market positions.

That being said, Google gets primary access to your personal data and habits, and then also gets to sell advertising based on that data. That's certainly more unseemly than having too few choices for eyewear, don't you think?

Re: Break Up Google

#54

Post by keith__talent » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

jhowell wrote: post #32

MattGaiser wrote: post #15

Yes, let’s destroy one of the few large companies which has found a viable method of long term innovation instead of endless cost cutting and outsourcing. 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 whil…

> YouTube wasn’t profitable for a while. Even if it is now, it is probably barely so. First search result... "YouTube generated nearly $5 billion in ad revenue in the last three months, Google revealed today as part of parent company Alphabet’s fourth quarter earnings report." [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-al...

Revenue is not profit.

Re: Break Up Google

#55

Post by creato » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

jhowell wrote: post #32

MattGaiser wrote: post #15

Yes, let’s destroy one of the few large companies which has found a viable method of long term innovation instead of endless cost cutting and outsourcing. 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 whil…

> YouTube wasn’t profitable for a while. Even if it is now, it is probably barely so. First search result... "YouTube generated nearly $5 billion in ad revenue in the last three months, Google revealed today as part of parent company Alphabet’s fourth quarter earnings report." [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-al...

And what about the costs? I don't know how to find that for youtube, but here's netflix:

> Netflix operating expenses for the quarter ending March 31, 2020 were $4.809B, a 18.4% increase year-over-year.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NFLX/netflix/opera...

They're obviously not comparable directly like this, but just based on internet bandwidth usage, they're probably in the same ballpark, but netflix has a far, far easier technical problem. They have a relatively small library that can probably be cached easily. Imagine the infrastructure that is behind a youtube CDN.

Re: Break Up Google

#56

Post by eloisant » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

jldugger wrote: post #31

MattGaiser wrote: post #15

Yes, let’s destroy one of the few large companies which has found a viable method of long term innovation instead of endless cost cutting and outsourcing. 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 whil…

I imagine android would probably survive via search engine placement fees similar to safari / iOS / firefox.

Also funded by all the phone manufacturers who have a vested interest in seeing it not die (like the Linux kernel)

Re: Break Up Google

#57

Post by kelnos » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #22

> Page and Brin each own 25.9% and 25.1% of Alphabet's voting power, respectively, accounting for over half of the company's controlling shares. That's because of Alphabet's super-voting structure, which gives 10 votes per share of its Class B stock. also: > Mark Zuckerberg owns the majority of the voting rights to Facebook due to a dual class structure that weights certain shares over others. I would like to see emi…

> I have a big problem with him and the unelected Page and Brin having all that power with no recourse for the market.

I just don't get that mindset. Private-company Google said "hey, we're down to be public, but Larry and Sergey will always control the company... cool?" And the market said: "yeah whatever give us those shares".

It's not like anyone was holding a gun up to anyone's head, forcing them to buy GOOG. They went into it knowing that their shares' votes would be useless.

Page and Brin are elected: the shareholders have validated their control every day since Google went public; anyone who owns GOOG has either been ok with that arrangement, or foolish to hold those shares.

Re: Break Up Google

#58

Post by guerrilla » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 7:13 AM UTC

nabaraz wrote: post #34

Is anyone else tired of seeing the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day. So, we want to break up Google because it has gotten too big. What about Luxottica? It has over 80% market share on eyewear brands. What about Pearson? It has over 60% market share on testing market? What about Paypal? It has over 80% market share on online payments. What about Aetna (merged with Humana) on health care…

I'm tired of there being reasons for the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day.

> What about Luxottica? It has over 80% market share on eyewear brands.

I would assume optometrists and opthamologists argue about that on their own forums rather than this tech forum filled with people mostly from tech.

Re: Break Up Google

#59

Post by searchableguy » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 7:13 AM UTC

aliante wrote: post #46

jhowell wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YouTube wasn’t profitable for a while. Even if it is now, it is probably barely so. First search result... "YouTube generated nearly $5 billion in ad revenue in the last three months, Google revealed today as part of parent company Alphabet’s fourth quarter earnings report." [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-al...

That doesn't demonstrate that it turned a profit though. Video streaming is costly and they pay over 50% of that to creators. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21121370/youtube-advertisi...

Maybe people should just pay for it?

Oh no. How could they make us pay for the software services. Imo, this mentality needs to go. People spend $$$ in cafe, buy expensive branded clothes, transportation, hanging out with their friends, outside food, and so on. All of those are not necessary but they pay for it. They should pay for the digital services they spend most of their time on now a days. What's different?

Re: Break Up Google

#60

Post by harry8 » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 7:13 AM UTC

nabaraz wrote: post #34

Is anyone else tired of seeing the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day. So, we want to break up Google because it has gotten too big. What about Luxottica? It has over 80% market share on eyewear brands. What about Pearson? It has over 60% market share on testing market? What about Paypal? It has over 80% market share on online payments. What about Aetna (merged with Humana) on health care…

Paypal? Absolutely.

Luxottica, Pearson, Aetna - no idea. Perhaps they're having similar discussions on eywear community messageboards and healthcare messageboards where they know about such things?

Or perhaps you can write a sensible, well-reasoned article using evidence on how these companies are similar to Facebook, Google or some other tech behmoth and what the appropriate remedies are or aren't? Just a thought.