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Break Up Google

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Re: Break Up Google

#61

Post by nardi »

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…

> Let’s force Google to be like every other company in needing to constantly extract money from every project quarter by quarter.

I think you're actually making the argument for breaking up Google. Their search monopoly is so powerful and so profitable, that they can afford to just throw money away on hundreds of terrible side projects.

Re: Break Up Google

#62

Post by moksly »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #13

I know that there's a quota of at least one "Google bad" article at the top of Hacker News each day, and that's fine and all, but I feel like the bar for them is getting lower. 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 doin…

>"The world needs Google Cloud to be viable?" That's an argument AGAINST breaking up Google

I’m not strongly opinionated either way, but google cloud being connected to the main advertising company is the one of the two major reasons the European public sector isn’t using it. Terrible support is the other major reason.

Maybe google doesn’t want the public sector billions, but something like firebase is actually a better fit for us in a lot of cases than what AWS or Azure has to offer, but we’ll never use it because google won’t guarantee our data stays in Europe or that only European citizens access it like AWS currently does. Likewise, we would never chose to use g-suite over office365, but there you can add a 3rd major reason in that it hasn’t really been updated for 10 years and is now horribly behind office365.

This is my opinion, but I don’t think the services google actually sell for money rather than privacy benefit a whole lot from being a minor part of a major advertising company.

Re: Break Up Google

#63

Post by ijpsud »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #17
kevingadd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

> The problem is when a company or two dominates a single market.

It would also be bad if one company dominated multiple markets. (just a nit pick on your phrasing)

Re: Break Up Google

#64

Post by ummonk »

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...

That doesn't tell us how profitable it is. It might very well be spending more on infrastructure and networking than it gets in revenue. For comparison, Netflix's cost of revenue was 3.6 billion dollars last quarter.

Re: Break Up Google

#65

Post by zozbot234 »

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…

Large market share just doesn't mean much unless the market has non-trivial barriers to entry that make competition infeasible. And that's certainly the case wrt. the 'platform'-like businesses of Google and other large tech firms. They should simply be required to be interoperable with other players in the market, and a break-up is definitely one way of pursuing this.

Re: Break Up Google

#66

Post by kelnos »

jhowell wrote: post #51
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/…

That's revenue, not profit.

Re: Break Up Google

#67

Post by librish »

jhowell wrote: post #51
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/…

That's revenue, not profits

Re: Break Up Google

#68

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

I agree with the general premise of this content, but as a non-American I'm curious to know if financials of a public company is not clear, shouldn't it be addressed with the securities exchange(SEC)/companies regulator (or) shouldn't they themselves investigate and penalise obscurity?

Re: Break Up Google

#69

Post by keith__talent »

akira2501 wrote: post #53
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 hav…

"That being said, Google gets primary access to your personal data and habits, and then also gets to sell advertising based on that data." Then lets find legislation that enforces privacy, but still allows them to work with advertisers. The platform is here, but needs adjustment.
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