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Break Up Google

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Re: Break Up Google

#111

Post by wise_young_man »

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…

Honestly I’m wondering what innovations they’ve had in the last 5 years. I’ve been around long enough to see their decay in that area. YouTube you mentioned was an acquisition. Android was created in 2008. Maps in 2005. What’s really new with Google besides a ton of failed ideas like Reader, G+, and messenger apps?

Re: Break Up Google

#112

Post by markdown »

ijpsud wrote: post #40
markdown wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those costs were high they'd have long ago banned the spam accounts that upload autogenerated garbage.

"[In Q3 2018] YouTube removed about 1.67 million channels and all of the 50.2 million videos that were available from them. Nearly 80% of the channel takedowns related to spam uploads, YouTube said." https://www.businessinsider.com/r-youtube-under-pressure-for... The remaining 20% were apparently taken down due to nudity and other policy violations. To be clear: I have no idea whether they're profitable or not. Just…

Thanks.

Re: Break Up Google

#113

Post by balanced009 »

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…

They did not do anything illegal.

How is this connected to "break up Google" argument?

If this was illegal, I'm sure the SEC would be on it not just for Google but for the million other companies doing the same.

Re: Break Up Google

#114

Post by imafish »

jimbob45 wrote: post #87
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 agree. I find it telling that no competitor has ever been successful despite YouTube making every wrong design choice possible.

How about twitch?

Re: Break Up Google

#115

Post by beachy »

peteretep wrote: post #80
kelnos wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The…

> They went into it knowing that their shares' votes would be useless. I don't disagree with that at all, and I would see the current holders compensated for their shares. What I _am_ saying is I don't think society is benefitting from this structure. > the shareholders have validated their control every day since Google went public What? No, that's not how that works. The market has decided solely on the current pri…

To be fair, it is not the role of a corporate to "benefit society", but instead to benefit shareholders.

Re: Break Up Google

#116

Post by silasdavis »

supermatt wrote: post #36
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 agree - There is no way that Youtube could compete without access to google resources. If they had to pay for their own bandwidth, hosting, transcoding, etc while surviving off adsense revenue (paying same google "commission" as everyone else), they would quickly drive themselves into bancruptcy simply due to their popularity! They are stifling competition because they have unlimited funds to throw at anything they…

Would users get a better service from the successors of YouTube? Would we have to watch more ads?

Re: Break Up Google

#117

Post by kevingadd »

balanced009 wrote: post #113
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…

They did not do anything illegal. How is this connected to "break up Google" argument? If this was illegal, I'm sure the SEC would be on it not just for Google but for the million other companies doing the same.

Laws are what the government decides they are, and the details of that are very complicated.

Depending on who you ask antitrust is about the impact on consumers (competition, fair pricing, etc), not about whether some particular footnote to a law was violated due to someone misplacing a decimal point.

FTR the US government has historically in fact made multiple efforts to prosecute companies like Google for violations of the law, so...

Re: Break Up Google

#118

Post by aliante »

smnrchrds wrote: post #30
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.

Wouldn't this be more in favour of breaking up Google? If YouTube is unprofitable, then Google is essentially dumping this service. It is harming competitors who do not have deep pockets of Google to bankroll their service. Breaking up YouTube means there would be a more level playground.

Or a YouTube style site just wouldn't exist...

Re: Break Up Google

#119

Post by nmfisher »

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/…

I didn't see any mention of profit there.

Re: Break Up Google

#120

Post by ss7pro »

Yt infrastructure cost without Google would to be to high ... YT can only exists due to cheap infrastructure that it can leave the thanks to Google scale
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