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Break Up Google

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Re: Break Up Google

#171

Post by LatteLazy »

tarsinge wrote: post #169
LatteLazy wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it felt really dishonest because at least some of these services would die and others would become the sort of shitty cash hungry monopoly we see elsewhere in the economy if it weren't for Googles (far from perfect) stewardship. I even empathise with the monopoly/privacy/advertising concerns. I just think he's either writing a protest article he knows can never be implimented (or taken seriously) OR he's trying…

Shitty cash hungry monopoly like OpenStreetMap? I’m ready to bet Google Maps dying could lead to a huge interest in improving OSM instead of the opposite today. Also email is an interoperable standard so I don’t see a monopoly coming soon, it’s not AOL era anymore. Before monopolies there is competition, and if monopolies come then break them. It’s not like it never happened before and “these times it’s different”. E…

Do you really think Openstreetmap is an alternative to Google maps? Really? This is our vision for the future? Anyone who spends 5 minutes on there will be begging to give Google their data.

We're meant to be improving things, not just reverting to the 1940s approach but with a website to look at the paperwork on...

Re: Break Up Google

#172

Post by mav3rick »

wise_young_man wrote: post #111
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?

Photos Tensorflow Waymo

Can go on and on...

Re: Break Up Google

#173

Post by dx034 »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #157
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…

Google has two classes of shares, GOOG (no voting rights) and GOOGL (has voting rights). Despite being worthless for the foreseeable future, meaning until Larry and Sergey sell their shares, the price premium for GOOGL hovers around $5. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052615/whats-differ...

Or if one of them wants to cooperate with an external shareholder rather than the other. It's still two people who could have different opinions. Controlling another 25%+1 can be valuable.

Re: Break Up Google

#174

Post by Traster »

I think this article is kind of wild. I would expect someone arguing for the break up of Google would be arguing for it on the basis of a good understanding of the company and the dynamics that would result from the break up. Instead a huge part of the argument is simply that the author doesn't know what makes Google profitable and think it would be great to split them up so we find out.

Google Maps is a great example. The author has no idea if Maps is profitable. What happens if it isn't? You spin it off as its own company, it turns out Google is spending billions driving those camera cars around and has no revenue model (because you just split off Google's advertising business) and within a couple of years Maps can't afford to keep itself up to date, its an expensive unsustainable business (which is why no one else does it) and it either has to sell itself cheap and no one can buy it - because they all know what happened to Google and they don't want their business exploded by regulators. If Google Maps is a huge money spinner (seems unlikely but could happen) well great, you've just created a monopoly that no longer has any incentives for anything other than exploiting their position as a monopoly.

Re: Break Up Google

#175

Post by coronadisaster »

lokedhs wrote: post #170
coronadisaster wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I strongly suspect that YouTube is not profitable I strongly suspect that YouTube is profitable, with all these ads.

I wonder how profitable the ads are, given how aggressively they try to push me to signing up for their subscription (also, they seem to increase the number and length of the unskippable ads when they promote their subscription). I ended up installing Newpipe instead, which is a much better experience.

Seeing how everyone installed Chrome by being pushed the same way, there are probably a lot of people that sign up for this service... so they probably also make a good chunk there.

They don't appear to bug me much though... maybe ublock origin blocks those ads.

Re: Break Up Google

#176

Post by dorgo »

tarsinge wrote: post #169
LatteLazy wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it felt really dishonest because at least some of these services would die and others would become the sort of shitty cash hungry monopoly we see elsewhere in the economy if it weren't for Googles (far from perfect) stewardship. I even empathise with the monopoly/privacy/advertising concerns. I just think he's either writing a protest article he knows can never be implimented (or taken seriously) OR he's trying…

Shitty cash hungry monopoly like OpenStreetMap? I’m ready to bet Google Maps dying could lead to a huge interest in improving OSM instead of the opposite today. Also email is an interoperable standard so I don’t see a monopoly coming soon, it’s not AOL era anymore. Before monopolies there is competition, and if monopolies come then break them. It’s not like it never happened before and “these times it’s different”. E…

>Also email is an interoperable standard

If emails from no-name servers/domains are increasingly dropped/refused (considered spam), is email still interoperable?

Re: Break Up Google

#177

Post by v7p1Qbt1im »

Realistically what would happen if you break Google up as described:

Microsoft, Amazon, FB, Tencent, etc. swoop in to grab the market share.

Besides, subsidized services are a special case. Especially Maps and maybe YouTube. Yes, YouTube makes a lot of money. But imagine paying market rates for storage, egress/ingress. They would need to focus even more on monetizing absolutely every interaction on the platform.

For all its faults I value the fact that literally every user can create an account and start uploading (practically) unlimited amounts of video for free and have it be available to over 2.5b+ people. All other issues I would put below that very unlikely accomplishment.

Re: Break Up Google

#178

Post by lokedhs »

coronadisaster wrote: post #175
lokedhs wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how profitable the ads are, given how aggressively they try to push me to signing up for their subscription (also, they seem to increase the number and length of the unskippable ads when they promote their subscription). I ended up installing Newpipe instead, which is a much better experience.

Seeing how everyone installed Chrome by being pushed the same way, there are probably a lot of people that sign up for this service... so they probably also make a good chunk there. They don't appear to bug me much though... maybe ublock origin blocks those ads.

On desktop, yes. But on mobile you either have to accept the ads or use Newpipe.

Re: Break Up Google

#179

Post by aurbano »

kevingadd wrote: post #122
aliante wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There are other sites out there offering similar services, albeit at a different scale. You could argue that some of them (like Twitch) are being dumped on the market in a similar manner, though. Twitch's feature set is not that different from YT's at this point. They both have very elaborate streaming services, a financial support mechanism, viewable archives with seeking, automated muting for copyrighted content, a…

Fwiw Twitch is now owned by Amazon, not sure if it was/is profitable though - but it may be that the cost of such massive video platforms is too high to run without a parent company that can subsidise the costs.

In the case of Google/Amazon this makes additional sense because they own the cloud infrastructure, which I assume is the biggest cost of the platforms.

Re: Break Up Google

#180

Post by emptysongglass »

LatteLazy wrote: post #171
tarsinge wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shitty cash hungry monopoly like OpenStreetMap? I’m ready to bet Google Maps dying could lead to a huge interest in improving OSM instead of the opposite today. Also email is an interoperable standard so I don’t see a monopoly coming soon, it’s not AOL era anymore. Before monopolies there is competition, and if monopolies come then break them. It’s not like it never happened before and “these times it’s different”. E…

Do you really think Openstreetmap is an alternative to Google maps? Really? This is our vision for the future? Anyone who spends 5 minutes on there will be begging to give Google their data. We're meant to be improving things, not just reverting to the 1940s approach but with a website to look at the paperwork on...

I use OSM all the time in the form of the app, OsmAnd. Fantastic app, gets me where I'm going, has most shops indexed: the few times it didn't I added them myself and benefited everyone.

I especially like that, as a cyclist, it always picks the greener path for me to get through Copenhagen. Huge feature over Google Maps for me.

I'd really like to see better transit directions. OsmAnd does have them but not stop-by-stop.

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