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Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

gwei.org

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Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#41

Post by bluGill »

echelon wrote: post #38
pritambarhate wrote: post #14

As per Wikipedia[1]: >> Page and Brin remain co-founders, employees, board members, and controlling shareholders of Alphabet Inc. Forbes article referenced by Wikipedia:[2] >> At Alphabet’s annual meeting in June, multiple shareholders criticized the fact that Page did not show up given that he and Brin have more than 50% of the company’s voting power, thanks to Alphabet’s multi-class stock structure. That structure…

Is lack of attendance something that happens regularly? Can control ever be wrested from majority voting power owners? Page and Brin, Zuckerberg, et al.?

At majority level no, because they control their shares. You can get the majority owner to sell. You can use social means to try to convince them to vote your way. You can get the bank to make bad terms on their financial activity. You can change the law. But in the end they have the power.

Note that some of the above list might include illegal /immoral acts. Depending on what you do you might find success.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#42

Post by appleflaxen »

whack wrote: post #39

Unpopular opinion but this sounds like a half baked idea that will never amount to anything. Imagine some other equally silly parallels: We generate money by selling iOS apps on a network of hidden developers. With this money we automatically buy Apple shares. We buy Apple via their own app store! Apple eats itself - but in the end "we" own it! We generate money by selling goods on Amazon on a network of hidden affil…

I read the OP as a tongue in cheek thought experiment (or satire), rather than a sincere effort to subvert, cripple and destroy a multibillion dollar company by running advertisements inside their platform.

As a result, I suspect that a "half-baked idea that will never amount to anything" was the author's intenion, and that your opinion probably is no more unpopular than those who doubt the chicken really wanted to get to the other side.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#43

Post by ErikAugust »

whack wrote: post #39

Unpopular opinion but this sounds like a half baked idea that will never amount to anything. Imagine some other equally silly parallels: We generate money by selling iOS apps on a network of hidden developers. With this money we automatically buy Apple shares. We buy Apple via their own app store! Apple eats itself - but in the end "we" own it! We generate money by selling goods on Amazon on a network of hidden affil…

They don't need a GoFundMe considering they have made millions of dollars doing this "half baked idea".

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#45

Post by mathattack »

echelon wrote: post #38
pritambarhate wrote: post #14

As per Wikipedia[1]: >> Page and Brin remain co-founders, employees, board members, and controlling shareholders of Alphabet Inc. Forbes article referenced by Wikipedia:[2] >> At Alphabet’s annual meeting in June, multiple shareholders criticized the fact that Page did not show up given that he and Brin have more than 50% of the company’s voting power, thanks to Alphabet’s multi-class stock structure. That structure…

Is lack of attendance something that happens regularly? Can control ever be wrested from majority voting power owners? Page and Brin, Zuckerberg, et al.?

The market can influence it though. If the common stock loses 90% of the value due to the bad ownership structure, the founder’s wealth takes a hit and the employees will revolt or walk. If an outsider says “I will buy or invest in your company if you give up the special provisions” then money will talk.

The reason VCs don’t do this is the companies that become the 1000X outliers generally have the Super-shares.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#46

Post by dhosek »

amaajemyfren wrote: post #23
viraptor wrote: post #3

HN hug of death :-( https://web.archive.org/web/20200720232040/https://www.gwei....

Yep. Does anyone remember when this was called the Slashdot effect? Being Slashdotted.

For Daring Fireball, it's called Fireballed. Jon Gruber (used to?) keeps a cached version of linked pages to put up in case linking to them in a new post causes them to go down.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#47

Post by dhosek »

culopatin wrote: post #37
m12k wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisers pay Google, which then pays publishers (people who own websites) to have the ads displayed on their sites. This display ad network was largely established when Google bought DoubleClick, and should not be confused with Google's search ads (where ads are displayed in Google's own search results).

But don't you need certain volume of visits for Google to want to display their ads in your site? What stops me from creating 300 random sites and putting google ads in them and just let them sit?

No minimum traffic, but they have a minimum payment threshold of $100. I have some legacy adsense ads, mostly on an old abandoned blog, which last sent me a payment three years ago. My current balance is $14.82. One of these days, I'll get around to doing what's necessary to resume serving the ads on a wiki I run which used to generate around $5–10 a month, but I'm in no rush.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#48

Post by Bjorkbat »

whack wrote: post #39

Unpopular opinion but this sounds like a half baked idea that will never amount to anything. Imagine some other equally silly parallels: We generate money by selling iOS apps on a network of hidden developers. With this money we automatically buy Apple shares. We buy Apple via their own app store! Apple eats itself - but in the end "we" own it! We generate money by selling goods on Amazon on a network of hidden affil…

I don't think it's intended to actually subvert Google. It's simply interesting.

It's one thing to speculate on taking over a company through unconventional means, but gradually chipping away at a company using the very thing that powers it is pretty interesting. It's hard to imagine doing that in 2005, even harder to imagine doing it now.

Doesn't help that online ads have a certain arcane quality about them. It's crazy that you can make money from a blog just by creating an AdSense account.

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#49

Post by BbzzbB »

whack wrote: post #39

Unpopular opinion but this sounds like a half baked idea that will never amount to anything. Imagine some other equally silly parallels: We generate money by selling iOS apps on a network of hidden developers. With this money we automatically buy Apple shares. We buy Apple via their own app store! Apple eats itself - but in the end "we" own it! We generate money by selling goods on Amazon on a network of hidden affil…

I mean, AAPL is a bad example as it's not far from the truth [0], except it's the iPhone that's financing it not the App Store.

[0]https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/shares-...

Re: Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

#50

Post by stavros »

whack wrote: post #39

Unpopular opinion but this sounds like a half baked idea that will never amount to anything. Imagine some other equally silly parallels: We generate money by selling iOS apps on a network of hidden developers. With this money we automatically buy Apple shares. We buy Apple via their own app store! Apple eats itself - but in the end "we" own it! We generate money by selling goods on Amazon on a network of hidden affil…

This is an art project.
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