Earlier quoted context omitted.
Revenue can be made easily enough, profit is harder. The latest number I saw online suggest that GCP lose more than one billion dollar per year. Edit: losing $1.2B on a revenue of just under $4B. That only work because ads are paying for the construction of datacenter and infrastructur.
How are the services provided to Alphabet subsidiaries taken into account? I’d bet that the cloud bill for YouTube alone would exceed GCP revenue numbers. In other words, if GCP is spun out, and Google services keep using it (with realistic pricing) it’s going to have a revenue far exceeding $4bn.
An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion
151–160 of 365 posts
Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d bet that Gsuite could compete is they actually invested in improving the product. After all, office is still one of Microsoft’s major money spinners.
I’d guess GSuite is already a cash cow, just for corporate emails and user management for SMBs.
Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if the behavior of the largest tech companies is a cause or an effect of their size. Is unethical behavior pushing companies to the top of the food chain? Or is it that other companies feel more ethical simply because they don't have as many chances to engage in unethical behavior? If it's the latter, all the push to split the companies is for nothing and we should just consider "ethics at scale" to be an un…
Criminal business is the most profitable business and "unethical" just means "white collar crime". If the law allowed drug trafficking and kidnappings, the biggest corp in the US would be a drug cartel and the only reason they are outlawed is because even people at the top agree that such cartels are bad. Things are different for white collar crime: most people believe that its OK to do shady things if nobody's obvio…
This is besides the point you’re making, but I disagree with this. Disregarding the ones who make drugs for medical use, we already have recreational drug companies operating legally, namely those selling alcohol and tobacco (and coffee I guess). They are not the biggest corporations in the US (although some are still huge and powerful, of course).
The reason it’s currently so insanely profitable dealing in some of the other drugs is their prohibition, which makes prices skyrocket (and of course, when you’re already on the wrong side of the law, you might as well cut corners and utilize harmful practices to the extreme, even further increasing the profits).
Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unlike Microsoft, where at least some of the business units could do pretty well on their own, if the company was broken up, I doubt the same would be true for Google. Other than search and ads, I doubt other part would do particular well. Breaking up Google would result in a lot of people losing their job. I’m not arguing that you’re wrong in the idea of breaking up Google, but I doubt it will happen.
> Other than search and ads, I doubt other part would do particular well. Breaking up Google would result in a lot of people losing their job. This is exactly why companies should be broken up. They can currently afford doing a lot of anti-competitive stuff just because another department is profitable while the anti-competitive methods/departments won't. That people would lose their job shouldn't be a consideration…
The need for everything to be profitable is why Google got into selling Ads and also why they keep killing projects. Many things in the world worth doing don't nearly fit into a nice profitable business but in many ways, bring some positivity to the world.
Android gave many people a chance at a modern smartphone and connected future. Chrome would never be profitable on its own but for a time, it forced web standards to move forward and freed many people from the mess of 1000 virus-laden toolbars in I.E.
Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion
#155I wonder how that code managed to stay secret so many years. How did they keep all the mass of data, the tickets, the user stories and pitch decks from being spilled online and get publicly dressed down? I guess that’s the one single major threat to effectively WHF: the need for maximum security secrecy and infrastructure control.
Well, look at me. I’m an immigrant. My wife’s useful skills would probably give her salary of about 5th of what we need, so she doesn’t work and takes care of the kid, house and engages in her hobbies, like making custom teddy bears. If I were put on a project like that I can easily imagine being quiet about it as I put well being of my family waaaay above any ethics. I can imagine that a lot of people do. So the onl…
And probably some sort of minimal unconditional financial security denying corporations to practically take people hostage.
Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion
#156I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…
You can’t expect others in a company to put their morals over profits because at the end of the day no one gets fired for making money, but you can if your morals get in the way of profit. The incentives always pushes on the side of profit.
As a company grows the founders who originally directed the company’s ethics either step down or have less influence in the day to day decision making at every level of the company.
I think this is why we see companies like Tesla (and startups more generally) making so many “out there” decisions in terms of design and how they run their business. No one’s going to risk their job on pitching the cyber truck at Ford or spending $0 on advertisement. These things really need to be pushed by a founder who isn’t worried about being fired for doing something that seems crazy on paper.
Generally I think the world would be better off with less super massive companies who no longer have a founder with morals and a vision to guide the company away from a purely profit motivated future.
Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion
#157Are there any publicly traded competitors to the ad exchanges Google and Facebook run?
Yes, but you can't effectively use them unless you run them through Google Ad Manager, which gives Google special privileges/rights for their own ad inventory versus the competitor. For example, Google gets to look at the ad impression before anyone else, Google is required to win all tie-breakers, etc.
Can you give an example?
Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion
#158I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…
I have the feeling that all large companies, regardless of how ethical their mission, can make you feel bad. But just because you feel bad doesn't mean the majority of outcomes of the company are bad. I mean, shit, our country as a whole produces some pretty bad outcomes, but not necessarily the majority. At some point we need to be more rational than emotional and do as much good as we can while still collecting a paycheck. But of course we should be willing to leave and work for good if we can no longer justify the bad.
I don't think there is any safe math for that. What if staying provides a better opportunity to create necessary change? At what point do we choose between the easy and the right, and how do we even find that line?
Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion
#159Google seriously needs to be broken up into small pieces or disolved entirely. Their leadership just cannot be be trusted and the internet would be better off without them around.