Earlier quoted context omitted.
And indeed FB did eat their lunch in social.
At the same time Facebook tried and failed to take on Gmail.
I would not argue they failed. Young people don't email their friends.
Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
121–130 of 145 posts
Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
And indeed FB did eat their lunch in social.
and in doing so, set themselves up for much larger failure. Google instead pivoted that energy into cloud, which is now broken out in their earnings. I was one of those googlers who, when Plus was announced, wondered "why aren't we announcing an AWS competitor?"
What makes you think it was the same people inside Google that did social instead of cloud computing, and that was the choice going through leadership?
Google can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd bet that Google & Facebook's current run-up is largely driven by inflation and higher ad prices. What does this mean? The dollar didn't inflate 68%. If you mean that companies are investing more capital into advertising because capital markets are looser, sure, but why is that a bad thing again?
Inflation is uneven, and it tends to pool in markets that are: a.) close to the point where the money is injected b.) have quick-adapting prices, ideally ones where competitors bid against each other c.) are dominated by 1-2 firms with little competition, so they have pricing power. Google and Facebook tick all the boxes. In COVID money was injected directly to the consumers (thanks to stimulus payments) and to small…
2 -> This is the only part of the comment I agree with, inflation is slower to show up in sticky prices.
The rest is wrong - you can look to an economist https://www.themoneyillusion.com/it-really-really-really-doe... if you want an explanation.
I'll not there is a tension between 2 and 3 as highly competitive markets tend to not have sticky prices.
tl;dr You advance a claim of strong monetary non-neutrality. I think that outside of sticky prices, your claim is overstated.
Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
and in doing so, set themselves up for much larger failure. Google instead pivoted that energy into cloud, which is now broken out in their earnings. I was one of those googlers who, when Plus was announced, wondered "why aren't we announcing an AWS competitor?"
What makes you think it was the same people inside Google that did social instead of cloud computing, and that was the choice going through leadership? Google can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Well, I worked there at the time and had significant insight into the cloud leadership (and some into the social leadership), it wasn't the same people at all. Basically, Eric Schmidt wanted Google to make an enterprise cloud product years before it did, and saw no point in social, while Larry somehow got conned by Vic Gundotra and a few good PM decks that social was Google's future. Larry never had any interest in cloud computing and even the cloud leadership was skeptical that it could ever present an opportunity worth the small profit margins.
Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
#125Once more, I don't understand how advertising revenue keeps growing. Once people install ad blockers, they don't typically remove them. And ad-blockers keep growing. So who is actually seeing these ads? How can those numbers be going up ? I understand, intellectually, that not everyone thinks like me. But I don't fundamentally understand why people allow ads on their devices when they can prevent it. Then again, I do…
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Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
what's really scary is that some of that profitability comes straight from governments "purchasing" capabilities such as recently the exposed deal https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10063665/Government...
Don't see anything in there about government paying
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Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's money given to people and businesses. Secondary effects could go into the stock market but not directly and I definitely would not call that dumping into the stock market considering most was probably used to keep business and people afloat.
This squarely falls into the anecdotal camp, but my understanding based on online commentary and more specifically the actual experiences of four of my friends who run businesses ranging from a two-employee, furniture-building firm that probably generates $300-$500k in annual revenue all the way up to a major concrete contractor with a thousand employees and hundreds of millions in revenue applied for and were grante…
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Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
#128Once more, I don't understand how advertising revenue keeps growing. Once people install ad blockers, they don't typically remove them. And ad-blockers keep growing. So who is actually seeing these ads? How can those numbers be going up ? I understand, intellectually, that not everyone thinks like me. But I don't fundamentally understand why people allow ads on their devices when they can prevent it. Then again, I do…
Your impression of ad blockers and the market for them is a bubble/wildly off. Likely drop in bucket compared to rest of real world out there! c'mon.
(aside: what ads? why are you surfing so many sites with ads where they're a nuissance? I don't even notice them on the few sites I come across them/what I do see is manageable, no plugins or extensions needed ever)
Search is the key - so many listings intermixed with search results, and search is a major part of everyone's life. And whether people are clicking them or noticing them is another thing but alot of ad sales are on the page impressions alone, so that's not nothing based on billions of daily searches.
Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
#129I like to think I'm doing my part as a sharehholder. Every so often I'll google something like Criminal Defense Attorney , send money , or file taxes and click on the highest ads.
That seems like fraud, especially if you were to do it at scale.
You mean like owning Tesla stock and buying a Tesla?
What about owning McDonalds stock and buying dinner?
Obviously fraud is not easy to label.
Re: Alphabet Third Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
#130What value do they provide to our society? We empower the wrong things..
I'd love to have access to a free search engine, email, and a video platform. But objectively running and improving those systems takes money that people is not really willing to pay for. Wikipedia is a good example on how our anchor on that everything digital must be free keeps us from developing free systems. I wish we could change that. Now, what value do those systems provide? I would definitely be living a much…
it's not free, you pay with your data, privacy and is not "free" of capitalistic censorship (shadowing actual result with value because entity X bought the spot to get included at the top of your 'free' search)
wikipedia actually is free, and we do not empower it for the value it provides to our society