Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft spent almost the same on nuance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26778780
hah - nuance freakin deserves it though. their tech is good for its time, but they _nailed_ distribution
Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care
161–170 of 227 posts
Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Healthcare is not expensive for lack of huge government-entangled corporations monopolizing and commercializing patient personal information. At least not in USA, where healthcare legislation is written by and for the industry (e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/05/obamac... ), and total healthcare expenditure is somewhere around double that of most other first world countries with more universa…
>total healthcare expenditure is somewhere around double that of most other first world countries >the standard of care in America is probably second to none if you can pay for it How sure are we that these two things are unrelated?
Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care
#163This is nothing new. MSFT, Alphabet, AMZN, Oracle have all been making plays for years trying to get into the healthcare industry. It's a huge, bloated industry
This is also an heavily regulated industry in terms of patient data protection, software quality, part availability, etc. It will be interesting to see how big tech will deal with having an overbearing regulator breathing down their neck.
Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care
#164I don’t understand these drives. The US is the only developed country without state control of healthcare. How is Google hoping to grow their market outside the US when it’s such a difficult space to navigate?
Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Checkout their last Google Io. They know how they make their money and don't hide it. But they make you as an individual disappear. It's a much better compromise than from any other company and they drive this topic for years.
you dont disappear. you become embedded. they are metaphorically assigning you a number and stripping you of an identity. It is dehumanizing. At the end of the day, it's just you by a different name. Instead of owning it and claiming "we have this information on Gehlitio" they say things like "We have these generalizations about anybody who happens to use HN, speaks in English, bought X Y and Z, subscribes to A, "
Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care
#166So, another service that Google can build two different versions of, then discontinue without warning after a couple of years?
Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care
#167I don’t understand these drives. The US is the only developed country without state control of healthcare. How is Google hoping to grow their market outside the US when it’s such a difficult space to navigate?
Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vermont did try it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform It does not work for the reasons tptacek wrote. With freedom of movement, eventually net benefit recipients will move in, and net payers into the system will move out.
Vermont (a tiny state) would suffer much more from that than would California.
It is always the same story with any broad high cost universal benefit offered within a taxing jurisdiction that does not have immigration control. Homelessness (land costs), mental healthcare (legal and labor costs), and healthcare. Even subsidized higher education is not universal, it is restricted to residents.
That is why we do not see these offered anywhere, and why it has to be a federal move.
Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care
#169Link is here if you want
https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/about-the-nhs/sharing-your-...
A few points:
I'm not against data mining at all, just handing it out to agencies without my say so. I'd be happy for it to be used for this purpose entirely within the NHS but that's not what was assured.
I don't like the approach that you have to opt out, not opt in.
I others may have different tradeoffs, that's fine. This is my view and urge people not to follow what I've done but to decide for themselves. It's your data, if you're in the UK, you can make a choice (not making a choice IS making a choice: for it to be shared).
Edit: and please don't respond with "just you wait..." or "it's going to happen anyway" defeatist juvenile posts.
Re: Alphabet is spending billions to become a force in health care
#170I really wish Google would just accept it's a dumb advertising company and forget about these moonshots. It's just to stroke the founders ego. They are big enough. Pay out a huge dividend or something.
"dumb advertising company" is trivialising the amazing tech and products Google has. Google has very justified bad reputation around product shutdowns and privacy, but I don't think being dumb is one of them.