Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 119 posts

Re: Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

#21

Post by akmarinov »

asadlionpk wrote: post #8
echelon wrote: post #5

Google doesn't seem anti-fragile to me. They have always seemed every bit as vulnerable as Meta, but with a few extra (yet weak) plates of armor due to an unfair ecosystem they've created to funnel you into Adsense. An ecosystem that many legislators and the DOJ think violates antitrust, and that the EU and other countries are already ruling against. If Apple begins blocking their trackers (see Google's recent worldw…

They can surely do that but Google search does provide value. Even my mother noticed poor results when her search changed to some random bing-powered one. Also, Google has Android ie. largest OS in terms of user-base.

Android is shit for monetization, you need 3x as many users to match iOS revenue from ads or subscriptions

Re: Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

#22

Post by waboremo »

echelon wrote: post #5

Google doesn't seem anti-fragile to me. They have always seemed every bit as vulnerable as Meta, but with a few extra (yet weak) plates of armor due to an unfair ecosystem they've created to funnel you into Adsense. An ecosystem that many legislators and the DOJ think violates antitrust, and that the EU and other countries are already ruling against. If Apple begins blocking their trackers (see Google's recent worldw…

It does seem a lot of Google's current dominance relies on the idea that Android, YouTube, Google Ads, and Chrome will remain unchallenged. In avenues where they are challenged, they either fold completely (Stadia) or make significantly less than equal counterparts (Play Store v App Store).

Google seems both fragile and sloppy. How they managed to get a bigger/faster slap on the wrist for antitrust in the EU than Apple is a demonstration of this.

Re: Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

#23

Post by kshacker »

adam_arthur wrote: post #11

Yet their headcount grew by double digits. Many tech companies living in fantasy land, having gotten used to free money and strong organic growth essentially guaranteed from secular tailwinds. At a certain scale, and level of competition (more and more social/advertising platforms becoming popular), these companies become more cyclical rather than guaranteed growth bets. Google is a great company that will surely be…

There will always be some leading parameters some lagging parameters. It makes a difference when you are overly leveraged or if you are too small but big companies like google, Amazon, apple should be able to manage some level of forecast leading or lagging the demand, no?

Re: Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

#24

Post by sschueller »

Yet they forced all Google workspace users that were grandfathered in free plans to start paying and are currently forcing grandfathered Google music (YouTube premium) family subscribers to eat a +50% price increase.

Why would I stay with Google if my loyalty counts for nothing?

Same goes for Netflix, if you aren't going to reward me being with you from day 1 why should I show you any loyalty?

I will take full advantage of any free trials and cancled at the end switching from one to the other.

Re: Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

#25

Post by linza »

nikanj wrote: post #16
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's insane hiring and investment into a gazillion non-ads product areas over the last 10 years tells you that they know this as well. They've been shoveling their ad revenues desperately into a furnace of "everything but ads", throwing ideas against numerous walls to see what sticks, and copying other company's product roadmaps. Almost none of it has worked out. They're still dependent on that ad revenue firehos…

Too bad they now have a reputation of killing every new product. Nobody wants to invest time into using their new shiny, because people assume it’ll be gone in a year or two

It's like to counter that Google's business customers and investors see these shut down stories likely in a different light: they stopped doing something that was a distraction from core business or irrelevant. Stadia was a powerful demonstration what Google is capable of, technology-wise.

Re: Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

#26

Post by hanoz »

ajross wrote: post #17
bwb wrote: post #2

This seems like a bit of a non-story in some ways. Their revenue was up slightly YOY, and after that crazy huge quarter and the economic slow down this seems like a non-deal.

Pretty much. The level of "a-ha! this confirms all my priors!" logic in these threads is just deafening. Look everyone: economies are cyclic. We had a boom. Now we're in a downturn. It's happened before, many times. It will happen again. Nothing happening today is remotely as scary as what we saw in 2008, frankly isn't nearly as disruptive as the 2001 crash. Google will be fine. The tech industry will be fine. Buy th…

> Nothing happening today is remotely as scary as what we saw in 2008

As what's happening "today" is basically a postponed and amplified version of what should have happened in 2008, I have to disagree.

Re: Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

#27

Post by twblalock »

bwb wrote: post #2

This seems like a bit of a non-story in some ways. Their revenue was up slightly YOY, and after that crazy huge quarter and the economic slow down this seems like a non-deal.

If Google had announced that this would happen a quarter ago, then it would be a non-story.

They failed to achieve their own predictions on both EPS and revenue, by quite a bit on EPS, and that is indeed a story.

Re: Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

#28

Post by adam_arthur »

kshacker wrote: post #23
adam_arthur wrote: post #11

Yet their headcount grew by double digits. Many tech companies living in fantasy land, having gotten used to free money and strong organic growth essentially guaranteed from secular tailwinds. At a certain scale, and level of competition (more and more social/advertising platforms becoming popular), these companies become more cyclical rather than guaranteed growth bets. Google is a great company that will surely be…

There will always be some leading parameters some lagging parameters. It makes a difference when you are overly leveraged or if you are too small but big companies like google, Amazon, apple should be able to manage some level of forecast leading or lagging the demand, no?

Sure, it’s important not to overindex on short term fluctuations.

But their employment expense and headcount growth is far, far ahead of their revenue growth. A recession next year is pretty much inevitable at this point due to inflation dynamics and Fed policy.

Having their stock get hammered even worse as revenues contract and margin compression eats into earnings is going to lead to many more problems for them in the future than if they just slow the pace of hiring now.

They may even be doing layoffs this time next year, which is much easier to avoid if you don’t overhire leading into a recession

Re: Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

#30

Post by mediumiqsad »

hanoz wrote: post #26
ajross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. The level of "a-ha! this confirms all my priors!" logic in these threads is just deafening. Look everyone: economies are cyclic. We had a boom. Now we're in a downturn. It's happened before, many times. It will happen again. Nothing happening today is remotely as scary as what we saw in 2008, frankly isn't nearly as disruptive as the 2001 crash. Google will be fine. The tech industry will be fine. Buy th…

> Nothing happening today is remotely as scary as what we saw in 2008 As what's happening "today" is basically a postponed and amplified version of what should have happened in 2008, I have to disagree.

No post body was provided.
Post reply on HN