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Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

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Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

#211

Post by s1artibartfast »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #161
s1artibartfast wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question makes perfect sense to me. I don't know the ideal number of seeds on a bun off hand, and don't expect the executive does either. Do you know it?

Why would me knowing it matter? So shareholders are paying for the exec, and they are paying for the consultant who is doing the exec's job? If you work as an exec at MCD, working this out is the kind of thing that you should know. It is the reason why you are being paid money to be there.

The exec does know how to work it out: You hire a consultant to give you an answer.

The job of the executive isn't to know the answer to every question. Their job is to make sure questions get answered. There are an infinite number of ways you can do this and hiring a consultant is a valid option.

Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

#212

Post by s1artibartfast »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #171
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also raises the question: why does an executive need a consulting company to tell them to put less seeds on the bun? We can accept that "optimize" does not mean more...so...?

Because if they're wrong, it's the consulting company's fault, not the executive's. It is accountability laundering with a budget.

I don't think that's true at all. If you're a shareholder you're not happy with an exact that gets wrong answers.

If that's why the answer is wrong, having paid a consultant is still a better answer than we didn't try and simply guessed.

Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

#213

Post by testHNac »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #4

I guess I should have seen this coming. If Google is concerned enough about their bottom line to have layoffs, then presumably they're also looking for low-hanging fruit to (they hope) increase revenue. This reminds me of Microsoft's increased injection of ads into Windows 11. I'm curious if/when market dynamics will limit the extent to which Microsoft/Google do this.

Their Main Ads product is progressively getting worse.

Search Ads are less effective than before.

Meta, TikTok etc are way better for many small businesses than Google Search.

They might think that adding more places to show Ads is the solution, I believe it will be better if they check how effective their Search Ads are for their customers.

They luckily have Youtube Ads, for now.

Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

#214

Post by carlosjobim »

charcircuit wrote: post #164
Night_Thastus wrote: post #71

This is part of why I chose a paid e-mail service. 1: No ads, ever 2: No reason to sell my data. They already have income, and if users found out they were selling data, they'd quickly bail from it (At least with the service I use, which is aimed more at users with privacy concerns), which would ruin their steady revenue. 3: Actually a reason to IMPROVE the product, because again, users will leave if the competition…

How do you quickly bail from email? It is a lot of effort to switch to a new email. The friction to levave is so high that your points 2 and 3 are not true.

It is not a lot of effort. You can keep receiving and sending to/from your old e-mail within the new provider for as long as you please.

Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

#215

Post by testHNac »

rchaud wrote: post #137
CoastalCoder wrote: post #4

I guess I should have seen this coming. If Google is concerned enough about their bottom line to have layoffs, then presumably they're also looking for low-hanging fruit to (they hope) increase revenue. This reminds me of Microsoft's increased injection of ads into Windows 11. I'm curious if/when market dynamics will limit the extent to which Microsoft/Google do this.

> I'm curious if/when market dynamics will limit the extent to which Microsoft/Google do this. Market dynamics in this case is just good ol' market failure. Google can 10x the number of pre-roll ads on Youtube, and lose maybe 1% of their audience. Where's every going to go, Peertube? Vimeo? Dailymotion?

Audience is going to Instagram Reels, TikTok. Many small business find showing Ads there convert better than on Youtube. Also, they are less distracting and more immersive for showing Ads compared to Youtube.

Other Social Networks have to bring a better Search Experience and Long Duration video. Then Youtube can easily have a challenger.

Also, showing too many pre-roll ads might reduce the ROI on Ads for the advertiser. I believe an Ad won't convert as good if it's part of a series of Ads.

Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

#216

Post by munificent »

JamesAdir wrote: post #172
uses wrote: post #150

Remember when gmail first came out like almost 20 years ago? You had to get an invite! People loved it. It was a big deal - it made people actually love google. It wasn't just a search engine, it was this awesome company making awesome things and sharing them with you and it just made so much sense. Gmail was a billion times better than the alternatives (hotmail? yahoo mail?) and the competition just looked lazy and…

You're right and the problem is that I can't think of any product from Google for the last 10 years that had the same effect.

Can you think of any product from any company in the past ten years that has made you feel that way?

Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

#217

Post by fauigerzigerk »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #142
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #20

Google now seems deep into the enshittification [1] process. Of all the big tech companies, they seemed the most customer-friendly, the least constrained by the need to optimize their money hose. But I guess the economic logic of tying executive compensation to short-term share price simply overwhelmed other considerations. The stock must go up, so revenues must grow, so Google must monetize everything to the maximum…

Their financial model is similar to a TV or newspaper. Imagine you create a newspaper, you start out showing no ads, lots of people buy it, it is all good. Then you raise money from investors to grow, and they start asking for more revenue. So you add one advertisement. Then the investors want out, so you have to IPO...more ads. Then you have to keep the share price up because execs want options, and your HR consulta…

>Most of their growth has been increasing ads per page

Hasn't most of their growth come from a growing number of internet users?

Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

#218

Post by spitfire »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #157
balderdash wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part (and I do mean part) of the explanation is that people’s expectations around peer group and lifestyle changes. He’s probabaly looking at Larry Ellison and feeling poor, and that he needs to have (make up a number) $1b in the bank to support his lifestyle (planes, houses, hobbies, philanthropic giving, etc.). I bet if you asked in 2004 (pre-google) what the comparable number was, it was like $20-40m…

What type of lifestyle does $1 billion make available that is not already affordable with $200 million?

A few divorces.

Or a mistress or three.

Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

#219

Post by Wowfunhappy »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #208
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What type of lifestyle does $1 billion make available that is not already affordable with $200 million?

Mega-yachts and associated maintenance, larger private jets and associated maintenance, naming any given building or school etc. in the world after yourself

I'd classify those things as ways of showing off your reputation, not improving your quality of life. Once your yacht is of a certain size, the only reason to make it bigger is to demonstrate how much wealthier you are than other yacht owners.

And that's fine, but I wish we lived in a society where "runs a company that doesn't mistreat users" (or treats employees well, or helps the planet, etc) was clearly more important to someone's reputation than the size of their yacht.

Re: Google appears to be scaling up the ads it shows to Gmail users

#220

Post by ydant »

csydas wrote: post #205
ydant wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(not the person you asked) It allows me to pay for a service that I use and I know costs money to run - for a reasonable fee (although it just went up in price and is less reasonable now), given how many hours our family watches per month on YouTube. Creators still get paid from YouTube premium views, and some creators see better revenue from that than from YouTube ads. I like supporting the creators I watch. I refus…

Appreciated, and I'm not immune to the payment situation for Creators and for Youtube itself; my claim isn't that the content should be free or that the Ads are inherently evil, it's about the Youtube app/platform in general. As a user of a piece of software, it's very difficult to even use the darn thing :) Finding new channels is really tough even when logged in and letting the algorithm work for awhile. So for me…

Understood and I agree with most of what you said here. Thank you for clarifying.

I've just personally crossed a threshold where I can't avoid the fact I use enough of it that I should be paying for it. I'd like to think I'd just boycott it entirely if I decided it was too expensive. Not sure if that'd be true in practice. I'd definitely boycott the official app, though - the experience is pretty bad.

Historically, I've avoided using a non-official app due to some questionable distribution methods for some of them, and due to not wanting to anger Google into shutting my account off for non-supported access. The latter is why I no longer use Google search nor Gmail anymore.

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