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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

#231

Post by carlosjobim »

yamtaddle wrote: post #111
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #18

The availability of free email services is a wonderful thing. But if email is important to you, it probably shouldn't be in Gmail.

In the US, it's pretty ridiculous that the USPS isn't doing email yet. Free account with some strict limits (especially on per-day sending) for all residents, paid options available, support at post office locations and partner libraries. It's nigh-necessary for communicating with government and participating in the economy—USPS ought to do email.

The government should keep their hands as far away from e-mail as possible. This is a solved problem since decades ago. There are great working e-mail services that anybody can afford. The government is not a God who will step down and make everything all right.

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

#232

Post by fauigerzigerk »

6510 wrote: post #226
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most of their growth has been increasing ads per page Hasn't most of their growth come from a growing number of internet users?

If the user has no money his eye balls aren't worth much.

But the user does have money everywhere. India's GDP has long surpassed that of the UK and is quickly approaching that of Germany.

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

#233

Post by s1artibartfast »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #227
s1artibartfast wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As I said, the job is not to know the answer to the question but to work out how. If you are hiring someone from the outside, you are outsourcing basic functions. If his job is as simple as hiring consultants, why do you need to pay someone $1m+/year to hire a consultant. Just hire a guy on $10k/year who tells you to hire a consultant. It isn't a valid option. This is one of the reasons why most corporations are poor…

I think you're starting from the conclusion you want CEO is bad and reverse engineering a justification along with making up supporting facts.

I hire consultants and outsource activities all the time. It isn't all I do but a key part of it. There's no chance you'd find someone to do my job for 10K a year. There is no chance I would want to hire dozens of employees each time I have a rare off question.

Your example and position make no sense: hiring an outside group is always wrong and hiring inside team is always right. I don't learn anything different either way. You call it a basic function, but what if I wont want to indefinitely keep a team on staff to answer seed questions?

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

#234

Post by denton-scratch »

spitfire wrote: post #218
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?

A few divorces. Or a mistress or three.

A big yacht with a helipad in the Seychelles, and another in the Bahamas.

And you have to crew the yachts - usually more crew than passengers.

And a helicopter, and a private jet.

Those'll chew up 300 mill easily.

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

#235

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #219
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 impor…

> 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.

This may or may not be the opinion of people in the position to actually assess it. It can be the difference between being able to go to a place you want to go or not, based on range or seaworthiness. It can be the difference between having an amenity on the craft or not.

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

#236

Post by AJ007 »

ksec wrote: post #104
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…

>the least constrained by the need to optimize their money hose Not entirely true. They are squeezed left and right by Apple. Google pay Apple per active user as the default search engine. As Apple continue to increase their user base, the higher the total cost for Google to remain default. All while Apple, in the name of privacy and fundamental human right, started a crusade against online ads, mainly targeting Face…

Put this in to perspective. Alphabet had $282 BILLION in revenue in 2022. I don't know exactly what they will pay in 2023, but in previous years it was somewhere around $10 billion a year.

Google incentivizes it's employees in a certain way. Those employees have a very high expectation of not only income but wealth.

Management has demonstrated an ability to waste an enormous amount of that money (Alphabet/Google is certainly not alone in that regards.) Because they own a monopoly they can get away with it. Because the monopoly is in advertising they don't have to be that exceptional in terms of delivering new and improved products. Because of the stock ownership structure and because they've had tremendous revenue growth for so long they really haven't had to answer to their investors about their failure and waste. In some regards a lot of those investors are asleep and don't really understand what is going on.

However, the managers need to crank the monetization dial to hit whatever incentives are set for them to become wealthy or grow whatever wealth they already have.

This is a bag of tricks (the monetization dial) that has worked well for over a decade. When it runs out, Google's revenue growth will end and employees will no longer get to become wealthy by being employees. Maybe they will suddenly get a lot of capital discipline and experience a second wind like Microsoft appears to have. Maybe they will start looking more like Yahoo. To be determined.

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

#237

Post by derefr »

Mistletoe wrote: post #63
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…

Am I naive to think that when you make $226 million in a year like Pichai that money should stop being your major driving force and that your reputation is more important? Like what else could he buy? But his reputation is taking severe hits. Maybe I just don't understand ultra rich people though. Maybe money is everything.

Remember that these bigcos have tens of thousands of salaried employees, and those employees all get stock options. A bigco CEO might no longer be motivated by personal gain, nor by public reputation; but rather, by private reputation, within their own company, among their employees.

After all, their employees — especially the executives — are the group of people a CEO is surrounded by every working day. So, assuming they're neither a sociopath nor an Effective Altruist, why wouldn't they feel a strong empathetic desire to "help" the people right in front of them?

And presuming they want to help those people, why wouldn't they then conclude that the best, most scalable way they have to do that, is to make sure that those people are all set for life by holding high-value amounts of company stock; and that the most comparative-advantage-y way the CEO has of accomplishing that, is to make the share price go up?

Or, to put that another way: a pirate captain doesn't go home once they're personally rich. They made a (perhaps unstated) agreement with their crew: they won't go home until everyone is rich, and they can all comfortably retire. Until then, they'll continue to exploit others for their own gain.

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

#238

Post by yamtaddle »

carlosjobim wrote: post #231
yamtaddle wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it's pretty ridiculous that the USPS isn't doing email yet. Free account with some strict limits (especially on per-day sending) for all residents, paid options available, support at post office locations and partner libraries. It's nigh-necessary for communicating with government and participating in the economy—USPS ought to do email.

The government should keep their hands as far away from e-mail as possible. This is a solved problem since decades ago. There are great working e-mail services that anybody can afford. The government is not a God who will step down and make everything all right.

> This is a solved problem since decades ago. There are great working e-mail services that anybody can afford.

I disagree, based on accounts by librarians that they're becoming tech support of last resort for various unaccountable and uncaring email providers that the most vulnerable in society are trying to use just to get by, causing basically everyone involved to be miserable and worse-off than they might be in a better-functioning system.

I don't think government should be the only provider (and I don't think I even implied that?) but do think that if one of the main ways of interacting with vital government and private-sector services is going to be email—and it is—then it makes a lot of sense for the USPS to provide a viable option for that, for basically the same reason that it makes sense to have a USPS at all.

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

#239

Post by 90-00-09 »

munificent wrote: post #216
JamesAdir wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Our digital footprints expanded dramatically in the last 10-20 years. While not a single app, a combination of apps made me feel "better" in a way that Gmail made me feel all these years ago. This February I switched to Kagi, Proton Mail, Bitwarden, Apple Calendar/Reminders/Notes. This combination made me feel like I am once again in control of my digital life and can be more productive without sacrificing attention.

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

#240

Post by 90-00-09 »

htag wrote: post #155
laylomo2 wrote: post #11

Just another logical step in Google’s brand erosion. After a sufficient erosion has taken place a new CEO will be appointed to “bring back” the old Google. But by then it will be too late.

Will it be too late? Balmer's stench is almost completely off Microsoft.

Too late for some. I will never go back to Windows, won't ever use Bing. Still don't trust any MS product even though I do use VSCode (mostly due to Remote not being available in VSCodium). So objectively speaking I agree that the stench is mostly off, but subjectively I have 0 trust in MS (and I did have some trust before).
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