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A Post-Google World?

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Re: A Post-Google World?

#81

Post by fhdsgbbcaA »

mrkramer wrote: post #47
forrestthewoods wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol no. There already exists alternatives to every Google service. The only moat any of them have is that Google can give them away for free as a loss leader. There’s nothing special about Gmail in 2024. But Gmail is totally free which prevents anyone from investing in a significant competitor. Society will be just fine.

>There already exists alternatives to every Google service. The only moat any of them have is that Google can give them away for free as a loss leader. The irony behind Google is that Google in the early days was the antonym for Yahoo; just a simple looking search engine with a search box, minimalistic UI and a better search ranking compared to Yahoo which was crammed internet portal which looked and felt messy. Nowa…

Hey now - any day now Gemini is going to pop off!

It will read your email for you, reply, make major life decisions (eg respond to marriage proposals, banking transactions, etc), and much more - all in the inbox you know and love!

If there’s one thing I know about Google under Sundar it’s that he’s a man of rare vision, foresight, and leadership. I’m sure things are going to go great!

Re: A Post-Google World?

#82

Post by emrah »

tmpz22 wrote: post #19
LegionMammal978 wrote: post #4

> At some point, they will give up and realize that the writing is on the wall for their current business model. I'd sooner think hell would freeze over than Google would ever 'give up' on its business model of its own accord. I can hardly imagine half of its services being viable as separate businesses. Which might well be a boon for competitors (especially in adtech), but not for any of Google's current employees o…

If profits degrade for Google society will feel the impact pretty quickly. Think about how many schools rely on Google for Education for email, SSO, and Chromebooks. Think about people who rely on Google Maps, Sheets, Docs, and other loss-leading products. Think about all the data they scoop up in all their apps. Late game capitalism applied to Google's portfolio would be catastrophic.

There are many alternatives, some better than others. They would swoop in and fill the void. Sure, some things would take longer than others to replace and get up running but it's not like Google is the only provider of such services

Re: A Post-Google World?

#83

Post by reisse »

dijit wrote: post #34
mbrumlow wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think about this a lot and feel like we are in a horrid position. All of our core service and software is locked up in a handful of companies. For humanity and the future of software’s sake we need to go back to users of software owning their software, preferably by being free and open source. It hurts me as somebody who wants to make money off software, but SaaS is just a bad deal for everybody. My compromise is i…

I’m reminded of a situation that happened in a small town in Sweden. Lots of boutique stores in the city centre moved into the newly created mall (due to the economics of malls being as they are)- the mall was also centrally located so: nothing lost. Almost immediately after this happened; another mall was built outside of town (requiring a car to get to), but as you might expect: rents were substantially cheaper. Al…

> We have lost the ability to function without loss leading technologies (all US based, tying those needs to whatever economic and political situation is happening in the US to the entire world)

Many countries have their own tech stack for what Google provides (think Japan, Korea, China, Russia). It's a shame how EU has completely given up its market for Google.

Re: A Post-Google World?

#84

Post by xboxnolifes »

tmpz22 wrote: post #19
LegionMammal978 wrote: post #4

> At some point, they will give up and realize that the writing is on the wall for their current business model. I'd sooner think hell would freeze over than Google would ever 'give up' on its business model of its own accord. I can hardly imagine half of its services being viable as separate businesses. Which might well be a boon for competitors (especially in adtech), but not for any of Google's current employees o…

If profits degrade for Google society will feel the impact pretty quickly. Think about how many schools rely on Google for Education for email, SSO, and Chromebooks. Think about people who rely on Google Maps, Sheets, Docs, and other loss-leading products. Think about all the data they scoop up in all their apps. Late game capitalism applied to Google's portfolio would be catastrophic.

If google suddenly disappeared, it would suck... for a year or two. Then everyone would have figured out how to operate, just like pre-google.

Re: A Post-Google World?

#86

Post by richiebful1 »

dijit wrote: post #34
mbrumlow wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think about this a lot and feel like we are in a horrid position. All of our core service and software is locked up in a handful of companies. For humanity and the future of software’s sake we need to go back to users of software owning their software, preferably by being free and open source. It hurts me as somebody who wants to make money off software, but SaaS is just a bad deal for everybody. My compromise is i…

I’m reminded of a situation that happened in a small town in Sweden. Lots of boutique stores in the city centre moved into the newly created mall (due to the economics of malls being as they are)- the mall was also centrally located so: nothing lost. Almost immediately after this happened; another mall was built outside of town (requiring a car to get to), but as you might expect: rents were substantially cheaper. Al…

So should Google be regulated as a public utility? I am leaning towards search being a natural monopoly due to the huge resources required to build an index/algorithms/etc

Re: A Post-Google World?

#87

Post by richiebful1 »

jcgrillo wrote: post #38
adamm255 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many people have never known any different. Gmail launched in 2004. Google Docs in 2006. So anyone who’s 18 today has never known a world without it. People don’t know what the save icon is in reality. Paying for things is interesting as media streaming is frequently valued by paying for it, collaboration and things like Google Maps not so much. I remember using a Palm Pilot with Tom Tom, and an old maps pack that…

OTOH something you pay for is much safer and more reliable in multiple ways. I've been in "interesting" situations before with Google Maps, here's one scenario: You begin a trip with driving directions, but 2/3 of the way in your phone shuts off because you forgot to plug it in. When you get it going again you have no service. You open Google Maps and... nothing. Your directions are gone, and you can't load them agai…

Very off-topic by now, but I have Organic Maps as a backup on Android. Downloaded the entire Eastern US and that works surprisingly well in a pinch.

It's hard to beat Google Maps for POI discovery though

Re: A Post-Google World?

#88

Post by NAHWheatCracker »

onion2k wrote: post #71
coryrc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would they make more money off it than what Google is already doing?

By doing what Google is doing and also charging users to use services.

I honestly feel like that would be a good thing. It would push people towards alternatives and create competition.

If Gmail had a $5/10/20 per month fee, I would probably migrate to a more privacy/security focused provider.

I wouldn't pay much for YouTube, but video hosting is relatively easy and YouTube has degenerated so much that I'd like to watch content elsewhere.

I would pay for Kagi and ChatGPT each twice before I would pay the same amount for Google Search.

Good luck charging for Chrome and any of their developers tools.

I know there's a million services by Google and I would probably demean most of them and I'm not near the typical consumer. However, if the typical consumer at least had to consider whether to pay, there would be so much breathing room in many industries. Something as large as Google trying to explicitly monetize all those services could also tremendously change consumer attitudes towards being willing to pay for things thus making more businesses viable that do less of the shitty stuff that Google does. For a bit, there would be some bad will as people notice extra bills. It sucks that those extra fees would disproportionately affect the poor. The most likely case would be something like Google Prime with a monthly $15 or yearly $140, which I don't think is a gross value proposition for an individual of even low means.

Re: A Post-Google World?

#89

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

richiebful1 wrote: post #86
dijit wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m reminded of a situation that happened in a small town in Sweden. Lots of boutique stores in the city centre moved into the newly created mall (due to the economics of malls being as they are)- the mall was also centrally located so: nothing lost. Almost immediately after this happened; another mall was built outside of town (requiring a car to get to), but as you might expect: rents were substantially cheaper. Al…

So should Google be regulated as a public utility? I am leaning towards search being a natural monopoly due to the huge resources required to build an index/algorithms/etc

I have been wondering how hard modern search would be to implement. More and more of the world is getting hidden behind walled gardens denied to search.

Reddit, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter, are all locked down or heavily restricted. I am sure there is still a burgeoning small web, but it is increasingly hard to find. Would many consumers notice/care if your search engine only surfaced pages from the top 1000 highest ranked domains? You would actually decrease the amount of SEO garbage you hit from Stackoverflow clones, Amazon listicles, or Grandma's cookie recipe #9381.

Re: A Post-Google World?

#90

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

soared wrote: post #6

Generally an excellent and accurate write up, nervous/excited to see where this goes. A bit over the top with some of the things google has done in the programmatic space, but aligns with reality. I disagree with the display/programmatic space innovations being held back by google - there are an insane amount of small players who are doing different things and it’s easy to integrate them into the existing space. IE i…

At least with NYSE, Fidelity, SP500 and the SEC, one could avoid them, eg., by choosing not to invest, working for unlisted employers, etc.

But avoiding the web or mobile apps is becoming nearly impossible. Google tentacles are all over this stuff. No escape. For example, one visits a US government website and it needlessly sends data to "google-analytics.com".

The blog tends to be a bit hyperbolic but the author does do the research. If his facts were wrong and he was notified, I suspect he would publish a correction.

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