Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate • Hacker News Board

Re: Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate

#41

Post by jillesvangurp » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 8:21 AM UTC

georgewfraser wrote: post #3

I would really love to know what the quarterly revenue is for just compute and storage, for each of the major cloud providers. Including things like G Suite and Office 365 just muddies the waters.

More specifically, they should just break these huge corporations up. Better for everyone long term, except maybe their tax dodging share holders. Google has conflicts of interest competing against their own cloud customers, some of whom are also ad customers, with products that get preferential treatment on the same platforms. Same for MS. Same for Amazon. Same for Apple. They each have overlapping businesses that are used to subsidize other parts of their business and snuff out competition.

I understand that this is probably legal under the current system but there have been plenty of calls to change that system lately as it has been heavily pushed to its current shape through decades of lobbying & special interest. It's not normal for corporations to dwarf most of the nations in the UN in terms of GDP. That's not a free market anymore but a form of corporate dictatorship.

Re: Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate

#42

Post by IshKebab » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 8:22 AM UTC

iandanforth wrote: post #15

Aside: This was the first time I've tried to read a techcrunch article in Austria (or the EU in general). The splash screen implies I must consent to tracking cookies or I can't view their content. Is that not illegal?

It's almost certainly illegal but the GDPR is not 100% clear about it and it has literally never been enforced, so most sites are happy to do this because they have plausible deniability and safety in numbers.

Re: Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate

#43

Post by davedx » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 8:24 AM UTC

Does anyone know if there are numbers somewhere for how much energy the different cloud providers use? Would be interesting to see which is more efficient from that perspective for those of us who care about such things. Energy per $ revenue or even better per compute would be helpful.

Re: Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate

#44

Post by IshKebab » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 8:25 AM UTC

spookybird wrote: post #39

iandanforth wrote: post #15

Aside: This was the first time I've tried to read a techcrunch article in Austria (or the EU in general). The splash screen implies I must consent to tracking cookies or I can't view their content. Is that not illegal?

IANAL, but why would it be illegal. Isn’t that like saying a company can’t charge you for a product if you don’t want to pay for it. Tech crunch chooses tracking as its fee for reading its content. The law simply states that they must notify you of said tracking. It’s not a public service, and the content is generally pretty crap anyway.

The law says that you must give free consent. Saying "we'll track you or else... (go away / pay up)" is arguable not free.

It doesn't really matter though because literally nobody it enforcing this part of the GDPR.

Re: Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate

#45

Post by olau » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 8:32 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #44

spookybird wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but why would it be illegal. Isn’t that like saying a company can’t charge you for a product if you don’t want to pay for it. Tech crunch chooses tracking as its fee for reading its content. The law simply states that they must notify you of said tracking. It’s not a public service, and the content is generally pretty crap anyway.

The law says that you must give free consent . Saying "we'll track you or else... (go away / pay up)" is arguable not free. It doesn't really matter though because literally nobody it enforcing this part of the GDPR.

... yet.

Re: Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate

#46

Post by fauigerzigerk » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 8:36 AM UTC

iandanforth wrote: post #15

Aside: This was the first time I've tried to read a techcrunch article in Austria (or the EU in general). The splash screen implies I must consent to tracking cookies or I can't view their content. Is that not illegal?

Austria says it's legal. The UK says it's not.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1cad75f1-5fe1...

Edit: On second thought, I'm not sure if the cases are sufficiently similar as Der Standard offers a subscription free of tracking and advertising as an alternative for those who reject cookies. I'm not sure if buying a TechCrunch subscription means they will stop tracking you.

Re: Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate

#47

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 8:40 AM UTC

8ytecoder wrote: post #8

filoleg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should Google and Microsoft separate those just because AWS doesn't make much in their "cloud" SaaS revenue, despite the fact that AWS doesn't separate it either?

Because one is about infrastructure and the other is about Software? Just because it’s in the cloud doesn’t mean they are the same.

Where do you draw the line? If I use the BigQuery UI to analyze data, is that "infra" or "software"? I use Cloud AI Notebooks to spin up a private Jupyter notebook in the Cloud, is that "infra" or "software"?

Re: Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate

#48

Post by f_allwein » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 8:43 AM UTC

davedx wrote: post #43

Does anyone know if there are numbers somewhere for how much energy the different cloud providers use? Would be interesting to see which is more efficient from that perspective for those of us who care about such things. Energy per $ revenue or even better per compute would be helpful.

Google found this: https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-google-microsoft-green-cl...

Re: Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate

#49

Post by moksly » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 8:52 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #44

spookybird wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but why would it be illegal. Isn’t that like saying a company can’t charge you for a product if you don’t want to pay for it. Tech crunch chooses tracking as its fee for reading its content. The law simply states that they must notify you of said tracking. It’s not a public service, and the content is generally pretty crap anyway.

The law says that you must give free consent . Saying "we'll track you or else... (go away / pay up)" is arguable not free. It doesn't really matter though because literally nobody it enforcing this part of the GDPR.

It’s enforced for the public sector. Which is frankly great in my opinion. Our communication departments have always been the black-sheep of privacy.

Between us, I’m not sure why they are so addicted to various tracking that tells them that absolutely no one clicked on 90% of their content, but they are, and they lack the technical ability to do it themselves without relying on frameworks that steal privacy information.

Re: Alphabet earnings show Google Cloud on $10B run rate

#50

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Thu, Feb 06, 2020, 8:55 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #44

spookybird wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but why would it be illegal. Isn’t that like saying a company can’t charge you for a product if you don’t want to pay for it. Tech crunch chooses tracking as its fee for reading its content. The law simply states that they must notify you of said tracking. It’s not a public service, and the content is generally pretty crap anyway.

The law says that you must give free consent . Saying "we'll track you or else... (go away / pay up)" is arguable not free. It doesn't really matter though because literally nobody it enforcing this part of the GDPR.

I believe people have gotten pretty good about auto accepting anything, in no small part due to the 'hey, just wanted to let you know we use cookies, like every other website on the planet!'.

But if people really did overwhelmingly say no, I just see no way for most of the internet to exist. You get overwhelmingly less per click/impression for 'dumb ads,' and news sites have already had to resort to click bait today. It'd pretty much guarantee anything not owned by one of the top 10 would be paywalled in some way.