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Google Brass Set 2023 as Deadline to Beat Amazon, Microsoft in Cloud

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Re: Google Brass Set 2023 as Deadline to Beat Amazon, Microsoft in Cloud

#561

Post by jacquesm »

ogre_codes wrote: post #455
altgoogler wrote: post #414

Googler here. My opinions are my own; I have no non-public knowledge on this topic. I do not understand the hyperbole around this report. Nowhere does it say that Google plans to shutter GCP if it doesn't reach #1 by 2023. > said people with knowledge of the matter. As in, people who may not have even been at said meeting which took place nearly two years ago, under a different VP and now a different CEO, and saw som…

> So it's not about being #1, it's about being profitable. The problem Google has with the developer community is largely around the fact that Google has a long history of pulling the rug out from our feet. There have been 3 stories on HN in the past couple weeks alone about Google products which have either been dropped or changed significantly such that they are no longer viable for developers to use. Google has lo…

Funny thing about plus, reader and wave: that was the kind of stuff that people who are now in positions to make infrastructure decisions got worked up about. It's the sort of image damage that may have seemed minor and acceptable at the time that can come back with a very large multiplier in the future, especially given the kind of prominence those products once had.

Re: Google Brass Set 2023 as Deadline to Beat Amazon, Microsoft in Cloud

#562

Post by james_s_tayler »

QuinnyPig wrote: post #546
ogre_codes wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it's not about being #1, it's about being profitable. The problem Google has with the developer community is largely around the fact that Google has a long history of pulling the rug out from our feet. There have been 3 stories on HN in the past couple weeks alone about Google products which have either been dropped or changed significantly such that they are no longer viable for developers to use. Google has lo…

This is the entire problem. Swap “Google” for “AWS” in the article and you’d have legions of folks calling foul on the article. Instead, most folks are nodding along to the article going “yep, seems like something Google would do all right…” Google’s problem remains its reputation for turning things off.

Also AWS is just the best at marketing their services. They did what Google did with search. We always say we "Google" things.

Developers these days say "Chuck it in S3" or "Run it on EC2". I feel they have a strong advantage because they've kind of come to own the language of the cloud.

Re: Google Brass Set 2023 as Deadline to Beat Amazon, Microsoft in Cloud

#563

Post by jacquesm »

1MoreThing wrote: post #545
dragonsh wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor customer service is not exclusive to Amazon, google directly shut the product down which cannot earn search scale revenue. If you see comments below being downvoted by google PR for examples. I believe all these large cloud companies be it amazon, google or Microsoft deploy army of PR people and campaigns to downvote or try to remove comments which are critical. Especially I have seen this on HN, earlier when I…

This is the same logic my extended family uses when they tell me that their phones eavesdrop on their conversations to target advertisements. Just because it's possible and fits your narrative doesn't make it true. No brand or PR team that I've ever been near has the capacity to monitor and then manually downvote this kind of thing, even on major sites, let alone a niche news site like HN. Who has the budget for this…

> No brand or PR team that I've ever been near has the capacity to monitor and then manually downvote this kind of thing

Astroturfing and reputation management are a thing. Also, big companies have a large number of employees some of who hang out here and will simply take offense by association, which could be more than enough to explain the effect even if the company itself has nothing to do with it.

HN is no longer niche.

> Who has the budget for this?

Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and whole pile more if they wanted to it would be a round off error on their budget but besides one of those I don't think there was ever hard evidence that this happens.

Reputation management is becoming more and more important to brands.

Re: Google Brass Set 2023 as Deadline to Beat Amazon, Microsoft in Cloud

#564

Post by scarejunba »

jacquesm wrote: post #561
ogre_codes wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it's not about being #1, it's about being profitable. The problem Google has with the developer community is largely around the fact that Google has a long history of pulling the rug out from our feet. There have been 3 stories on HN in the past couple weeks alone about Google products which have either been dropped or changed significantly such that they are no longer viable for developers to use. Google has lo…

Funny thing about plus, reader and wave: that was the kind of stuff that people who are now in positions to make infrastructure decisions got worked up about. It's the sort of image damage that may have seemed minor and acceptable at the time that can come back with a very large multiplier in the future, especially given the kind of prominence those products once had.

This was genuinely not a factor when we signed a 1E8 deal with GCP. What was a factor: (non-exhaustive)

* Access to their developers for core services

* Discounts available

* Quality of support

* Access Controls / Audit / Budgeting

* Dev Tools around Infra

* Future Roadmap

Not one of us ever would have chosen the shutdown of Plus/Reader/Wave as a factor. As a startup we hard pivoted in order to succeed. No surprise that members of the population of products have to die for the population itself to survive.

And the group making these decisions are a bunch of Unixheads who were some of the first members on The Old Reader. We made a few hundred million bet that GCP will be around and capable for the next five years (and probably for the five after). I am confident this will play out in our favour. I'd put money down except for the fact that I already did effectively by recommending the deal.

Re: Google Brass Set 2023 as Deadline to Beat Amazon, Microsoft in Cloud

#565

Post by v7p1Qbt1im »

dragonsh wrote: post #467
ksec wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it could have been Google's competitor making up these stories so enterprise customers would stop and think before switching, it is also better for competitors's sales to pitch on the potential of a shuttered GCP, which you can tell full well if I was a sales I would be referencing this article. And it wouldn't matter of there wasn't even an ounce of truth there, Google's reputation on future roadmap, communicat…

It’s not Google’s competitor making this story if you look at previous blog and critical comments from last few years you can see, google has internally been struggling on how to get more profit out of Google’s users. Also google PR is launching active campaign to muzzle voice by downvoting critical comments and blogs. Happened yesterday to my comments on HN and might happen to this comment as well. Google used searc…

I don‘t believe they don‘t care about users per say. It‘s more the fact that they are blessed and cursed with the single most profitable business model the world has ever seen. Nothing is going to beat the profit margins of their ad business. It‘s very hard to then go to other models where the margins are much slimmer.

I still say cloud is their best bet besides ads. They absolutely do have to diversify. Once regulation hits it‘s gonna be tough. So cloud needs to be profitable when ads aren‘t growing 20% yoy anymore.

Re: Google Brass Set 2023 as Deadline to Beat Amazon, Microsoft in Cloud

#566

Post by manigandham »

xvector wrote: post #512
manigandham wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they won't. This is ridiculous hyperbole. They've barely shuttered any real enterprise projects and even those were miniscule in usage. Google is a trillion-dollar company and GCP has the potential to be bigger than their ads platform. It's not going anywhere.

> No they won't [shutter GCP]. This is ridiculous hyperbole. From the article: > The group even talked about—and eventually dismissed—the idea of leaving the market entirely That's good enough reason for anyone to get off GCP.

Why so much significance to such a minor line in a meeting years ago? What about the part where it was dismissed? Or does that part not matter?

I don't know how else to explain this. AWS and Azure are massive profit centers and GCP is slowly catching up. Cloud computing, machine learning, big data, IoT, and more have trillions in potential market cap.

It's completely nonsensical to consider that a company this big with this much investment already will exit that opportunity.

Re: Google Brass Set 2023 as Deadline to Beat Amazon, Microsoft in Cloud

#567

Post by topkeks »

scarface74 wrote: post #273
rumanator wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is far from the world’s “third largest provider” You're being a bit disingenuous. Your own source states quite clearly that Google is in the 3rd spot and arguably, if you cherry-pick results, you can place it in 4th. By cherry-picked results I'm referring to posting 2018 results and ignoring how GCP's revenue doubled in the last 18 months, nearly matching Azure's revenue.

So let’s look at the raw marketshare. It’s 10% of AWS. Also revenue != profit. If it was profitable enough would management be complaining?

Are you playing dumb or just trolling?

Re: Google Brass Set 2023 as Deadline to Beat Amazon, Microsoft in Cloud

#569

Post by JimboOmega »

james_s_tayler wrote: post #562
QuinnyPig wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the entire problem. Swap “Google” for “AWS” in the article and you’d have legions of folks calling foul on the article. Instead, most folks are nodding along to the article going “yep, seems like something Google would do all right…” Google’s problem remains its reputation for turning things off.

Also AWS is just the best at marketing their services. They did what Google did with search. We always say we "Google" things. Developers these days say "Chuck it in S3" or "Run it on EC2". I feel they have a strong advantage because they've kind of come to own the language of the cloud.

Actually, most of the time we say "in the cloud" rather than naming a specific hosting provider. Definitely Amazon has the first mover advantage and accumulated reputation first, but it's hardly unassailable.

Still... I think the bigger problem isn't whether or not Google plans topull the plug or not, but that it has a reputation of pulling plugs to such an extent that people factor that into a decision of using their services.

When it's something as big a choice as a cloud provider that can cast a long shadow over their offerings.

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