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TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

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Re: TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

#81

It really hasn't been covered enough just how much Google has replaced organic search results with their own features. In some cases it's almost all of the above the fold real estate and for shopping they are starting to take over the checkout experience as well. It's significantly reducing organic traffic and turning e-commerce sites into Google suppliers.

It's been going on a long time, Google's been killing off aggregators by cannibalising their market for almost a decade now. I do wonder how sustainable it is, previously these aggregators did lots of things at Google's request, cleaning the noise out and laying everything out in nice data-annotations. More fool them, it turns out. Google cross-references them all, builds their 'own' data and drives them all out of b…

Amazon (and most successful middlemen) employ this strategy too, so aggressively. Get all the data flowing through you, use that data to screw those who you can profit from replacing. Like the people who made sites with public holidays, clocks, converters, calculators that Google has stolen all traffic from for years. Gradually it expands to larger prey, and it feels like a good experience for consumers so it works.

Amazon uses marketplace to access markets without risk or their own suppliers (making them a one stop shop in the process), then once they have the data, they start selling the stuff directly.

I worked in a music instrument retailer, when Amazon was aggressively trying to capture that industry, and they did start selling through Amazon, and if course Amazon now sells most stuff themselves now.

The problem as I see it is that these gradual monopolies pose huge risks to freedom and choice, as they lobby for themselves, and own bigger chunks of the world. Incentives change once you own entire markets, and it's naïve to think what started as a better experience for users will stay that way with less competition.

Not sure what can be done though. Antitrust stuff is really the last resort, and it's not a guarantee that it will even happen. In the EU it probably will I guess. USA not do sure.

Re: TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the sites I maintain has a collection of recipes. It was only when Google started sending me email because they lacked calorie counts that I realized what a terrible idea microdata is for everyone but Google. I have since taken all of the microdata out of the HTML. If google wants it, it can pay for it.

> everyone but Google ... and the users of Google. Being able to see things like calorie counts directly in search results is awesome. Seriously, if you Google "banana bread" you get recipe ratings, cooking time, and calories right in the list of results. The UX is exceptional.

It's awesome, but it is also just a click away and that data isn't google's. That 'exceptional UX' is at the expense of someone else's work with google reaping the profits.

Re: TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

#83
post #73

Google is pretty much taking your shit nowadays and there is nothing you can do about it. That shit is either a company you built or a product of theirs that you used. They are not a search company, they are a conglomerate. They'll buy you or break you. It's funny when they fail though isn't it? Remember Google+? Who lead that initiative? What a travesty that was. Outside of Gmail, Google's UIs really do suck. But ba…

> They'll buy you or break you. You say that like they are equally bad for you. Being bought out is great for the previous owners. (Otherwise, they wouldn't sell.)

Otherwise, they wouldn't sell.

The only reason not to sell is because you believe Google can't break your business before you get a better offer or you can IPO. If you think they can do that then you don't really have much of a choice.

Founders tend to factor this in to their thinking from the start. "Acquired by Google" is often considered a desirable exit goal.

Re: TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

#84
post #2

Google controls search. Google launches a competitor to a web service presented through search. Competitor takes enough of a hit layoffs are needed. This screams of a problem. Especially for consumers and a competitive market. The kind of thing that traditionally caused governments to step in.

Google launched a service consumers preferred. What's the issue? That they have a sustained competitive advantage?

That's not what happened.

Google abused their monopoly in search to present ads and their own results first (google places, hotel ads, search ads all come before organic results).

Re: TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone but Google ... and the users of Google. Being able to see things like calorie counts directly in search results is awesome. Seriously, if you Google "banana bread" you get recipe ratings, cooking time, and calories right in the list of results. The UX is exceptional.

Why would you need or care about the calorie-count of a recipe?Either you want that food or not. Your guts will tell you. Is having a natural approach to food no longer normal?

It makes it easy to compare how healthy a recipe is. I often do many searches looking for the differences in recipes with lower sugar levels. Then also how this changes preparation.

Re: TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

#86

Google is pretty much taking your shit nowadays and there is nothing you can do about it. That shit is either a company you built or a product of theirs that you used. They are not a search company, they are a conglomerate. They'll buy you or break you. It's funny when they fail though isn't it? Remember Google+? Who lead that initiative? What a travesty that was. Outside of Gmail, Google's UIs really do suck. But ba…

Gmail's UI is very, very bad by contemporary standards — but yes.

[deleted]

Re: TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

#87
I eat out and travel a lot, I rarely use TripAdvisor anymore. When I want to find a decent restaurant nearby I open Google Maps, for hotels booking.com reviews haven't failed me yet. I mostly use TripAdvisor when I want to be more specific with the reviews eg. filter by couples in winter

Re: TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

#88
post #34
post #16

Reposting myself on the subject[1]: For anyone not aware (or confused by Silicon Valley tradition on constantly rewriting origin stories), TripAdvisor started in the dot com bubble as a B2B site. They clearly stated their business model was to provide reviews to other sites. Only that after the bubble burst, TripAdvisor had none left. They then basically invented modern SEO: long descriptive URLs, pages pulled out of…

The truth is most companies tend to last ~20 years (from mom and pop to larger ones) if they are successful. You're lucky if you make it further. This is one of those that isn't going to last much further.

Google is eating the travel industry.

Search for anything travel related and you get pages of Google products and advertising widgets before you get to the first organic result.

The change over the last 5 years is huge.

Re: TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

#89
post #88
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is most companies tend to last ~20 years (from mom and pop to larger ones) if they are successful. You're lucky if you make it further. This is one of those that isn't going to last much further.

Google is eating the travel industry. Search for anything travel related and you get pages of Google products and advertising widgets before you get to the first organic result. The change over the last 5 years is huge.

When I first found Google flights a couple years ago it was ahead of all the other trip aggregators and unbelievably cheaper too. I think it forced the cheapo tickets craze because I had never seen $50 cross country tickets before that, and it practically destroyed all the little deals and gentlemens agreements that the other aggregators undoubtedly had.

Re: TripAdvisor cuts hundreds of jobs after Google competition bites

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nationalised search service" ... interesting thought. Legions of Librarians, finally compensated justly and lauded for their heroism. Wonder if they'd get uniforms and "be all you can be" recruiting campaigns too.

Something like DuckDuckGo operated like Let's Encrypt. If it can be done for key management, why not search corpus? What's the annual cost, $10MM? Maybe a bit more, but not crazy expensive. Someone with search experience (ChuckMcM or greglindahl) would be able to say with more certainty.

If you want to do something like DDG, proxying some other search engines results, a point of reference could be Ecosia, which publishes financial reports. It looks like they operate on somewhere in the range of 12M/year.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosia https://de.blog.ecosia.org/ecosia-finanzberichte-baumplanzbe... (in German)

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