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unlike Google, where practically 100% comes from one single product, which is ads. all "other bets" are actually losing money, per their data.

coldcode 11y ago
People love Apple's products (for the most part). People hate ads (pretty much everyone). So this makes no sense to me at all that Google is worth more than Apple. If you imagine the future, no one really knows what each will do with all the stuff they are building, so saying Google is worth more than Apple in the future seems silly.
- eric_h 11y ago
  > People hate ads (pretty much everyone). And yet the percentage of people who watch the Super Bowl explicitly to see the ads is a non-trivial percentage of the viewing population (obviously anecdata, but I know many people who throw super bowl parties for groups who have no interest in the football, and just want to have a party while watching the moderately amusing, big-budget ads with breaks for football in between).
  - adrusi 11y ago
    I don't think people hate ads on principle. Some do, and they're vocal, but most people hate ads because they're annoying and obnoxious. If every ad was as well produced and as tailored to the content as super bowl ads are, people would be fine with advertising. Instead we get the ugliest, most obtrusively designed 10 second animations looping alongside articles and in between paragraphs, advertising disguised as content, and tracking scripts that reveal to questionable organizations an unsavory level of detail into our lives.
- codeka 11y ago
  > People hate ads (pretty much everyone) Except of course, the people actually paying for ads don't hate them... otherwise they wouldn't be paying for them.
jpatokal 11y ago
Nope: there's Google ads, Google non-ads, and "Other Bets". Q4 Google non-ad revenue was $2.1 billion, or almost 10%, and this share has been steadily increasing. https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2015/Q4_google_earnings/index.html https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2015/Q4_google_earnin...
- pinaceae 11y ago
  yes, but no numbers on profits out of those segments. OP was pointing out investor's criticism of Apple as a one-trick pony due to iPhone - I am pointing out that outside of ads, nothing generates any significant profit at Google either, even more so actually. but whatever, HN really is the wrong forum for certain topics.
  - dntrkv 11y ago
    Don't know why you're getting downvoted but I agree. Google is just as much, if not more so, of a one-trick pony as Apple.
- xenadu02 11y ago
  Yeah and Apple's Services business is also growing like crazy. Doesn't matter, the market apparently considers Apple to have zero stickiness.
dragonwriter 11y ago
The "other bets" that are (in aggregate) losing money are things that Alphabet does that are not part of Google. While Google is nearly 100% advertising revenue, it has non-advertising revenue streams inside of Google. And we only know that the "other bets" (non-Google Alphabet operations) are losing money in aggregate, not that all of them are losing money individually.
- QuercusMax 11y ago
  We do know more: Ruth Porat basically said that Nest, Fiber, and Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences, and where I work) are making money.
  - eitally 11y ago
    Moreover, that the vast majority of capex spend over the next year will be Fiber roll-out, which is pretty reasonably considered as a one time impairment in my opinion, and not remotely like data center build-outs, real estate purchases, etc.
cbr 11y ago
I'd compare Google's ads to consumer electronics as a category as opposed to the iPhone: they're many eggs, not just one. Search ads, DoubleClick, and AdSense are like the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. (Disclaimer: I work for Google, on open-source software that doesn't have anything to do with ads.)

coldcode 11y ago

People love Apple's products (for the most part). People hate ads (pretty much everyone). So this makes no sense to me at all that Google is worth more than Apple. If you imagine the future, no one really knows what each will do with all the stuff they are building, so saying Google is worth more than Apple in the future seems silly.

eric_h 11y ago
> People hate ads (pretty much everyone). And yet the percentage of people who watch the Super Bowl explicitly to see the ads is a non-trivial percentage of the viewing population (obviously anecdata, but I know many people who throw super bowl parties for groups who have no interest in the football, and just want to have a party while watching the moderately amusing, big-budget ads with breaks for football in between).
- adrusi 11y ago
  I don't think people hate ads on principle. Some do, and they're vocal, but most people hate ads because they're annoying and obnoxious. If every ad was as well produced and as tailored to the content as super bowl ads are, people would be fine with advertising. Instead we get the ugliest, most obtrusively designed 10 second animations looping alongside articles and in between paragraphs, advertising disguised as content, and tracking scripts that reveal to questionable organizations an unsavory level of detail into our lives.
codeka 11y ago
> People hate ads (pretty much everyone) Except of course, the people actually paying for ads don't hate them... otherwise they wouldn't be paying for them.

jpatokal 11y ago

Nope: there's Google ads, Google non-ads, and "Other Bets". Q4 Google non-ad revenue was $2.1 billion, or almost 10%, and this share has been steadily increasing. https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2015/Q4_google_earnings/index.html https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2015/Q4_google_earnin...

pinaceae 11y ago
yes, but no numbers on profits out of those segments. OP was pointing out investor's criticism of Apple as a one-trick pony due to iPhone - I am pointing out that outside of ads, nothing generates any significant profit at Google either, even more so actually. but whatever, HN really is the wrong forum for certain topics.
- dntrkv 11y ago
  Don't know why you're getting downvoted but I agree. Google is just as much, if not more so, of a one-trick pony as Apple.
xenadu02 11y ago
Yeah and Apple's Services business is also growing like crazy. Doesn't matter, the market apparently considers Apple to have zero stickiness.

dragonwriter 11y ago

The "other bets" that are (in aggregate) losing money are things that Alphabet does that are not part of Google. While Google is nearly 100% advertising revenue, it has non-advertising revenue streams inside of Google. And we only know that the "other bets" (non-Google Alphabet operations) are losing money in aggregate, not that all of them are losing money individually.

QuercusMax 11y ago
We do know more: Ruth Porat basically said that Nest, Fiber, and Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences, and where I work) are making money.
- eitally 11y ago
  Moreover, that the vast majority of capex spend over the next year will be Fiber roll-out, which is pretty reasonably considered as a one time impairment in my opinion, and not remotely like data center build-outs, real estate purchases, etc.

cbr 11y ago

I'd compare Google's ads to consumer electronics as a category as opposed to the iPhone: they're many eggs, not just one. Search ads, DoubleClick, and AdSense are like the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. (Disclaimer: I work for Google, on open-source software that doesn't have anything to do with ads.)