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Precisely. Both google drive and youtube have the potential to be businesses that are each on their own as influential, as important, and as profitable as googl

Precisely. Both google drive and youtube have the potential to be businesses that are each on their own as influential, as important, and as profitable as google is in its entirety currently. But google doesn't have the drive, or the need, to put in the work to make them such. Instead they just sort of piddle along with half-assed improvements as time goes by. And really at some point some other competitor is going to put enough of its own pieces together to eat google's lunch and then they'll be on the sidelines. Google is only unassailable because the rest of the industry is even more dysfunctional, not because it's so strong. That's also true of Apple and facebook and Microsoft and so many other tech giants.

dilemma 11y ago
Interesting thought: What if the reason that Google is unable to find a second source of revenue outside of advertising, is the size and importance of the ad revenue itself and the effect it has on the organization?
- alextgordon 11y ago
  The curse of oil.
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  Yes, that's precisely my point. There's no incentive (no hunger) to build up a product into something mature and heavily profitable because of the ad revenue trough. And there's no consequences for failure or missteps for the same reason. This leads to a fundamental lack of seriousness in developing products and customer relationships, which stunts google's development compared to what it could be.
  - disgruntledphd2 11y ago
    Otherwise known as the falling into a moneypit and suffocating problem.
edwinnathaniel 11y ago
I've been watching YouTube lately and I noticed a trend: content quality is becoming better, people (the YouTuber) are making serious money from YouTube. I also learned that YouTube is now providing YouTube Space for rent in multiple countries to help YouTuber to create better high quality content. I think after YouTube has their own CEO, it's been making progress to expand its brand. I'm seeing YouTuber from Canada (https://www.youtube.com/user/ehbeefamily https://www.youtube.com/user/ehbeefamily), from Indonesia (https://www.youtube.com/user/LastDayProd https://www.youtube.com/user/LastDayProd), from New York (https://www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat https://www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat), or even for a specific niche (Asian American: https://www.youtube.com/user/FungBrosComedy https://www.youtube.com/user/FungBrosComedy, Japan: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqwxJts-6yF33rupyF_DCsA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqwxJts-6yF33rupyF_DCsA) doing serious work to produce good quality content. Old contents are also being re-published at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/show/pocoyoinenglish https://www.youtube.com/show/pocoyoinenglish (probably making money via ads continuously as well). My family viewing habit is shifting from TV Cable to YouTube slowly to the point where we're considering to abandon TV Cable (kinda hard cause sports and all that). I believe YouTube is head-down quietly building better product/experience for long-term. I sense that Google enterprise groups are in similar trajectory after the Alphabet split (case and point: Google Cloud Platform, it's not AWS/Azure yet but it's beginning to show some improvement from its previous stance).

dilemma 11y ago

Interesting thought: What if the reason that Google is unable to find a second source of revenue outside of advertising, is the size and importance of the ad revenue itself and the effect it has on the organization?

alextgordon 11y ago
The curse of oil.
InclinedPlane 11y ago
Yes, that's precisely my point. There's no incentive (no hunger) to build up a product into something mature and heavily profitable because of the ad revenue trough. And there's no consequences for failure or missteps for the same reason. This leads to a fundamental lack of seriousness in developing products and customer relationships, which stunts google's development compared to what it could be.
- disgruntledphd2 11y ago
  Otherwise known as the falling into a moneypit and suffocating problem.

edwinnathaniel 11y ago

I've been watching YouTube lately and I noticed a trend: content quality is becoming better, people (the YouTuber) are making serious money from YouTube. I also learned that YouTube is now providing YouTube Space for rent in multiple countries to help YouTuber to create better high quality content. I think after YouTube has their own CEO, it's been making progress to expand its brand. I'm seeing YouTuber from Canada (https://www.youtube.com/user/ehbeefamily https://www.youtube.com/user/ehbeefamily), from Indonesia (https://www.youtube.com/user/LastDayProd https://www.youtube.com/user/LastDayProd), from New York (https://www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat https://www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat), or even for a specific niche (Asian American: https://www.youtube.com/user/FungBrosComedy https://www.youtube.com/user/FungBrosComedy, Japan: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqwxJts-6yF33rupyF_DCsA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqwxJts-6yF33rupyF_DCsA) doing serious work to produce good quality content. Old contents are also being re-published at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/show/pocoyoinenglish https://www.youtube.com/show/pocoyoinenglish (probably making money via ads continuously as well). My family viewing habit is shifting from TV Cable to YouTube slowly to the point where we're considering to abandon TV Cable (kinda hard cause sports and all that). I believe YouTube is head-down quietly building better product/experience for long-term. I sense that Google enterprise groups are in similar trajectory after the Alphabet split (case and point: Google Cloud Platform, it's not AWS/Azure yet but it's beginning to show some improvement from its previous stance).