10 ms·

I wonder, was Google Fibre ever intended to succeed in the traditional sense? Instead, perhaps it was an attempt by Google to change the industry by 1) scaring

I wonder, was Google Fibre ever intended to succeed in the traditional sense? Instead, perhaps it was an attempt by Google to change the industry by 1) scaring the incumbents into improving, and 2) expanding consumers' Overton windows[1] regarding what they could/should expect. Google presumably wants to ensure its services can be delivered to consumers, so this would seem towards that end. As another commenter notes, Google also has deep pockets. Creating & operating a whole company as a PR 'stunt' doesn't seem beyond the realms of reasonable probability. PS: I think a similar argument can be made for Tesla. I don't think it is a given that Musk intends for Tesla's success to be an economic one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window Edit: made last sentence less strong.

leereeves 9y ago
> I don't think it is a given that Musk ever intended for Tesla's success to be an economic one. What did Musk tell investors?
- alex_hitchins 9y ago
  Good point, but would investors now stand to benefit over all from expediting the development of electric vehicles, solar and space transportation?
  - PaulHoule 9y ago
    People spend good money on cars, electricity, and rocket launches. I think the last one is a particularly good business because even though the US military has understood that cost reduction is job #1 for the use of space, the conventional cost plus model of developing rockets and then building and launch them can put stuff in orbit but cannot do cost reduction.
- adamcharnock 9y ago
  I have observed a wide range of attitudes towards deception. Both deception of one's self, and of others. For example: For some people being 'a liar' is one of the worst things imaginable, but to others it is perfectly fine. The former judge the latter as being immoral monsters, the latter think the former are rather sweet (and are perhaps also glad the former exist?). Regarding deception of one's self: some people feel there is an absolute truth that can be known, whereas others may choose their reality and belief systems to fit their needs in any given moment. I'm describing opposite ends of two spectrums here, rather than categories. I think people make assumptions about where Musk is on those spectrums.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    I'm not sure that telling the SEC that there is no absolute truth in the universe is going to fly.
    - adamcharnock 9y ago
      You're right, I think I was just getting a bit carried away on my soap box.
      - jessaustin 9y ago
        GP is rather sweet, amirite?
  - emiliobumachar 9y ago
    Excuse my pedantry, but you're describing opposite ends of a spectrum.
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      They described four ends...
      - emiliobumachar 9y ago
        True, sorry. I misunderstood it on the first read. New nit: two spectra.
- emiliobumachar 9y ago
  I think he started in the company as an investor, and only later took over.
- osteele 9y ago
  My sense, from the press and from personal acquaintances, is that a lot of early investors, and at least some later investors, were impact investors[1]. DBL Investors is a notable example of an early Tesla impact investor. The successor, DBL Partners, is long on all three Musk companies.[2] This doesn't mean that Tesla didn't need to be an economic success. It does mean that economic success wasn't the only criterion, or as highly ranked as it is for a non-impact company with non-impact investors. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBL_Partners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBL_Partners
300bps 9y ago
Instead, perhaps it was an attempt by Google to change the industry I’ve been a happy Verizon FIOS customer for 12 years. For $140 per month I have TV with every pay channel, landline phone and gigabit Internet. The gigabit is relatively recent but I get full gigabit speeds for up and down and it is amazing. I think you’re right that I don’t believe Verizon would’ve offered this at this price without the threat of Google and other competitors.
- rayiner 9y ago
  Google might have made the $70 price point happen. But I’m not sure I’d overstate it. AT&T and Verizon are deploying gigabit in places where Google will never go. Verizon's gigabit upgrade happened after Google had already paused Fiber expansion. Comcast started offering $150/month multi-gig in my town long after that too. I strongly suspect 5G is instead causing renewed interest in fiber deployment. Comcast wants to get in on a cellular/wifi hybrid service, and for that it needs backhaul.
- radiorental 9y ago
  Fwiw, $140 is quite a lot. We shared what everyone was paying for Fios here at work. I'm on the upper end of $65 for 50/50 (no TV). The lowest we found was 1G for $40. the trick seems to be to cancel and sign up again for the new user deals.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Spectrum just jacked up the cost of a similar package to $175 in my region.
    - signa11 9y ago
      spectrum, specifically the 2.4ghz band, where google was looking for wireless alternatives is unlicensed no ?
      - scott00 9y ago
        He was most likely referring to the proper noun "Spectrum", rather than the common noun "spectrum". It's a cable tv/internet company owned by Charter.
pjc50 9y ago
Rather like Valve's "Steam Machine", it's a means for keeping options open?
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
> PS: I think a similar argument can be made for Tesla. I don't think it is a given that Musk intends for Tesla's success to be an economic one. I think it is though, but probably not in the automotive industry; ATM it still has a lead, just like Apple had for a while on the smartphone market, but I think it'll be passed left and right by the competition. But by then, Tesla won't be (primarily) a car company anymore, but a battery company, a solar power company (= energy company), and a company with the largest recharge station network in the country. Selling energy and charge stations will be the next generation's oil industry, and Tesla's taking charge there.
- jeffreyrogers 9y ago
  People always say Tesla is a battery company, but as far as I know their batteries are made by Panasonic and while I'm sure they're doing research on their own batteries, I don't know why you'd expect them to be more successful than a company that already makes batteries and employs researchers to improve them.
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    I thought changing this was the whole point of the gigafactories.
    - jeffreyrogers 9y ago
      Sure, but why would you assume Tesla is going to be better at making batteries than the companies that have done it for years?
      - rainbowmverse 9y ago
        I'm not assuming that.
        jeffreyrogers 9y ago
        Sorry, I meant a hypothetical "you". Should have written "why would one assume" instead.
sideband 9y ago
You could say that Google Fiber was a response to Comcast's announcement of its intent to acquire NBC in December 2009. Google makes no money if they can't show ads to people, and at the time Comcast and friends controlled Google's access to a majority of US audiences that Google's customers (advertisers) wanted their ads in front of. Advertising in the US was more than half of Google's revenue then. Comcast had the only network nationally capable of reliably delivering video and video ads, which was prioritized for growth within Google around then. I think there was a real fear within Google about the leverage Comcast and other national ISP's had over them. TLS wasn't common, and advertisers weren't nearly as interested in mobile audiences in 2010: wireless data use was a fraction of what it is now. A well-capitalized Comcast without the regulatory restrictions of AT&T or Verizon could create existential trouble for Google if they really wanted to. Google Fiber could have been Google's way of showing they'd be willing to play hardball if it came to that. Any positive PR that came from it was a great bonus, but they almost certainly never made money from Google Fiber.
- kbenson 9y ago
  > Google makes no money if they can't show ads to people I'm really, really hoping that changes drastically in the next decade. It would be really nice if Google started making the majority of their money from compute cloud offerings (a little out there, but that sector is growing much faster than their general business). I think it's essential if Google's ever going to gain some independence from the perverse incentives they've set themselves up for, and I think that's essential for Google (and society in general) as we move forward. I'm not sure what to do with Facebook. I don't see people paying for that. Then again, with the amount of time people spend glued to Facebook, they could probably make a tidy business offloading general computing tasks to their users through JS. The concept has been brought up before, generally in the discussion of blockchain mining through websites, but at Facebook's scale and usage it's an entirely different story. I imagine Facebook could have the largest weather supercomputer in the world (by many factors) next week if they really wanted to. I wonder if Facebook has a department whose job it is to look into developing more parallelizable algorithms for common workloads...
  - 9y ago
endtime 9y ago
I worked for Fiber for two years. It was both (wanting to succeed as a business and wanting to shift the industry), with a primary focus on succeeding as a business, or at least that was what the internal messaging was. I won't comment on any possible changes in the last couple years or why they may have happened, except to say that to the best of my knowledge, at no point was the sentiment, "We've shifted the industry enough that we can stop pretending to want to succeed."
- kyrra 9y ago
  Google Fiber hit a lot of roadblocks along the way that slowed things down. You have the lawsuit from AT&T against local government in Louisville[0]. There was also a lot of arguments[1][2] around the country for Google trying to access utility poles to hang their wires. Incumbents tried their hardest to prevent Google from hanging new wires. Many of the laws in-place today make it difficult for new companies to hang wires, which I believe was a reaction from the telegraph days[3]. [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/att-admits-defeat-in-lawsuit-it-filed-to-stall-google-fiber/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/att-admits-defea... [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/why-att-says-it-can-deny-google-fiber-access-to-its-poles-in-austin/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/why-att-says-it-... [2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/cable-lobby-says-google-fiber-doesnt-need-title-ii-to-get-pole-access/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/cable... [3] https://io9.gizmodo.com/photos-from-the-days-when-thousands-of-cables-crowded-t-1629961917 https://io9.gizmodo.com/photos-from-the-days-when-thousands-...
  - rayiner 9y ago
    Your analysis is backwards. There aren't special laws that "make it difficult for new companies to hang wires." The issue was not Google hanging its own wires, but Google contractors moving AT&T's wires in order to make space on the poles. Louisville passed special laws to enable one company to relocate another company's property on utility poles. I think those laws are a good idea, but its hard to blame AT&T for not wanting Google contractors to touch its infrastructure. Also, pointing to a couple of lawsuits ignores the fact that Google got huge concessions everywhere else. It got waivers from build-out requirements (obligations to cover whole cities, instead of "fiberhoods" with sufficient demand), fast-track permitting, free use of municipal land for fiber huts, etc: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-kansas-city-taxpayers-support-google-fiber https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-kansas-city-.... I think Google rightfully gets the benefit of goodwill that say AT&T does not. But it's a real triumph of narrative over facts to suggest that Google Fiber didn't have the red carpet rolled out for it in nearly every Fiber city. (Incidentally, a team of four guys with heavy equipment have spent the last three hours trenching fiber 50 feet through my tiny yard. That's the second visit, and there will be one more, and that's not counting running the fiber down the main road which required months of permitting and surveying. I strongly suspect that's why Google pulled out of Fiber.)
brightball 9y ago
There was so much news about all of the dark fiber that Google was buying up. Every time it popped up in the news, it seemed like people assumed it was for the Google Fiber project. I wonder if a lot of that ended up being used for GCP datacenter connections?
rainbowmverse 9y ago
Comcast still charges too much, but since Google Fiber they stopped sending out techs who barely know more than the troubleshooting checklist they use when you call.
bradstewart 9y ago
It certainly had that result for me here in Austin. While they slowed/stopped the Google Fiber rollout, I am now able to get fiber from AT&T. And, extremely surprisingly, the customer service has been great.

leereeves 9y ago

> I don't think it is a given that Musk ever intended for Tesla's success to be an economic one. What did Musk tell investors?

alex_hitchins 9y ago
Good point, but would investors now stand to benefit over all from expediting the development of electric vehicles, solar and space transportation?
- PaulHoule 9y ago
  People spend good money on cars, electricity, and rocket launches. I think the last one is a particularly good business because even though the US military has understood that cost reduction is job #1 for the use of space, the conventional cost plus model of developing rockets and then building and launch them can put stuff in orbit but cannot do cost reduction.
adamcharnock 9y ago
I have observed a wide range of attitudes towards deception. Both deception of one's self, and of others. For example: For some people being 'a liar' is one of the worst things imaginable, but to others it is perfectly fine. The former judge the latter as being immoral monsters, the latter think the former are rather sweet (and are perhaps also glad the former exist?). Regarding deception of one's self: some people feel there is an absolute truth that can be known, whereas others may choose their reality and belief systems to fit their needs in any given moment. I'm describing opposite ends of two spectrums here, rather than categories. I think people make assumptions about where Musk is on those spectrums.
- pjc50 9y ago
  I'm not sure that telling the SEC that there is no absolute truth in the universe is going to fly.
  - adamcharnock 9y ago
    You're right, I think I was just getting a bit carried away on my soap box.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      GP is rather sweet, amirite?
- emiliobumachar 9y ago
  Excuse my pedantry, but you're describing opposite ends of a spectrum.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    They described four ends...
    - emiliobumachar 9y ago
      True, sorry. I misunderstood it on the first read. New nit: two spectra.
emiliobumachar 9y ago
I think he started in the company as an investor, and only later took over.
osteele 9y ago
My sense, from the press and from personal acquaintances, is that a lot of early investors, and at least some later investors, were impact investors[1]. DBL Investors is a notable example of an early Tesla impact investor. The successor, DBL Partners, is long on all three Musk companies.[2] This doesn't mean that Tesla didn't need to be an economic success. It does mean that economic success wasn't the only criterion, or as highly ranked as it is for a non-impact company with non-impact investors. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBL_Partners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBL_Partners

300bps 9y ago

Instead, perhaps it was an attempt by Google to change the industry I’ve been a happy Verizon FIOS customer for 12 years. For $140 per month I have TV with every pay channel, landline phone and gigabit Internet. The gigabit is relatively recent but I get full gigabit speeds for up and down and it is amazing. I think you’re right that I don’t believe Verizon would’ve offered this at this price without the threat of Google and other competitors.

rayiner 9y ago
Google might have made the $70 price point happen. But I’m not sure I’d overstate it. AT&T and Verizon are deploying gigabit in places where Google will never go. Verizon's gigabit upgrade happened after Google had already paused Fiber expansion. Comcast started offering $150/month multi-gig in my town long after that too. I strongly suspect 5G is instead causing renewed interest in fiber deployment. Comcast wants to get in on a cellular/wifi hybrid service, and for that it needs backhaul.
radiorental 9y ago
Fwiw, $140 is quite a lot. We shared what everyone was paying for Fios here at work. I'm on the upper end of $65 for 50/50 (no TV). The lowest we found was 1G for $40. the trick seems to be to cancel and sign up again for the new user deals.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Spectrum just jacked up the cost of a similar package to $175 in my region.
  - signa11 9y ago
    spectrum, specifically the 2.4ghz band, where google was looking for wireless alternatives is unlicensed no ?
    - scott00 9y ago
      He was most likely referring to the proper noun "Spectrum", rather than the common noun "spectrum". It's a cable tv/internet company owned by Charter.

pjc50 9y ago

Rather like Valve's "Steam Machine", it's a means for keeping options open?

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

> PS: I think a similar argument can be made for Tesla. I don't think it is a given that Musk intends for Tesla's success to be an economic one. I think it is though, but probably not in the automotive industry; ATM it still has a lead, just like Apple had for a while on the smartphone market, but I think it'll be passed left and right by the competition. But by then, Tesla won't be (primarily) a car company anymore, but a battery company, a solar power company (= energy company), and a company with the largest recharge station network in the country. Selling energy and charge stations will be the next generation's oil industry, and Tesla's taking charge there.

jeffreyrogers 9y ago
People always say Tesla is a battery company, but as far as I know their batteries are made by Panasonic and while I'm sure they're doing research on their own batteries, I don't know why you'd expect them to be more successful than a company that already makes batteries and employs researchers to improve them.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  I thought changing this was the whole point of the gigafactories.
  - jeffreyrogers 9y ago
    Sure, but why would you assume Tesla is going to be better at making batteries than the companies that have done it for years?
    - rainbowmverse 9y ago
      I'm not assuming that.
      - jeffreyrogers 9y ago
        Sorry, I meant a hypothetical "you". Should have written "why would one assume" instead.

sideband 9y ago

You could say that Google Fiber was a response to Comcast's announcement of its intent to acquire NBC in December 2009. Google makes no money if they can't show ads to people, and at the time Comcast and friends controlled Google's access to a majority of US audiences that Google's customers (advertisers) wanted their ads in front of. Advertising in the US was more than half of Google's revenue then. Comcast had the only network nationally capable of reliably delivering video and video ads, which was prioritized for growth within Google around then. I think there was a real fear within Google about the leverage Comcast and other national ISP's had over them. TLS wasn't common, and advertisers weren't nearly as interested in mobile audiences in 2010: wireless data use was a fraction of what it is now. A well-capitalized Comcast without the regulatory restrictions of AT&T or Verizon could create existential trouble for Google if they really wanted to. Google Fiber could have been Google's way of showing they'd be willing to play hardball if it came to that. Any positive PR that came from it was a great bonus, but they almost certainly never made money from Google Fiber.

kbenson 9y ago
> Google makes no money if they can't show ads to people I'm really, really hoping that changes drastically in the next decade. It would be really nice if Google started making the majority of their money from compute cloud offerings (a little out there, but that sector is growing much faster than their general business). I think it's essential if Google's ever going to gain some independence from the perverse incentives they've set themselves up for, and I think that's essential for Google (and society in general) as we move forward. I'm not sure what to do with Facebook. I don't see people paying for that. Then again, with the amount of time people spend glued to Facebook, they could probably make a tidy business offloading general computing tasks to their users through JS. The concept has been brought up before, generally in the discussion of blockchain mining through websites, but at Facebook's scale and usage it's an entirely different story. I imagine Facebook could have the largest weather supercomputer in the world (by many factors) next week if they really wanted to. I wonder if Facebook has a department whose job it is to look into developing more parallelizable algorithms for common workloads...
- 9y ago

endtime 9y ago

I worked for Fiber for two years. It was both (wanting to succeed as a business and wanting to shift the industry), with a primary focus on succeeding as a business, or at least that was what the internal messaging was. I won't comment on any possible changes in the last couple years or why they may have happened, except to say that to the best of my knowledge, at no point was the sentiment, "We've shifted the industry enough that we can stop pretending to want to succeed."

kyrra 9y ago
Google Fiber hit a lot of roadblocks along the way that slowed things down. You have the lawsuit from AT&T against local government in Louisville[0]. There was also a lot of arguments[1][2] around the country for Google trying to access utility poles to hang their wires. Incumbents tried their hardest to prevent Google from hanging new wires. Many of the laws in-place today make it difficult for new companies to hang wires, which I believe was a reaction from the telegraph days[3]. [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/att-admits-defeat-in-lawsuit-it-filed-to-stall-google-fiber/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/att-admits-defea... [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/why-att-says-it-can-deny-google-fiber-access-to-its-poles-in-austin/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/why-att-says-it-... [2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/cable-lobby-says-google-fiber-doesnt-need-title-ii-to-get-pole-access/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/cable... [3] https://io9.gizmodo.com/photos-from-the-days-when-thousands-of-cables-crowded-t-1629961917 https://io9.gizmodo.com/photos-from-the-days-when-thousands-...
- rayiner 9y ago
  Your analysis is backwards. There aren't special laws that "make it difficult for new companies to hang wires." The issue was not Google hanging its own wires, but Google contractors moving AT&T's wires in order to make space on the poles. Louisville passed special laws to enable one company to relocate another company's property on utility poles. I think those laws are a good idea, but its hard to blame AT&T for not wanting Google contractors to touch its infrastructure. Also, pointing to a couple of lawsuits ignores the fact that Google got huge concessions everywhere else. It got waivers from build-out requirements (obligations to cover whole cities, instead of "fiberhoods" with sufficient demand), fast-track permitting, free use of municipal land for fiber huts, etc: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-kansas-city-taxpayers-support-google-fiber https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-kansas-city-.... I think Google rightfully gets the benefit of goodwill that say AT&T does not. But it's a real triumph of narrative over facts to suggest that Google Fiber didn't have the red carpet rolled out for it in nearly every Fiber city. (Incidentally, a team of four guys with heavy equipment have spent the last three hours trenching fiber 50 feet through my tiny yard. That's the second visit, and there will be one more, and that's not counting running the fiber down the main road which required months of permitting and surveying. I strongly suspect that's why Google pulled out of Fiber.)

brightball 9y ago

There was so much news about all of the dark fiber that Google was buying up. Every time it popped up in the news, it seemed like people assumed it was for the Google Fiber project. I wonder if a lot of that ended up being used for GCP datacenter connections?

rainbowmverse 9y ago

Comcast still charges too much, but since Google Fiber they stopped sending out techs who barely know more than the troubleshooting checklist they use when you call.

bradstewart 9y ago

It certainly had that result for me here in Austin. While they slowed/stopped the Google Fiber rollout, I am now able to get fiber from AT&T. And, extremely surprisingly, the customer service has been great.