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The stock market doesn't care about users, it cares about profits. Android and Chrome and Google Play are unprofitable.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mxschumacher 8y ago
the data they collect on those platforms feeds back into improving their ad business. It does not make sense to look into "Chrome" as a business in itself.
tlarkworthy 8y ago
> Google Play are unprofitable. ??? https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/05/app-revenue-climbed-35-percent-to-60-billion-in-2017/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/05/app-revenue-climbed-35-per... $20B in revenue.
- eddieplan9 8y ago
  sales != revenue. with the 30% commission, it would be at most $6B. From http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/01/technology/google-earnings/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/01/technology/google-earnings/i...: > Alphabet posted nearly $15 billion in sales for the year from Google's "other revenues," which include cloud services and hardware products, like the Pixel phones and Google Home smart speakers.
  - stvswn 8y ago
    Sales is, by definition, revenue. In this context, sales=revenue (although there is non-sales revenue, which is why the two words mean two different things). I think you're getting at what is sometimes called "cost of revenue" and "net revenue" for businesses where it's important to report on sales channel costs. Google doesn't break down the Play Store revenues this way, but for advertising there's a similar dynamic at play where it's "revenue" and "traffic acquisition costs"
    - cwyers 8y ago
      Play Store sales != Google Revenue. Google gets a 30% cut, the rest goes to the app developer.
  - odonnellryan 8y ago
    Even $6B is extremely far from the unprofitable claim.
justicezyx 8y ago
This type of "cares about one thing, not the other" is close to be nonsensical: Market is complex, there is not one thing or another can explain.
kingbirdy 8y ago
How is the app store unprofitable? Serving too many free apps?
qop 8y ago
It costs like ten dollars sometimes to rent a movie that probably costs them $0.30 to stream to me, they gotta be making some money
- zrobotics 8y ago
  And how much does the studio charge to luscence the movie? Surely you didn't expect that was free?
  - qop 8y ago
    Well surely it's not 9.70/user either Also, it's on the same infrastructure as apps so they already have a good backbone for delivering it
bryanlarsen 8y ago
I believe the Oracle lawsuit showed that Android and Google Play are both quite profitable. Contrary to popular belief, Android is not free. You can download and install AOSP for free, but "full" Android including the Google apps, Google Play Services and the Google Play store cost real money. And Google has sold billions of those. They might not charge much, but when you multiply by a few billion it can still end up being a big number.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  On the contrary, by being free beer it means many OEMs avoid paying Java licenses and try to use Android instead, thus diluting the Java brand. So it is not about the profit Android brings to Google, rather the money Oracle looses by OEMs not paying for licenses.
fierro 8y ago
It's dismissive, simplistic comments like these that makes me sad for the HN community. Not only it this actually just wrong, Google's investment in it's various products have complex relationships with one another. The recent post about "commodify your complement" does a good job getting into this specific case

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

the data they collect on those platforms feeds back into improving their ad business. It does not make sense to look into "Chrome" as a business in itself.

tlarkworthy 8y ago

> Google Play are unprofitable. ??? https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/05/app-revenue-climbed-35-percent-to-60-billion-in-2017/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/05/app-revenue-climbed-35-per... $20B in revenue.

eddieplan9 8y ago
sales != revenue. with the 30% commission, it would be at most $6B. From http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/01/technology/google-earnings/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/01/technology/google-earnings/i...: > Alphabet posted nearly $15 billion in sales for the year from Google's "other revenues," which include cloud services and hardware products, like the Pixel phones and Google Home smart speakers.
- stvswn 8y ago
  Sales is, by definition, revenue. In this context, sales=revenue (although there is non-sales revenue, which is why the two words mean two different things). I think you're getting at what is sometimes called "cost of revenue" and "net revenue" for businesses where it's important to report on sales channel costs. Google doesn't break down the Play Store revenues this way, but for advertising there's a similar dynamic at play where it's "revenue" and "traffic acquisition costs"
  - cwyers 8y ago
    Play Store sales != Google Revenue. Google gets a 30% cut, the rest goes to the app developer.
- odonnellryan 8y ago
  Even $6B is extremely far from the unprofitable claim.

justicezyx 8y ago

This type of "cares about one thing, not the other" is close to be nonsensical: Market is complex, there is not one thing or another can explain.

kingbirdy 8y ago

How is the app store unprofitable? Serving too many free apps?

qop 8y ago

It costs like ten dollars sometimes to rent a movie that probably costs them $0.30 to stream to me, they gotta be making some money

zrobotics 8y ago
And how much does the studio charge to luscence the movie? Surely you didn't expect that was free?
- qop 8y ago
  Well surely it's not 9.70/user either Also, it's on the same infrastructure as apps so they already have a good backbone for delivering it

bryanlarsen 8y ago

I believe the Oracle lawsuit showed that Android and Google Play are both quite profitable. Contrary to popular belief, Android is not free. You can download and install AOSP for free, but "full" Android including the Google apps, Google Play Services and the Google Play store cost real money. And Google has sold billions of those. They might not charge much, but when you multiply by a few billion it can still end up being a big number.

pjmlp 8y ago
On the contrary, by being free beer it means many OEMs avoid paying Java licenses and try to use Android instead, thus diluting the Java brand. So it is not about the profit Android brings to Google, rather the money Oracle looses by OEMs not paying for licenses.

fierro 8y ago

It's dismissive, simplistic comments like these that makes me sad for the HN community. Not only it this actually just wrong, Google's investment in it's various products have complex relationships with one another. The recent post about "commodify your complement" does a good job getting into this specific case