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> One thing I find strange about this is why Google is so keen to get this government business in the first place. They’re amazingly profitable already, one of
by rifung 8y ago
> One thing I find strange about this is why Google is so keen to get this government business in the first place. They’re amazingly profitable already, one of the most successful companies of all time; is defense work really something that could become another major revenue stream?
Why bother with any new products when search and ads are extremely profitable?
I think it makes sense to look at this from the perspective of Google Cloud since I imagine that's where the contracts are. Google Cloud isn't a leader in this space. In cloud, having more customers is a competitive advantage both because of marketing and also because of technology/cost.
With more users, you can share costs more and have better forecasting since any given customer's specific usage will should not affect your total usage assuming customers are fairly similar in size (not true in reality..). Then hopefully you can run closer to capacity, lower prices, and then gain even more customers.
> Given the obvious conflicts with their company culture (obvious to rank and file employees, anyway) it doesn’t seem like a very appealing trade-off.
I don't agree with this to be honest. At least, I certainly wouldn't consider it "obvious". I'm a rank and file employee and I was surprised at the outrage. I still don't really see anything wrong with supporting the government or military but I can understand how this makes some people uncomfortable, especially if they are not US citizens.
- pavelludiq 8y ago> still don't really see anything wrong with supporting the government or military As a non-American(but citizen of an allied nation), the fact that the US is currently involved in something like 12 regional conflicts(that we know of), some of which could be considered illegal wars of aggression if the US wasn't on the UN security council, in places who's combined wealth is a fraction of just one US state is very worrying to me, and the fact that few, if any Americans share that concern is certainly very disappointing. I had thought Americans better than that in my younger years, apparently not.
- trophycase 8y agoMost americans don't know or don't care. I don't know if you've seen the news in our country but it is horrifying. They are more focused on what Trump tweeted or what Melania is wearing than actual geopolitics.
- rifung 8y ago> the fact that few, if any Americans share that concern is certainly very disappointing. I had thought Americans better than that in my younger years, apparently not. I would not be surprised to know that this is correct, but the only thing I can do is speak to my own opinion. That I see nothing inherently wrong with supporting the government or military does not mean I agree with everything they do. Perhaps my beliefs are mistaken, but as far as I know the military does not act on its own accord but from orders of elected officials. This being the case, the correct action to me doesn't appear to be weakening the military but to elect people who you think will act in ways you agree with. Developing military strength is a long term effort, and given the people I vote for likely will not win every time, I don't think going back and forth between supporting or not supporting the military makes sense. Perhaps this is very naive of me, but I also think that it's entirely possible I don't have the context to know better than those who make these decisions, or I could frankly just be wrong. This being the case I trust that others are still working to the common good even if they do it through means different than I. To be completely honest, I do not understand why we keep fighting wars or why we want to behave like we are the world police. Nevertheless this behavior seems to continue no matter which party is in office, so I can only assume there's a good reason for it.