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> But what if the company’s goal was never to unleash the disrupter itself so much as to encourage incumbent broadband providers to do so, helping Google’s expa

> But what if the company’s goal was never to unleash the disrupter itself so much as to encourage incumbent broadband providers to do so, helping Google’s expansion in adjacent markets such as video and emerging markets including smart homes? Did anyone think anything else WAS the strategy? Google has a history of such "spurring" efforts. Glass, Fiber, Nexus, heck, even a ton of Android support itself.

specialp 8y ago
Yeah I don't understand at all why people think that Google wanted to be in this business. They were forced to. ISPs were starting to lag behind on bandwidth that was important to them, and also started to discriminate on traffic. It is not a failure at all in any way because they never intended on completely taking over. They'd much rather be in their business. The same is true with Android, as they were under threat of locked out of a smartphone boom by Apple. They have stuck with it because it has become more popular than they could have ever imagined. I also think this is their reason behind making Kubernetes. I think they want to commoditize the cloud more to avoid dominance from Amazon.
- majewsky 8y ago
  > The same is true with Android, as they were under threat of locked out of a smartphone boom by Apple. Nice theory, except that Google bought Android Inc. in 2005, years before the iPhone was announced.
  - walrus01 8y ago
    The evolution of the smartphone market was obvious even in 2001/2002, if you saw a Handspring Treo 180 and used one on a GPRS/EDGE network. I had one. When I saw the first info about Android, it seemed to me like a logical technological advancement in the same field. At the time in 2004/2005, the iPhone OS was a total unknown, maybe a tiny bit of info had leaked from Apple about their secret project, WinCE/Windows Mobile was a joke, palmos was a dead end.
    - FullyFunctional 8y ago
      I disagree. The iPhone was significant leap: a captive, multi touch screen (not resistive), a full desktop OS (hidden from users, but not a scaled down embedded OS like everyone else), finger, not stylus focused, touch, not button focused. Yet at the launch I wasn't impressed ("doesn't solve a problem I have"; clearly I lack vision as it took until iPhone 4 for me to see the light).
  - orangecat 8y ago
    Android was initially intended to be a defense against Microsoft, not Apple.
  - minhazm 8y ago
    The first android designs were more like Blackberry's than an iPhone[1]. The designs ended up being publicized during the Oracle trial. You can clearly see that they were no where near what Apple was doing with the iPhone. After Apple released the iPhone Google decided to not even release that version and decided to re-do the phone[2]. They believed that a touch screen can't completely replace physical buttons[3]. I'm always surprised how reluctant people are to give credit to Apple for completely changing the smartphone industry. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2974676/this-was-the-original-google-phone-presented-in-2006 https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2974676/this-was-the-orig... 2. https://www.pcworld.com/article/254539/original_android_prototype_revealed_during_google_oracle_trial.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/254539/original_android_prot... 3. https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2974843/google-in-2007-a-touchscreen-cannot-completely-replace-physical/in/2731667 https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2974843/google-in-2007-a-...
    - euyyn 8y ago
      I have yet to find a single person that doesn't believe that Apple revolutionized the smartphone industry with the iPhone.
      - parasubvert 8y ago
        Are you new around here? There’s a vocal set of diehard contrarians that insist LG was the true pioneer and Apple just has better marketing, the iPhone wasn’t a better product. It’s the most successful consumer electronics product in history, but some still are in denial.
        euyyn 8y ago
        7 years with an account, and a few before just lurking. This is the first time I hear that, so they must not be many, or not very vocal.
- B-Con 8y ago
  > Yeah I don't understand at all why people think that Google wanted to be in this business. People still think Google Glass was a failed product. Many just have no idea how businesses, particularly non-traditional ones like Google with an appetite for change and a pocketbook to buy what it wants, are run.
  - Tehnix 8y ago
    That doens’t change that from a consumers viewpoint, they were a failure though?
    - leetcrew 8y ago
      i mean, if a person misunderstands the goals of any project, they are likely to see its outcome as a failure. that doesn't really say anything about the project, though.
gwern 8y ago
An even better example would be the Google bid for wireless spectrum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_2008_wireless_spectrum_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_2008_wireless_sp... It didn't want to win in the first place, but it forced openness on the winners.
- ergothus 8y ago
  I had forgotten that one - excellent example.
rayiner 8y ago
Was Nexus intended to be a just a “spurring effort” or a premium first-party brand (with some spurring effect) like Surface?
- bubblethink 8y ago
  Nexus had a U shaped curve in pricing. Earlier ones were too expensive. Got cheap in the middle, but again became expensive and morphed into the pixel line. It's only in the middle (around 2012-14) where they were meant to attract developers and the masses.
- ergothus 8y ago
  I'm going off of my personal take only, so it's pretty safe to assume I'm wrong, but the effort seemed so half-hearted that I assumed Google was pushing other makers to stop installing bloatware and get on top of Android updates by providing JUST ENOUGH competition to force them to take it up. Until then the major players were all bad about those and profited from it so there was no incentive for them to change their ways and consumers had no real way to talk with their wallets on the topics. Not that todays' options are GOOD on those points, but they've definitely improved, at least with Android version updates.
jsight 8y ago
That is definitely what I thought the strategy was. OTOH, a lot of people thought that the Google Chrome strategy was just to spur other browser to advance. In the end, they've gained tremendous market share with the product.
dv_dt 8y ago
What a great bargaining chip to have if one were complaining to various telecom companies about how they well they carry Google data across their networks.
georgeglue1 8y ago
Verizon makes roughly $100 billion a year off of internet subscription revenue, and collects immense amounts of user data. If Google went through all the investment to build an ISP, bid on spectrum, etc., it'd be silly for Google to at least not cautiously/optimistically aim for the main prize of the market. It seems more likely that competition was too costly, and it was fine falling back on the modest goal of prodding the market forward.
- chongli 8y ago
  Deleted.
  - profmonocle 8y ago
    Are you sure about "most"? Google has an extensive backbone network, but they didn't have fiber to every house in every neighborhood they offer service in.
  - walrus01 8y ago
    No, this is incorrect, they spent a ton of money and time building new last mile aerial fiber. Don't confuse long haul dark fiber IRUs with the last mile access layer of the network.
mikeash 8y ago
I thought that was explicitly their goal. At the very least it seemed like everybody understood it that way.
sureaboutthis 8y ago
Let's not forget Chrome. Mozilla wrestled about 25% of browser market share away from Microsoft and IE with Firefox but seemed unable to get past that. Chrome came along and now IE is dead and Edge is an afterthought.
ariwilson 8y ago
Looking at the outcome after the fact, it's very easy to attribute an action to some master plan to achieve that outcome indirectly. I prefer to believe that 99% of the time, when someone says they're launching an ISP, they're doing it to become an ISP. Here's the initial Google Fiber blog post so you can judge for yourself: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-our-experimental.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-o...
- leetcrew 8y ago
  i remember reading coverage of google fiber in tech publications when it first rolled out. even then they were describing it more as a "swift kick in the ass" to incumbent ISPs than a serious attempt to corner the market. it's like the early intel consumer ssds. intel never wanted to be a big (ie low margin) ssd vendor; they wanted to stimulate the other players to make faster storage to unbottleneck their processors. even your linked blog post seems to support this point. they conservatively couch the product as an "experiment". > We don't think we have all the answers – but through our trial, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better Internet for everyone. does that sound like the PR blurb of a company that seriously intends to offer hi-speed internet to every person in america?

specialp 8y ago

Yeah I don't understand at all why people think that Google wanted to be in this business. They were forced to. ISPs were starting to lag behind on bandwidth that was important to them, and also started to discriminate on traffic. It is not a failure at all in any way because they never intended on completely taking over. They'd much rather be in their business. The same is true with Android, as they were under threat of locked out of a smartphone boom by Apple. They have stuck with it because it has become more popular than they could have ever imagined. I also think this is their reason behind making Kubernetes. I think they want to commoditize the cloud more to avoid dominance from Amazon.

majewsky 8y ago
> The same is true with Android, as they were under threat of locked out of a smartphone boom by Apple. Nice theory, except that Google bought Android Inc. in 2005, years before the iPhone was announced.
- walrus01 8y ago
  The evolution of the smartphone market was obvious even in 2001/2002, if you saw a Handspring Treo 180 and used one on a GPRS/EDGE network. I had one. When I saw the first info about Android, it seemed to me like a logical technological advancement in the same field. At the time in 2004/2005, the iPhone OS was a total unknown, maybe a tiny bit of info had leaked from Apple about their secret project, WinCE/Windows Mobile was a joke, palmos was a dead end.
  - FullyFunctional 8y ago
    I disagree. The iPhone was significant leap: a captive, multi touch screen (not resistive), a full desktop OS (hidden from users, but not a scaled down embedded OS like everyone else), finger, not stylus focused, touch, not button focused. Yet at the launch I wasn't impressed ("doesn't solve a problem I have"; clearly I lack vision as it took until iPhone 4 for me to see the light).
- orangecat 8y ago
  Android was initially intended to be a defense against Microsoft, not Apple.
- minhazm 8y ago
  The first android designs were more like Blackberry's than an iPhone[1]. The designs ended up being publicized during the Oracle trial. You can clearly see that they were no where near what Apple was doing with the iPhone. After Apple released the iPhone Google decided to not even release that version and decided to re-do the phone[2]. They believed that a touch screen can't completely replace physical buttons[3]. I'm always surprised how reluctant people are to give credit to Apple for completely changing the smartphone industry. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2974676/this-was-the-original-google-phone-presented-in-2006 https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2974676/this-was-the-orig... 2. https://www.pcworld.com/article/254539/original_android_prototype_revealed_during_google_oracle_trial.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/254539/original_android_prot... 3. https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2974843/google-in-2007-a-touchscreen-cannot-completely-replace-physical/in/2731667 https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2974843/google-in-2007-a-...
  - euyyn 8y ago
    I have yet to find a single person that doesn't believe that Apple revolutionized the smartphone industry with the iPhone.
    - parasubvert 8y ago
      Are you new around here? There’s a vocal set of diehard contrarians that insist LG was the true pioneer and Apple just has better marketing, the iPhone wasn’t a better product. It’s the most successful consumer electronics product in history, but some still are in denial.
      - euyyn 8y ago
        7 years with an account, and a few before just lurking. This is the first time I hear that, so they must not be many, or not very vocal.
B-Con 8y ago
> Yeah I don't understand at all why people think that Google wanted to be in this business. People still think Google Glass was a failed product. Many just have no idea how businesses, particularly non-traditional ones like Google with an appetite for change and a pocketbook to buy what it wants, are run.
- Tehnix 8y ago
  That doens’t change that from a consumers viewpoint, they were a failure though?
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    i mean, if a person misunderstands the goals of any project, they are likely to see its outcome as a failure. that doesn't really say anything about the project, though.

gwern 8y ago

An even better example would be the Google bid for wireless spectrum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_2008_wireless_spectrum_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_2008_wireless_sp... It didn't want to win in the first place, but it forced openness on the winners.

ergothus 8y ago
I had forgotten that one - excellent example.

rayiner 8y ago

Was Nexus intended to be a just a “spurring effort” or a premium first-party brand (with some spurring effect) like Surface?

bubblethink 8y ago
Nexus had a U shaped curve in pricing. Earlier ones were too expensive. Got cheap in the middle, but again became expensive and morphed into the pixel line. It's only in the middle (around 2012-14) where they were meant to attract developers and the masses.
ergothus 8y ago
I'm going off of my personal take only, so it's pretty safe to assume I'm wrong, but the effort seemed so half-hearted that I assumed Google was pushing other makers to stop installing bloatware and get on top of Android updates by providing JUST ENOUGH competition to force them to take it up. Until then the major players were all bad about those and profited from it so there was no incentive for them to change their ways and consumers had no real way to talk with their wallets on the topics. Not that todays' options are GOOD on those points, but they've definitely improved, at least with Android version updates.

jsight 8y ago

That is definitely what I thought the strategy was. OTOH, a lot of people thought that the Google Chrome strategy was just to spur other browser to advance. In the end, they've gained tremendous market share with the product.

dv_dt 8y ago

What a great bargaining chip to have if one were complaining to various telecom companies about how they well they carry Google data across their networks.

georgeglue1 8y ago

Verizon makes roughly $100 billion a year off of internet subscription revenue, and collects immense amounts of user data. If Google went through all the investment to build an ISP, bid on spectrum, etc., it'd be silly for Google to at least not cautiously/optimistically aim for the main prize of the market. It seems more likely that competition was too costly, and it was fine falling back on the modest goal of prodding the market forward.

chongli 8y ago
Deleted.
- profmonocle 8y ago
  Are you sure about "most"? Google has an extensive backbone network, but they didn't have fiber to every house in every neighborhood they offer service in.
- walrus01 8y ago
  No, this is incorrect, they spent a ton of money and time building new last mile aerial fiber. Don't confuse long haul dark fiber IRUs with the last mile access layer of the network.

mikeash 8y ago

I thought that was explicitly their goal. At the very least it seemed like everybody understood it that way.

sureaboutthis 8y ago

Let's not forget Chrome. Mozilla wrestled about 25% of browser market share away from Microsoft and IE with Firefox but seemed unable to get past that. Chrome came along and now IE is dead and Edge is an afterthought.

ariwilson 8y ago

Looking at the outcome after the fact, it's very easy to attribute an action to some master plan to achieve that outcome indirectly. I prefer to believe that 99% of the time, when someone says they're launching an ISP, they're doing it to become an ISP. Here's the initial Google Fiber blog post so you can judge for yourself: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-our-experimental.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-o...

leetcrew 8y ago
i remember reading coverage of google fiber in tech publications when it first rolled out. even then they were describing it more as a "swift kick in the ass" to incumbent ISPs than a serious attempt to corner the market. it's like the early intel consumer ssds. intel never wanted to be a big (ie low margin) ssd vendor; they wanted to stimulate the other players to make faster storage to unbottleneck their processors. even your linked blog post seems to support this point. they conservatively couch the product as an "experiment". > We don't think we have all the answers – but through our trial, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better Internet for everyone. does that sound like the PR blurb of a company that seriously intends to offer hi-speed internet to every person in america?