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They’re creating a need, but that doesn’t mean they’re creating a market opportunity. Google has taught everyone that all this stuff should be free, and that’s

They’re creating a need, but that doesn’t mean they’re creating a market opportunity. Google has taught everyone that all this stuff should be free, and that’s no accident: it’s a deliberate strategy to suck up all available oxygen away from potential competitors. Someone (Ben Thompson maybe?) described Google’s strategy as not just building a moat, but scorching the earth for hundreds of miles in every direction from their castle. It’s unbelievably difficult to build a direct competitor to Google unless you’re starting from a position of huge capitalization (and even that’s no guarantee... I don’t exactly see techies flocking to Bing after they complain about Google)

inapis 8y ago
This is so fucking true. If anything you can see this in the real marketplace. Consumers have become so averse to paying for software because they see gmail, google maps, google keep, docs and photos as available for “free” - meaning they have to part with something from their life but not the cash, so why the hell pay for anything else?
- pdkl95 8y ago
  Even worse than undermining expectations about the price of software, since google's general use apps (gmail, docs, etc.) are Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS[1]), Google is also undermining the basic concept of buying a copy of software. Even as an intangible good, it's easy to understand the value of owning a copy that you get to keep and use on your own terms. When the same software is only available as a service, availability issues and other risks that outside your control make the service less valuable. Why should someone want to buy software when most of the software they see and use regularly are unreliable services? [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
Thompson quoted it from http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/03/24/freight-train-that-is-android/ http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/03/24/freight-train-that-is-an...
dwighttk 8y ago
>I don’t exactly see techies flocking to Bing after they complain about Google I flew to duckduckgo, don't know about flocking...

inapis 8y ago

This is so fucking true. If anything you can see this in the real marketplace. Consumers have become so averse to paying for software because they see gmail, google maps, google keep, docs and photos as available for “free” - meaning they have to part with something from their life but not the cash, so why the hell pay for anything else?

pdkl95 8y ago
Even worse than undermining expectations about the price of software, since google's general use apps (gmail, docs, etc.) are Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS[1]), Google is also undermining the basic concept of buying a copy of software. Even as an intangible good, it's easy to understand the value of owning a copy that you get to keep and use on your own terms. When the same software is only available as a service, availability issues and other risks that outside your control make the service less valuable. Why should someone want to buy software when most of the software they see and use regularly are unreliable services? [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...

Doctor_Fegg 8y ago

Thompson quoted it from http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/03/24/freight-train-that-is-android/ http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/03/24/freight-train-that-is-an...

dwighttk 8y ago

>I don’t exactly see techies flocking to Bing after they complain about Google I flew to duckduckgo, don't know about flocking...