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> focusing on making actual useful products A 'product' is something you sell to clients. Google's only product is advertising, and they don't need to focus o

> focusing on making actual useful products A 'product' is something you sell to clients. Google's only product is advertising, and they don't need to focus on making better advertising because they are a monopoly. Everything else Google does is just a smokescreen for investors and a creeping fear that they won't be able to exist in a post-monopoly world.

davidwihl 8y ago
Google also sells hardware (phones, Nest), Cloud services, gSuite...Ads represent 80-85% of Google revenue but that share is decreasing over time.
- superflyguy 8y ago
  Google barely sells phones. They might have done with Nexus but they sell as many Pixels in a year as Apple do in 3 days. I know no-one with a Nest. They're still very much an ad company.
derefr 8y ago
Aren’t most Google services there to capture eyeballs for the advertisers to service? That’s Google Search (sponsored results), YouTube, and—in some sense—Chrome.
beagle3 8y ago
> Google's only product is advertising, Google's main product is user attention, which they sell to advertisers in the form of advertising. Right now, they farm this attention mostly through web search, but hone it through data they collect with other venues, such as e.g. location and other data collected from Android handsets, the vast tentacles of Google Analytics, Google DNS, G-Suite (GMail, G Docs, G Drive, ...) etc. AFAIK, G-Suite for business is actually making money (a round-off error compared to advertising, but still, a profitable business), and the various cloud storage and compute offering are actually making money that is not a round-off error (though still dwarfed by advertising). Also, they DO need to make better advertising (and farm better attention), because they are in many ways a "natural monopoly" - they're the monopoly because they are the best in many ways, mostly not because of network effects or anti-competitive behaviour (which they have practiced at times, especially with YouTube, but not nearly to the extent practiced by any other player of this size).
- debatem1 8y ago
  A nit: afaik Google's DNS service has committed to never associating data with other Google services. For reference, it's the last bullet point on https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq
  - beagle3 8y ago
    Thanks. I would take that (as anything else) with a grain of salt. They might not today, but things change and they might tomorrow (you know, they used to "not be evil" and they aren't anymore). Furthermore, rest assured that everyone who can, which includes - but is not limited to - three letter agencies, is monitoring traffic into 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
    - candiodari 8y ago
      On the other hand, most of the big ISPs have been caught not just handing your DNS requests over to advertisers along with the info they have on you, but actually sending back false dns replies because of advertiser money. And if you compare to what happens on hotels' or other such dns servers. I'm saying, perhaps things will change at Google, but they'd have to change a whole lot before they'd be as bad as the normal alternative.
    - debatem1 8y ago
      Not to nitpick a nitpick, but both 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 support dns-over-tls. If you are concerned about the Powers That Be, you should switch over-- and good luck doing that with your ISPs DNS.
- otabdeveloper1 8y ago
  > they're the monopoly because they are the best in many ways, mostly not because of network effects or anti-competitive behaviour Not true. Their advertising business is absolutely built on network effects. Advertisers advertise where there is user data (anything else is a money losing proposition), and lots of user data collection only happens in services that have the money to host (and curate) a large search index, which in turn needs a healthy and growing ad business. It's a self-serving cycle that eventually leads to one player becoming the monopoly. (Same deal with social networks, though less pronounced.)
blhack 8y ago
>Google's only product is advertising Weird, because I pay them monthly for google play music, and for google apps, and for youtube red, and for youtube TV. I also have several android devices, and look forward to paying them every time I get into a waymo. Google has LOTS of products. The "you aren't the customer you're the product!" redditism is just wrong. It's something that sounds really insightful if you don't know anything about the company, or are trying to stir up drama.

davidwihl 8y ago

Google also sells hardware (phones, Nest), Cloud services, gSuite...Ads represent 80-85% of Google revenue but that share is decreasing over time.

superflyguy 8y ago
Google barely sells phones. They might have done with Nexus but they sell as many Pixels in a year as Apple do in 3 days. I know no-one with a Nest. They're still very much an ad company.

derefr 8y ago

Aren’t most Google services there to capture eyeballs for the advertisers to service? That’s Google Search (sponsored results), YouTube, and—in some sense—Chrome.

beagle3 8y ago

> Google's only product is advertising, Google's main product is user attention, which they sell to advertisers in the form of advertising. Right now, they farm this attention mostly through web search, but hone it through data they collect with other venues, such as e.g. location and other data collected from Android handsets, the vast tentacles of Google Analytics, Google DNS, G-Suite (GMail, G Docs, G Drive, ...) etc. AFAIK, G-Suite for business is actually making money (a round-off error compared to advertising, but still, a profitable business), and the various cloud storage and compute offering are actually making money that is not a round-off error (though still dwarfed by advertising). Also, they DO need to make better advertising (and farm better attention), because they are in many ways a "natural monopoly" - they're the monopoly because they are the best in many ways, mostly not because of network effects or anti-competitive behaviour (which they have practiced at times, especially with YouTube, but not nearly to the extent practiced by any other player of this size).

debatem1 8y ago
A nit: afaik Google's DNS service has committed to never associating data with other Google services. For reference, it's the last bullet point on https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq
- beagle3 8y ago
  Thanks. I would take that (as anything else) with a grain of salt. They might not today, but things change and they might tomorrow (you know, they used to "not be evil" and they aren't anymore). Furthermore, rest assured that everyone who can, which includes - but is not limited to - three letter agencies, is monitoring traffic into 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
  - candiodari 8y ago
    On the other hand, most of the big ISPs have been caught not just handing your DNS requests over to advertisers along with the info they have on you, but actually sending back false dns replies because of advertiser money. And if you compare to what happens on hotels' or other such dns servers. I'm saying, perhaps things will change at Google, but they'd have to change a whole lot before they'd be as bad as the normal alternative.
  - debatem1 8y ago
    Not to nitpick a nitpick, but both 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 support dns-over-tls. If you are concerned about the Powers That Be, you should switch over-- and good luck doing that with your ISPs DNS.
otabdeveloper1 8y ago
> they're the monopoly because they are the best in many ways, mostly not because of network effects or anti-competitive behaviour Not true. Their advertising business is absolutely built on network effects. Advertisers advertise where there is user data (anything else is a money losing proposition), and lots of user data collection only happens in services that have the money to host (and curate) a large search index, which in turn needs a healthy and growing ad business. It's a self-serving cycle that eventually leads to one player becoming the monopoly. (Same deal with social networks, though less pronounced.)

blhack 8y ago

>Google's only product is advertising Weird, because I pay them monthly for google play music, and for google apps, and for youtube red, and for youtube TV. I also have several android devices, and look forward to paying them every time I get into a waymo. Google has LOTS of products. The "you aren't the customer you're the product!" redditism is just wrong. It's something that sounds really insightful if you don't know anything about the company, or are trying to stir up drama.