5 ms·

This Is How Google Will Collapse

58 points by lawrenceyan 7y ago

stanski 7y ago
I'm not sure anyone has really stopped clicking "I Agree" as he author claims. Seems more wishful thinking than reality.
dangus 7y ago
I think this article underestimates how diversified Google has become. Dismissing YouTube as unprofitable seems laughable, big media companies are probably kicking themselves for not trying a similar concept earlier. That’s the kind of business where an eventual single digit profit margin will make you tremendously wealthy. Google Maps is another example of an ad driver that’s not easily replaced by a competitor. Only giants like Apple and Microsoft can compete on that product. G Suite has made major inroads in the lucrative enterprise productivity space. Google is also slowly building a devices business, and all you have to do is take a peek at Apple to know how successful that can be. Google has the #1 web browser with growing market share to alarming Internet Explorer levels with its search engine and tools set as the defaults. Comparisons to Microsoft’s fall from grace assume history will be repeated, but unlike IE6, nobody’s making a faster/noticeably better to the end user browser than Chrome. As far as the search ads itself, I don’t know that the article makes a compelling case that users simply don’t use search engines or the general Internet anymore. The current trend of ad blocking is that they are getting less and less effective. I’m sure Amazon and Facebook have taken a slice of that advertising pie but it seems unrealistic to expect them to take the whole thing. Not only that but Google’s ad platform allows website owners to place ads directly on sites, so an external link on Facebook can take a user right back into Google’s revenue space.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  For maps in particular the nature of the service means OpenStreetMap may make more sense, just as you wouldn't try to build a commercial general encyclopedia now because Wikipedia makes more sense. Google just can't care as much about Springfield as the people who actually live in Springfield do. Maybe a government database swears that's a new housing estate with asphalt roads, the reality on the ground observed by mappers who live there is it's still a field.
  - mdszy 7y ago
    OSM is good, but at the same time Google has three major benefits: 1. Traffic data harvested from people whose location data is being shared to Google. This allows for much better routing as gmaps will automatically route around traffic. 2. A team of paid developers making probably one of the best driving-routing algos out there. I've used osmand and the routing is absolutely trash. Same with the web version of OSM. Until this improves massively, gmaps isn't going anywhere. 3. Incredible search. Searching for places on OSM just isn't great, and gmaps has all the extra bells and whistles when it comes to searching for, say, "restaurants" and it gives you different cuisines, price ranges, etc... Perhaps when considering a solution like OSM, this is better suited to a separate restaurant search app to keep OSM from bearing the burden of having to accommodate all these uses. I say all this as an avid OSM contributor. I love OSM and I really want it to be good, but it's just not there yet.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lidHanteyk 7y ago
  I don't think that we read the same article. In particular, if over 85% of Google's revenue is from ads, then there's no way that the rest of the business can carry Google, nor that any particular single department could survive on its own. Youtube has never been profitable, and their acquisition by Google is likely what saved them from running out of cash. If there comes a day beyond online advertising as we know it, then Google will collapse; Google cannot compete effectively outside the Web. You are almost right, but didn't look high enough. Alphabet, the big holding company at the top, can survive Google's collapse, and Alphabet is diversified.
  - dangus 7y ago
    I guess I didn’t really address the advertising very well. I would suspect the advertising itself has been diversified as well, but I can’t say I can prove it. That’s why I think any sort of “collapse” would be so slow that it could be mitigated by other growing segments.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  > nobody’s making a faster/noticeably better to the end user browser than Chrome I'll take Firefox any day, any night over Chrome. It is simply a better browser to me for many reasons, and I put it everywhere I can, with Chrome only as a backup.
  - dangus 7y ago
    You and I, as informed nerds, would take it, but the browser marketshare numbers aren’t lying. Not only that, until recently, Firefox had battery usage inefficiencies on the Mac. End users will notice that kind of stuff.
    - helij 7y ago
      I used Firefox on Mac Air for 3 years and never noticed battery issues. It went for 10h with usual browsing and video watching thrown in there. I would say the usual end user. Unfortunately, marketshare numbers aren't lying as you say. I still use it on all my machines and phones and try and get as many people as I can to try it out. Got some people to use it permanently. I don't find any reason to use Chrome apart for testing (Chromium). As every day browsing option I really don't see a choice myself. It's Firefox.
- siproprio 7y ago
  > The current trend of ad blocking is that they are getting less and less effective Yes, and that is because Google is actively pursuing all the ways they can to break user's ability to block ads. They are doing this in all products they control. In Google Chrome and Android.
jefftk 7y ago
The article reads like it was written several years ago, despite the "October 14th 2019" date. It turns out it previously had a "Apr 24, 2017" date: https://web.archive.org/web/20190418231249/https://medium.com/forwardtick/how-google-collapsed-b6ffa82198ee https://web.archive.org/web/20190418231249/https://medium.co... (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
- davedx 7y ago
  Ugh, blog spam. I've flagged it for that, deceptive.
  - jefftk 7y ago
    I don't think it's blogspam: both posts have the same author
- mherdeg 7y ago
  Ha ha, is the author saying "preferentially ranking search results higher if they appear to have a recent date stamp" is how search engine businesses will collapse? That seems awfully circumlocutious. It's interesting how the narrative has shifted from "SEO will kill knowledge" to "filter bubbles spread by hostile governments will kill knowledge" to something a little post-capitalist here like... "advertising will kill knowledge"?
- ddevault 7y ago
  It seems to have been updated, it has explicit references to events in 2019.
  - jefftk 7y ago
    You're right, it's from a mix of time periods. What stuck out to me and got me looking for timing information, though, was that it doesn't feel well integrated. There are ways to update old articles so that they are fully current, but this one is mostly taking an old article and adding more examples without thinking about how this affects the overall argument.
- 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Synaesthesia 7y ago
A company like google should be publicly owned. What they provide as a service shouldn’t have to make a profit.
pasttense01 7y ago
There have been numerous posts on HN showing why Google will collapse: information search on Google just isn't very good any more--results for information search (not talking about product search) are dominated by shopping results, blogspam, membership required/pay sites... Someone will build a better mousetrap.

58 points by lawrenceyan 7y ago

I'm not sure anyone has really stopped clicking "I Agree" as he author claims. Seems more wishful thinking than reality.

dangus 7y ago

I think this article underestimates how diversified Google has become. Dismissing YouTube as unprofitable seems laughable, big media companies are probably kicking themselves for not trying a similar concept earlier. That’s the kind of business where an eventual single digit profit margin will make you tremendously wealthy. Google Maps is another example of an ad driver that’s not easily replaced by a competitor. Only giants like Apple and Microsoft can compete on that product. G Suite has made major inroads in the lucrative enterprise productivity space. Google is also slowly building a devices business, and all you have to do is take a peek at Apple to know how successful that can be. Google has the #1 web browser with growing market share to alarming Internet Explorer levels with its search engine and tools set as the defaults. Comparisons to Microsoft’s fall from grace assume history will be repeated, but unlike IE6, nobody’s making a faster/noticeably better to the end user browser than Chrome. As far as the search ads itself, I don’t know that the article makes a compelling case that users simply don’t use search engines or the general Internet anymore. The current trend of ad blocking is that they are getting less and less effective. I’m sure Amazon and Facebook have taken a slice of that advertising pie but it seems unrealistic to expect them to take the whole thing. Not only that but Google’s ad platform allows website owners to place ads directly on sites, so an external link on Facebook can take a user right back into Google’s revenue space.

tialaramex 7y ago
For maps in particular the nature of the service means OpenStreetMap may make more sense, just as you wouldn't try to build a commercial general encyclopedia now because Wikipedia makes more sense. Google just can't care as much about Springfield as the people who actually live in Springfield do. Maybe a government database swears that's a new housing estate with asphalt roads, the reality on the ground observed by mappers who live there is it's still a field.
- mdszy 7y ago
  OSM is good, but at the same time Google has three major benefits: 1. Traffic data harvested from people whose location data is being shared to Google. This allows for much better routing as gmaps will automatically route around traffic. 2. A team of paid developers making probably one of the best driving-routing algos out there. I've used osmand and the routing is absolutely trash. Same with the web version of OSM. Until this improves massively, gmaps isn't going anywhere. 3. Incredible search. Searching for places on OSM just isn't great, and gmaps has all the extra bells and whistles when it comes to searching for, say, "restaurants" and it gives you different cuisines, price ranges, etc... Perhaps when considering a solution like OSM, this is better suited to a separate restaurant search app to keep OSM from bearing the burden of having to accommodate all these uses. I say all this as an avid OSM contributor. I love OSM and I really want it to be good, but it's just not there yet.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lidHanteyk 7y ago
I don't think that we read the same article. In particular, if over 85% of Google's revenue is from ads, then there's no way that the rest of the business can carry Google, nor that any particular single department could survive on its own. Youtube has never been profitable, and their acquisition by Google is likely what saved them from running out of cash. If there comes a day beyond online advertising as we know it, then Google will collapse; Google cannot compete effectively outside the Web. You are almost right, but didn't look high enough. Alphabet, the big holding company at the top, can survive Google's collapse, and Alphabet is diversified.
- dangus 7y ago
  I guess I didn’t really address the advertising very well. I would suspect the advertising itself has been diversified as well, but I can’t say I can prove it. That’s why I think any sort of “collapse” would be so slow that it could be mitigated by other growing segments.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
saiya-jin 7y ago
> nobody’s making a faster/noticeably better to the end user browser than Chrome I'll take Firefox any day, any night over Chrome. It is simply a better browser to me for many reasons, and I put it everywhere I can, with Chrome only as a backup.
- dangus 7y ago
  You and I, as informed nerds, would take it, but the browser marketshare numbers aren’t lying. Not only that, until recently, Firefox had battery usage inefficiencies on the Mac. End users will notice that kind of stuff.
  - helij 7y ago
    I used Firefox on Mac Air for 3 years and never noticed battery issues. It went for 10h with usual browsing and video watching thrown in there. I would say the usual end user. Unfortunately, marketshare numbers aren't lying as you say. I still use it on all my machines and phones and try and get as many people as I can to try it out. Got some people to use it permanently. I don't find any reason to use Chrome apart for testing (Chromium). As every day browsing option I really don't see a choice myself. It's Firefox.
siproprio 7y ago
> The current trend of ad blocking is that they are getting less and less effective Yes, and that is because Google is actively pursuing all the ways they can to break user's ability to block ads. They are doing this in all products they control. In Google Chrome and Android.

jefftk 7y ago

The article reads like it was written several years ago, despite the "October 14th 2019" date. It turns out it previously had a "Apr 24, 2017" date: https://web.archive.org/web/20190418231249/https://medium.com/forwardtick/how-google-collapsed-b6ffa82198ee https://web.archive.org/web/20190418231249/https://medium.co... (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)

davedx 7y ago
Ugh, blog spam. I've flagged it for that, deceptive.
- jefftk 7y ago
  I don't think it's blogspam: both posts have the same author
mherdeg 7y ago
Ha ha, is the author saying "preferentially ranking search results higher if they appear to have a recent date stamp" is how search engine businesses will collapse? That seems awfully circumlocutious. It's interesting how the narrative has shifted from "SEO will kill knowledge" to "filter bubbles spread by hostile governments will kill knowledge" to something a little post-capitalist here like... "advertising will kill knowledge"?
ddevault 7y ago
It seems to have been updated, it has explicit references to events in 2019.
- jefftk 7y ago
  You're right, it's from a mix of time periods. What stuck out to me and got me looking for timing information, though, was that it doesn't feel well integrated. There are ways to update old articles so that they are fully current, but this one is mostly taking an old article and adding more examples without thinking about how this affects the overall argument.
7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Synaesthesia 7y ago

A company like google should be publicly owned. What they provide as a service shouldn’t have to make a profit.

pasttense01 7y ago

There have been numerous posts on HN showing why Google will collapse: information search on Google just isn't very good any more--results for information search (not talking about product search) are dominated by shopping results, blogspam, membership required/pay sites... Someone will build a better mousetrap.