4 ms·

I somewhat agree with your point but what does "low usage" mean if you're Google? In comparison to their other services 100k people[0] are not many. For a start

• crazygringo 7y ago
  For any company anywhere, it's going to be relative to the costs of running it. There's no such thing as absolute low/high usage for Google. There's simply different thresholds for enough usage for a product that takes 1 engineer to maintain, 10 engineers, 100 engineers, or 1,000 engineers. Google isn't going to have hugely different metrics here from a startup. Either a product justifies its profitability or it doesn't. Aside from minor details, doesn't substantially matter if it's a 50-person team inside a MegaCorp, or a 50-person startup.
  • bcrosby95 7y ago
    You're missing opportunity cost in your calculations. That is significantly different for Google vs a startup vs a small business. It isn't enough to make "some profit" in a mega corporation. The profit compared to the resources invested has to be of a similar magnitude to their primary business, or else they're wasting resources. Things are axed all the time for not being profitable enough.
    • crazygringo 7y ago
      But the same is absolutely true for VC. They're not looking for 2x returns, they're looking for 10x returns. And VC-funded startups are the right comparison to make here. Are they any less ruthless about pulling the plug on something that can't show any probable path to required growth? (I think it goes without saying that neither Google nor VC's are trying to fund lifestyle businesses, the way a mom-and-pop bootstrapped startup might be.)