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I often wonder why Google is giving stuff away for free. Can a publicly-held corporation do something just because it's cool, interesting, or The Right Thing To
by SoftwarePatent 16y ago
I often wonder why Google is giving stuff away for free. Can a publicly-held corporation do something just because it's cool, interesting, or The Right Thing To Do?
Here's something they give away that I use every day: a reliable DNS server. (Much more reliable than my ISP, and yes, I cache DNS locally).
http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/ http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/
- th0ma5 16y agoI would hope that this is justified under the idea that if they can provide customers with faster lookups, results, page loads, etc, then they get more business.
- IgorPartola 16y agoImagine a small company, that is profitable. Now imagine that that company can also provide a service for free that in the opinion of the people of this company would make the world a better place and this service does cost much (relative to the profits). Why would this small company not provide this service? As the company grows and goes public, there is more scrutiny over how the company spends its money. However, why not spend that <made_up_number>0.000001%</made_up_number> of the profits on something like this?
- InclinedPlane 16y agoGoogle is smart enough to play the long game. And the long game is where the real money is. You can make money in the short term by abusing and misusing your users and maximizing short-term profits, but it's insignificant next to what can be made by building a highly trusted brand on the scale of google.