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How would you bootstrap such a company? The solution as I see it is to forcefully break-up Google, such that these services can have their run as independent c

by dybber 6y ago

How would you bootstrap such a company? The solution as I see it is to forcefully break-up Google, such that these services can have their run as independent companies (Maps, flight search, product price comparison, etc.). This has been done before with big companies (e.g. break of Bell Systems into 7 companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System)

TomMarius 6y ago
And what good came out of the remains of Bell Systems afterwards?
kartayyar 6y ago
The way Google: ship it and make it work really, really well. The product was so good that people noticed. They were able to take this and leverage this into being search for a really large property, like Back in the 90s there were lots of search engines. People didn't pick Google because it was hard to switch, they converged on Google because the product was that good - there was Infoseek, HotBot, AskJeeves, Alta Vista, Lycos, Yahoo, Excite ... the list goes on. It's a theoretical problem to have a significantly better search engine and not find users for it.
- kevingadd 6y ago
  I'd argue that Google was able to win specifically because they had so much competition. They weren't fighting against one or two massive entrenched competitors in an established space. Search was still pretty new at that point and Google's approach to it was innovative. Google also had lots of space to improve on its competition when it came to metrics like latency, which paid off. Nobody really has the option to beat them on latency now. That's not really Unfair in any fashion but it is an example of how it would be much harder to dethrone the ruling search engine in 2020.
- IncRnd 6y ago
  > People didn't pick Google because it was hard to switch, they converged on Google because the product was that good That's not how I remember things from that time. I started to use Google, because it was faster than dogpile and the other oddly named search engines. It wasn't a quality reason. There was the expectation that a search for information would take longer than a single click, so a little digging wasn't an issue.
  - hcurtiss 6y ago
    My experience was that the quality of the search results were much better.
    - IncRnd 6y ago
      I experienced that as well, but the reason we used Google at that time was the speed that was sorely lacking is all other offeri we used.
boarnoah 6y ago
Most of those independent companies wouldn't have a good revenue stream no? I really doubt Google Maps is sustainable simply by selling API access. It and especially the more niche google products seem to be provided as a value add to their other services (i.e search in this case).
- zentiggr 6y ago
  Awww, you mean parts of the monolith would have to compete on merit with all the other companies that are having to compete on merit? What a terrible shame...
  - theamk 6y ago
    It will be a terrible shame when I no longer get real-time traffic on the small streets, yes. I use OSM multiple times per week, but I still start GMaps anytime I need to drive somewhere.
- dybber 6y ago
  Google Maps is essentially TripAdvisor with better search, but fewer reviews. In addition, Google Maps is probably the most used GPS routing software these days. They would do fine standalone, either following a path like TripAdvisor or Garmin or both.

by dybber 6y ago

TomMarius 6y ago

And what good came out of the remains of Bell Systems afterwards?

kartayyar 6y ago

The way Google: ship it and make it work really, really well. The product was so good that people noticed. They were able to take this and leverage this into being search for a really large property, like Back in the 90s there were lots of search engines. People didn't pick Google because it was hard to switch, they converged on Google because the product was that good - there was Infoseek, HotBot, AskJeeves, Alta Vista, Lycos, Yahoo, Excite ... the list goes on. It's a theoretical problem to have a significantly better search engine and not find users for it.

kevingadd 6y ago
I'd argue that Google was able to win specifically because they had so much competition. They weren't fighting against one or two massive entrenched competitors in an established space. Search was still pretty new at that point and Google's approach to it was innovative. Google also had lots of space to improve on its competition when it came to metrics like latency, which paid off. Nobody really has the option to beat them on latency now. That's not really Unfair in any fashion but it is an example of how it would be much harder to dethrone the ruling search engine in 2020.
IncRnd 6y ago
> People didn't pick Google because it was hard to switch, they converged on Google because the product was that good That's not how I remember things from that time. I started to use Google, because it was faster than dogpile and the other oddly named search engines. It wasn't a quality reason. There was the expectation that a search for information would take longer than a single click, so a little digging wasn't an issue.
- hcurtiss 6y ago
  My experience was that the quality of the search results were much better.
  - IncRnd 6y ago
    I experienced that as well, but the reason we used Google at that time was the speed that was sorely lacking is all other offeri we used.

boarnoah 6y ago

Most of those independent companies wouldn't have a good revenue stream no? I really doubt Google Maps is sustainable simply by selling API access. It and especially the more niche google products seem to be provided as a value add to their other services (i.e search in this case).

zentiggr 6y ago
Awww, you mean parts of the monolith would have to compete on merit with all the other companies that are having to compete on merit? What a terrible shame...
- theamk 6y ago
  It will be a terrible shame when I no longer get real-time traffic on the small streets, yes. I use OSM multiple times per week, but I still start GMaps anytime I need to drive somewhere.
dybber 6y ago
Google Maps is essentially TripAdvisor with better search, but fewer reviews. In addition, Google Maps is probably the most used GPS routing software these days. They would do fine standalone, either following a path like TripAdvisor or Garmin or both.