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Take the Petro curse analogy to its logical conclusion. You get interesting conclusions about Google's internal political economy and the incentives of its empl
by haltingproblem 6y ago
Take the Petro curse analogy to its logical conclusion. You get interesting conclusions about Google's internal political economy and the incentives of its employees when faced with the Adsense machine and the profit it spews.
Adsense/Adwords spews tens of billions of dollars in profits every year. No new product launch can come to close moving the needle on revenue or profits for Google. Google's political economy incentivizes groups to build new products not for their revenue streams but to claim larger bonuses of the ad-revenue pie. The users who buy into these "new" products are just cannon fodder in that game. Remember Google+? Vic Gundotra made off with probably tens of millions or more to launch a failed product because it was seen as strategic for Google. Anything and everything in Google happens as an internal battle between groups jockeying for bigger share of the adsense/adwords pie. We are just pawns in the game.
I can't believe I am saying it but almost anything MSFT releases in response to Google or competitors is inferior but MSFT's products are preferable due to implied longevity. MSFT has inoculated themselves against this parasitic political economy while Google's users are held hostage by it.
Most Google project launches are akin to MBS's dreams to turn Saudi into a tourism/research/commerce powerhouse. Brand new Cities in the desert etc. They would have more success dumping cash into the ocean and catching the fish that come to feed on the paper.
Ditto for google.
- hpcjoe 6y ago"I can't believe I am saying it but almost anything MSFT releases in response to Google or competitors is inferior but MSFT's products are preferable due to implied longevity. MSFT has inoculated themselves against this parasitic political economy while Google's users are held hostage by it." Yes, precisely. MSFT spent the better part of 50 years honing its selling strategies to companies, and knows how to deliver products. They may suck (and they do), but you know if you build upon them, they will not (generally, with few exceptions) disappear tomorrow. You simply cannot have that faith with google. Gmail, could literally disappear at any moment. How screwed over would we all be if that happened? It won't, because it is the gift that keeps on giving with regards to intelligence gathering. For their real product.
- haltingproblem 6y agoBingo. That is the other corollary we can derive. Any product that can give google reams of data on its users that it does not already have will enjoy a long tenure in its stable of products. Reams of data means both depth and scale. Missing either one would mean an early death.