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> I don't think Google thinks about their users as customers. Why should they? A customer is someone who gives you money. Amazon is in the business of doing t
by ggchappell 15y ago
> I don't think Google thinks about their users as customers.
Why should they?
A customer is someone who gives you money. Amazon is in the business of doing things for users in exchange for money; Amazon's customers are its users. Google, in contrast, is in the business of doing things for users to get them to look at ads. Google's customers are advertisers.
I'm a heavy user of Google's services. But I've never given them a cent. I'm not a Google customer; I don't see why I should be treated like one.
- ChuckMcM 15y agoFurther along those lines, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2971102 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2971102 which links to http://www.asymco.com/2011/09/07/why-carol-bartz-was-fired/ http://www.asymco.com/2011/09/07/why-carol-bartz-was-fired/ which has this gem: "To answer, we need to be careful in recognizing that the customer is the advertiser, not the user. Like in all advertising business models, the user is the product." You are only as valuable as your eyeballs. But Google, like any other large organization, isn't intrinsically elitist or evil or munificent or dysfunctional. These example adjectives are emergent properties of a company culture. GM is an interesting example of a company working hard to change its culture and by doing so change some of the adjectives people might use when describing them.
- bambax 15y agoYes, for most of Google's products, the customer is the advertiser and the user is the product. Most, but not all, though. For example, AdWords is also (mostly?) targeted at small businesses, who are therefore customers but who are, for all practical purposes, considered users, and treated as such. That's the problem, IMHO.