6 ms·

If it makes you feel better, Google doesn't have a second gold vein yet, either.

by tdfx 4y ago

random314 4y ago
Isn't the phrase gold mine?
- amelius 4y ago
  You can't accidentally hit a gold mine like you can a gold vein.
- Integrape 4y ago
  You build the mine after finding the vein.
- sp332 4y ago
  A vein of gold is an incredibly pure area of ore. Sometimes you can basically pick chucks of gold up off the ground. https://www.livescience.com/bonanza-gold-vein-nanoparticles.html https://www.livescience.com/bonanza-gold-vein-nanoparticles....
metacritic12 4y ago
But they (chose / lucked into) a gold vein that's huge and growing. And played no small role in shaping the ecology (Android to keep abreast of mobile, Pixel to reduce hardware monopoly) to ensure that gold vein grew.
wutbrodo 4y ago
I'm always a little confused by this claim. Focusing on revenue-generating products and not the user products they use to sell them: Google Search was their first success, then AdSense (third-party display ads), then YouTube. The latter two each make almost $30B/yr (run rate). Ignoring ads, Google Cloud makes >$20B/yr, as do Google hardware sales, with an additional $30B/yr from "non-advertising Other". I don't really understand how one supports this claim without using decidedly non-standard definitions and grouping of revenue. If you insist on lumping together separate, wildly-successful revenue-generating products into overbroad groups by the manner in which the revenue is collected, and ignore a couple of objectively enormous revenue streams: Do you similarly feel that Apple "hasn't found a second gold vein" beyond "hardware sales"?
alaricus 4y ago
Google is fk'ed if wide-scale ad blocking really picks up. For example ISP-level adblocking.
- acchow 4y ago
  > For example ISP-level adblocking. Google could circumvent this if ISPs tried this. How would an ISP block ads coming in encrypted as normal content?
  - alaricus 4y ago
    The same way as PiHole does. It's not hard to block Google adds on 3rd party sites with a DNS or IP-level block.
    - acchow 4y ago
      If ISPs actually tried to do this en-masse, Google would move all ad serving to google.com
      - alaricus 4y ago
        This is basically what youtube is doing. PiHole does not work on Youtube, but uBlock origin does (so does NewPipe, FreeTube and a bunch of software). This would solve Google's immediate problem, but it's such a huge escalation that I expect lots of unintended effects not to Google's benefit. There is a reason they haven't done this, despite widespread adblocking use.
        ratww 4y ago
        Yeah, the industry is definitely moving to that. Admiral, probably the most known ad-blocker-blocker already successfully circumvents PiHole and other DNS blocking by being served by the same domain. I also expect Google to double down on Chrome Manifest v3 limitations if ad-blocking keeps getting more popular. Or even using DNS-over-HTTPS as a default on Chrome if ISP blocking ever becomes a thing.
agloeregrets 4y ago
Google bought their other Gold. Youtube, Android, Google Search on iOS, ChromeOS. All of it is a moat to protect the first.
- sp332 4y ago
  YouTube doesn't make a lot of money. Android might if you include the Play store.
  - sbrother 4y ago
    > YouTube doesn't make a lot of money. Citation needed... Is $7B/quarter not a lot of money?
    - mrtranscendence 4y ago
      That’s revenue, not profit. I don’t have profit numbers but I’ve heard that YouTube is extremely expensive to run.
    - idiotsecant 4y ago
      Google doesn't release net income numbers by business unit but in 2021 revenue for search was around $148B and Youtube revenue was around $29B. Given that youtube revenue dollars are probably much more expensive than search revenue dollars I'd say that ratio will skew toward more of the profit being in the search category than the you tube category, not less. It does seem on balance to be a relatively small part of their business dollars-wise, although I'd make the case that the cultural relevancy that youtube gives google has a non-zero value.
  - wutbrodo 4y ago
    A run-rate of $30B/yr is "not a lot of money"?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - 4y ago
perlgeek 4y ago
What about cloud?
- halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
  Hasn’t Google said if they don’t “win” Cloud against AWS and/or Azure, they’re going to shut GCP down eventually?
  - ceras 4y ago
    IIRC the rumor leak around that was more nuanced: the leaks reported someone allegedly saying that market economics may not ultimately be able to support more than 2 leaders, because the economics will make #1 and #2 able to profit at prices that numbers 3+ can't compete with due to lack of scale. So the statement was that GCP has keep up or its ability to profit will be at risk, not that they'd shut down just because their slice of the pie isn't big enough if they end up as #3. I don't believe it was clear who said this, how confident it was that someone said this, and whether it was an off-the-cuff comment in support of a push for more growth or an actual deep assessment of the economics of the space.
- kube-system 4y ago
  GCP loses money. They just reported their best quarter for cloud earnings. Negative 931 million dollars in Q1 2022.
  - nix9000 4y ago
    The numbers are trending in the right direction. From 2021Q1 to 2022Q1, revenue grew 43% (vs 34% at AWS and 46% at Azure), loss went down by 4%, and the loss to revenue ratio went from 24% to 16%.
asdff 4y ago
Don't they have like a dozen ore veins?
Valakas_ 4y ago
When you have unlimited money, there's no need to find it. Just buy it.

If it makes you feel better, Google doesn't have a second gold vein yet, either.

by tdfx 4y ago

If it makes you feel better, Google doesn't have a second gold vein yet, either.

random314 4y ago

Isn't the phrase gold mine?

amelius 4y ago
You can't accidentally hit a gold mine like you can a gold vein.
Integrape 4y ago
You build the mine after finding the vein.
sp332 4y ago
A vein of gold is an incredibly pure area of ore. Sometimes you can basically pick chucks of gold up off the ground. https://www.livescience.com/bonanza-gold-vein-nanoparticles.html https://www.livescience.com/bonanza-gold-vein-nanoparticles....

metacritic12 4y ago

But they (chose / lucked into) a gold vein that's huge and growing. And played no small role in shaping the ecology (Android to keep abreast of mobile, Pixel to reduce hardware monopoly) to ensure that gold vein grew.

wutbrodo 4y ago

I'm always a little confused by this claim. Focusing on revenue-generating products and not the user products they use to sell them: Google Search was their first success, then AdSense (third-party display ads), then YouTube. The latter two each make almost $30B/yr (run rate). Ignoring ads, Google Cloud makes >$20B/yr, as do Google hardware sales, with an additional $30B/yr from "non-advertising Other". I don't really understand how one supports this claim without using decidedly non-standard definitions and grouping of revenue. If you insist on lumping together separate, wildly-successful revenue-generating products into overbroad groups by the manner in which the revenue is collected, and ignore a couple of objectively enormous revenue streams: Do you similarly feel that Apple "hasn't found a second gold vein" beyond "hardware sales"?

alaricus 4y ago

Google is fk'ed if wide-scale ad blocking really picks up. For example ISP-level adblocking.

acchow 4y ago
> For example ISP-level adblocking. Google could circumvent this if ISPs tried this. How would an ISP block ads coming in encrypted as normal content?
- alaricus 4y ago
  The same way as PiHole does. It's not hard to block Google adds on 3rd party sites with a DNS or IP-level block.
  - acchow 4y ago
    If ISPs actually tried to do this en-masse, Google would move all ad serving to google.com
    - alaricus 4y ago
      This is basically what youtube is doing. PiHole does not work on Youtube, but uBlock origin does (so does NewPipe, FreeTube and a bunch of software). This would solve Google's immediate problem, but it's such a huge escalation that I expect lots of unintended effects not to Google's benefit. There is a reason they haven't done this, despite widespread adblocking use.
      - ratww 4y ago
        Yeah, the industry is definitely moving to that. Admiral, probably the most known ad-blocker-blocker already successfully circumvents PiHole and other DNS blocking by being served by the same domain. I also expect Google to double down on Chrome Manifest v3 limitations if ad-blocking keeps getting more popular. Or even using DNS-over-HTTPS as a default on Chrome if ISP blocking ever becomes a thing.

agloeregrets 4y ago

Google bought their other Gold. Youtube, Android, Google Search on iOS, ChromeOS. All of it is a moat to protect the first.

sp332 4y ago
YouTube doesn't make a lot of money. Android might if you include the Play store.
- sbrother 4y ago
  > YouTube doesn't make a lot of money. Citation needed... Is $7B/quarter not a lot of money?
  - mrtranscendence 4y ago
    That’s revenue, not profit. I don’t have profit numbers but I’ve heard that YouTube is extremely expensive to run.
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    Google doesn't release net income numbers by business unit but in 2021 revenue for search was around $148B and Youtube revenue was around $29B. Given that youtube revenue dollars are probably much more expensive than search revenue dollars I'd say that ratio will skew toward more of the profit being in the search category than the you tube category, not less. It does seem on balance to be a relatively small part of their business dollars-wise, although I'd make the case that the cultural relevancy that youtube gives google has a non-zero value.
- wutbrodo 4y ago
  A run-rate of $30B/yr is "not a lot of money"?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - 4y ago

perlgeek 4y ago

What about cloud?

halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
Hasn’t Google said if they don’t “win” Cloud against AWS and/or Azure, they’re going to shut GCP down eventually?
- ceras 4y ago
  IIRC the rumor leak around that was more nuanced: the leaks reported someone allegedly saying that market economics may not ultimately be able to support more than 2 leaders, because the economics will make #1 and #2 able to profit at prices that numbers 3+ can't compete with due to lack of scale. So the statement was that GCP has keep up or its ability to profit will be at risk, not that they'd shut down just because their slice of the pie isn't big enough if they end up as #3. I don't believe it was clear who said this, how confident it was that someone said this, and whether it was an off-the-cuff comment in support of a push for more growth or an actual deep assessment of the economics of the space.
kube-system 4y ago
GCP loses money. They just reported their best quarter for cloud earnings. Negative 931 million dollars in Q1 2022.
- nix9000 4y ago
  The numbers are trending in the right direction. From 2021Q1 to 2022Q1, revenue grew 43% (vs 34% at AWS and 46% at Azure), loss went down by 4%, and the loss to revenue ratio went from 24% to 16%.

asdff 4y ago

Don't they have like a dozen ore veins?

Valakas_ 4y ago

When you have unlimited money, there's no need to find it. Just buy it.