4 ms·

I've heard this explanation and I believe it. Nonetheless: Sundar Pichai has been CEO of Google since 2015. One would think that unifying messaging would be a p

I've heard this explanation and I believe it. Nonetheless: Sundar Pichai has been CEO of Google since 2015. One would think that unifying messaging would be a priority from on-high since at least that time. Instead the company allowed poor management to continue, rather than grabbing this issue and saying "stop playing promotion games, this business is strategically important." But it didn't.

smt88 4y ago
Why is chat strategically important? What is Alphabet's strategy? They've only ever made substantial profit from ads, YouTube (which they acquired), and possibly Workspace or Cloud. The last time I looked at their filings, they weren't transparent about which businesses are profitable. This isn't a company that's had a coherent identity or strategy. iMessage is important to Apple because it's an exclusive social network that only Apple devices can access. Slack is important because it's a backbone of a business SaaS ecosystem. But Hangouts was never going to have either of these functions.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  Because protecting their lucrative ads business means preventing a competing hardware/OS company from gaining majority market-share and strangling you with its platform. That's why the very expensive (not profitable) Android project exists in the first place. And when such a competitor gains too much power, your ads business can suffer very real non-theoretical harms [1]. Right now Apple iOS marketshare is increasing: it's reached 60% in the US and an amazing 87% among teenagers! (Who tend to "stick" with a platform even after they become adults.) And while there are many features that are driving the push towards iOS (it's not just messaging!) the dominance of iMessage is definitely one feature people [particularly younger ones] care very much about. And while fixing messaging might not be the only problem here, it's relatively "inexpensive" to run messaging correctly compared to the cost of fixing things after your OS market share crosses a tipping point. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/09/06/apple-crashes-advertising-duopoly-google-and-facebooks-stranglehold-loosening-report-finds/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/09/06/apple-cras...
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    Android as a zombie OS (not profitable) makes it certain that a quality OS (gets software updates sometimes) competitive with iOS won't emerge. It's really a gift to Apple.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  chatting on the web improves uses of said web ? and in any case, throwing out 20 services in a row to kill them is certain to damage your brand. there was a time where google was synonimous with free and unavailable features (gmail, gmaps) and now google is that weird ever changing stream of A/B testing customer distracting devices. (youtube just flubbered their UI in the most spectacular manner btw)
- systemicdanna 4y ago
  You just listed some of the reasons for having a successful messaging app. Why wouldn't any of those reasons be attractive to Google? They could have _finally_ owned a social network. Or a "backbone for a business SaaS ecosystem" tightly integrated into their Cloud services.

smt88 4y ago

Why is chat strategically important? What is Alphabet's strategy? They've only ever made substantial profit from ads, YouTube (which they acquired), and possibly Workspace or Cloud. The last time I looked at their filings, they weren't transparent about which businesses are profitable. This isn't a company that's had a coherent identity or strategy. iMessage is important to Apple because it's an exclusive social network that only Apple devices can access. Slack is important because it's a backbone of a business SaaS ecosystem. But Hangouts was never going to have either of these functions.

matthewdgreen 4y ago
Because protecting their lucrative ads business means preventing a competing hardware/OS company from gaining majority market-share and strangling you with its platform. That's why the very expensive (not profitable) Android project exists in the first place. And when such a competitor gains too much power, your ads business can suffer very real non-theoretical harms [1]. Right now Apple iOS marketshare is increasing: it's reached 60% in the US and an amazing 87% among teenagers! (Who tend to "stick" with a platform even after they become adults.) And while there are many features that are driving the push towards iOS (it's not just messaging!) the dominance of iMessage is definitely one feature people [particularly younger ones] care very much about. And while fixing messaging might not be the only problem here, it's relatively "inexpensive" to run messaging correctly compared to the cost of fixing things after your OS market share crosses a tipping point. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/09/06/apple-crashes-advertising-duopoly-google-and-facebooks-stranglehold-loosening-report-finds/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/09/06/apple-cras...
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  Android as a zombie OS (not profitable) makes it certain that a quality OS (gets software updates sometimes) competitive with iOS won't emerge. It's really a gift to Apple.
agumonkey 4y ago
chatting on the web improves uses of said web ? and in any case, throwing out 20 services in a row to kill them is certain to damage your brand. there was a time where google was synonimous with free and unavailable features (gmail, gmaps) and now google is that weird ever changing stream of A/B testing customer distracting devices. (youtube just flubbered their UI in the most spectacular manner btw)
systemicdanna 4y ago
You just listed some of the reasons for having a successful messaging app. Why wouldn't any of those reasons be attractive to Google? They could have _finally_ owned a social network. Or a "backbone for a business SaaS ecosystem" tightly integrated into their Cloud services.