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Way too many responses to your question are trying to engage with debate over products rather than focusing on the topic of monetization. Google makes money th
by kromem 4y ago
Way too many responses to your question are trying to engage with debate over products rather than focusing on the topic of monetization.
Google makes money through ads, and especially ads that get you to click through to somewhere else.
They do this through SEM ads that appear on your search query to direct you to a paid destination.
And they do it through a display network on 3rd party websites that Google search inevitably ends up funneling you to.
If you are simply engaging with an AI that's synthesizing those results so you don't have to, that's less time you spend on those sites seeing Google's ads, and less incentive to click through to paid results.
Their entire business model basically goes up in smoke if AI successfully intermediates the Internet.
This doesn't preclude them from competing, as you point out, but you generally don't want to see your cash cow get slaughtered and then suddenly be in a highly competitive market for what will replace it.
Having a 90% market share in the Titanic isn't an enviable position.
- alfalfasprout 4y agoAgreed that what the product is exactly doesn't matter too much. It's kind of inevitable at this point that search is going to go in the direction of a chatbot. Ask jeeves back in the day already knew that what people really want is a question answered. Google search and its competitors were a well-lived offramp on that road. Ultimately free-form interaction is just more intuitive. But with that said, I also am not so quick to call the death of SEM ads. Just because chatbots exist doesn't mean people don't want to visit other websites. Display ads will continue to be a thing. Similarly, there's no reason chatbots can't now direct you to sites or advertise products as part of their responses. Heck, this is a much more sinister form of marketing with astronomically higher click rate since a chatbot is responding authoritatively with a recommendation. Yes, google is going to have to pivot... but this is a problem they're very well suited to solving and they have a very strong incumbent advantage in the meantime.