8 ms·

Ads is still growing and very profitable, YouTube is back to growing, GCP profitable for two quarters in a row, and lower losses on other bets. Google is still

Ads is still growing and very profitable, YouTube is back to growing, GCP profitable for two quarters in a row, and lower losses on other bets. Google is still Google.

nine_zeros 3y ago
I myself contributed to those ad earnings by watching 4 ads in a 10 min video.
- atlasunshrugged 3y ago
  Ditto. But I do wonder how much ad time is just people using it to listen to music in the background and not really listening to ads (maybe this is priced in anyways and it doesn't matter, but traveling around eastern europe a lot I was surprised how many people used Youtube this way)
  - InitialLastName 3y ago
    The advertising people know that they can slip information and impressions into your brain whether you think you're listening/reading/clicking or not. All they really need to do is tick a few % of the marginal decision-makers who need to (for example) buy a car to say "I should consider a Ford" and they've covered the ad budget.
  - summerlight 3y ago
    This is why "impression" metrics are not very useful. Perhaps 99% of impressions are just wasted so advertisers prefer to pay for clicks, or even conversions.
- asynchronous 3y ago
  YTDL over my dead body.
- apples_oranges 3y ago
  You could find ways around that .. after all this is Hacker News.
- minsc_and_boo 3y ago
  Honest question: Why not subscribe? IIRC content creators get more revenue per user from YT premium than ads.
  - macintux 3y ago
    I pay, and it’s worth it for me, but I hate giving money to Google, and paying nearly twice what any streaming service charges is painful.
    - progbits 3y ago
      Twice? For me YT Premium is cheaper than even the cheapest Neflix plan, same for Disney and HBO, only Apple TV is cheaper (barely).
      - crazygringo 3y ago
        YT premium is now $13.99. Netflix starts at $6.99. That's exactly double if you ignore the missing pennies. Netflix Standard is $15.49 though, if we're comparing without ads.
        ericpauley 3y ago
        The $6.99/mo Netflix plan is with ads. The comparable YouTube plan is $0/mo. The comparble Netflix plan to YT premium is $15.49/mo.
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        And YouTube includes music streaming.
        mattlondon 3y ago
        In the UK YT Premium is £11.99, Netflix Standard (no ads) is £10.99 For comparison my 5G phone plan is £10/month, and my home fibre connection ADSL is £22/month. YouTube premium is therefore a tough sell - with netflix you at least get loads of stuff you wouldn't have seen otherwise, YT you get the same stuff you could see anyway, just without ads. I personally don't see that as a good deal. If it was like £2 or £3 a month to remove the ads, then great sign me up. But it's not.
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  Don’t worry, I offset you some by installing adblockers on many older people’s phones and computers, especially people who aren’t technical and had no idea how to do it themselves.
- christophilus 3y ago
  I’m genuinely curious to know: why do some folks browse the web without using an ad blocker? That’s not a rhetorical question. I understand grandma may not be technically savvy enough. But for anyone reading HN, why aren’t you using an ad blocker?
  - hdesh 3y ago
    Maybe they watched it on a TV and do not have access to an ad blocker on the Youtube app on the TV.
    - goalonetwo 3y ago
      SmartTube is a life-saver on TV. It replaces the default youtube app and removes all the ads/sponsored sections
  - slongfield 3y ago
    There are some people who see it as an ethical position: ad supported businesses need to serve ads to survive. If you don't want to see those ads, and the business doesn't offer a subscription plan, just don't go to those websites.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - timeon 3y ago
      > just don't go to those websites I know this is Youtube, but in general: I would gladly avoid those sites but they are gaming the SEO. They are getting in the way.
  - nine_zeros 3y ago
    Ad blockers don't work on phones, which is increasingly the medium of consumption.
    - silisili 3y ago
atlasunshrugged 3y ago
GCP is an interesting one -- I helped a company go through some of the hoops for GCP and AWS and the former was... difficult. It felt like someone tried to copy AWS, didn't fix all the links or think the whole thing through, and just sort of put it out there. I remember we were locked out of our account for like a month for some reason and there was a lot of handoff between different reps, for churn or for some business process reason I wasn't aware of, but it was a pretty jarring experience that made us not want to invest a lot of time there
- neeleshs 3y ago
  This is very interesting. My experience at a large company migrating to GCP. The consultants and reps were 10x more eager to help us compared to AWS, and the migration went fairly smooth for most parts
- redavni 3y ago
  Which aligns with the primary difference between Google and Amazon, customer service. Amazon is as good at service as Google is bad. If my memory serves me correct, Google had outsourced at least some of the GCP customer service to HP.
  - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
    Customer service isn't wildly different between GCP and AWS. I think it's the finish of the product. AWS has far more finished product and even for smaller services it mostly works as intended. While GCP it is very hit or miss. I have seen so many edge cases in smaller GCP services like composer, old ML platform, dataflow etc. While GCP is definitely more intuitive. You don't need to create 2 different IAM profile for anything you want to solve. So GCP feels more like Digital Ocean + bunch of services with varying quality.
    - zgluck 3y ago
      GCP has a smaller number of services but they tend to be very well designed with excellent taste. AWS has a bazillion services, often very obviously designed by people without good taste and/or experience. GCP's incompleteness is super annoying. The general daftness of AWS service design is tiring and somewhat soul-sucking. I used to think that Google would eventually get there, but lately I've realized that they are totally happy offering an 80% product forever. So for now I'm very reluctantly team AWS.
gmerc 3y ago
It’s growing because they are slaughtering golden geese at an alarming rate propping up growth - Youtube ads assault - Endless scrolling on SERP to show more ads as you need to scroll through degrading results. - etc every surface has increased ad load, every service increased prices. So of course that props up growth. Ads is in full value extraction mode now, the question is, how sustainable it is, but that’s a question for another quarter See Facebook the same. You can’t share actual links outside the app anymore which drives engagement as every user clicking on a link now goes back right to being a monthly active
- wslh 3y ago
  Yes, very noticeable. Rows and rows of ads in Google Search, and I am seeing less and less quality results over time.
- smileysteve 3y ago
  Not just ads in YouTube, but a 20% price increase

Ads is still growing and very profitable, YouTube is back to growing, GCP profitable for two quarters in a row, and lower losses on other bets. Google is still Google.

nine_zeros 3y ago

I myself contributed to those ad earnings by watching 4 ads in a 10 min video.

atlasunshrugged 3y ago
Ditto. But I do wonder how much ad time is just people using it to listen to music in the background and not really listening to ads (maybe this is priced in anyways and it doesn't matter, but traveling around eastern europe a lot I was surprised how many people used Youtube this way)
- InitialLastName 3y ago
  The advertising people know that they can slip information and impressions into your brain whether you think you're listening/reading/clicking or not. All they really need to do is tick a few % of the marginal decision-makers who need to (for example) buy a car to say "I should consider a Ford" and they've covered the ad budget.
- summerlight 3y ago
  This is why "impression" metrics are not very useful. Perhaps 99% of impressions are just wasted so advertisers prefer to pay for clicks, or even conversions.
asynchronous 3y ago
YTDL over my dead body.
apples_oranges 3y ago
You could find ways around that .. after all this is Hacker News.
minsc_and_boo 3y ago
Honest question: Why not subscribe? IIRC content creators get more revenue per user from YT premium than ads.
- macintux 3y ago
  I pay, and it’s worth it for me, but I hate giving money to Google, and paying nearly twice what any streaming service charges is painful.
  - progbits 3y ago
    Twice? For me YT Premium is cheaper than even the cheapest Neflix plan, same for Disney and HBO, only Apple TV is cheaper (barely).
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      YT premium is now $13.99. Netflix starts at $6.99. That's exactly double if you ignore the missing pennies. Netflix Standard is $15.49 though, if we're comparing without ads.
      - ericpauley 3y ago
        The $6.99/mo Netflix plan is with ads. The comparable YouTube plan is $0/mo. The comparble Netflix plan to YT premium is $15.49/mo.
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        And YouTube includes music streaming.
        mattlondon 3y ago
        In the UK YT Premium is £11.99, Netflix Standard (no ads) is £10.99 For comparison my 5G phone plan is £10/month, and my home fibre connection ADSL is £22/month. YouTube premium is therefore a tough sell - with netflix you at least get loads of stuff you wouldn't have seen otherwise, YT you get the same stuff you could see anyway, just without ads. I personally don't see that as a good deal. If it was like £2 or £3 a month to remove the ads, then great sign me up. But it's not.
lacrimacida 3y ago
Don’t worry, I offset you some by installing adblockers on many older people’s phones and computers, especially people who aren’t technical and had no idea how to do it themselves.
christophilus 3y ago
I’m genuinely curious to know: why do some folks browse the web without using an ad blocker? That’s not a rhetorical question. I understand grandma may not be technically savvy enough. But for anyone reading HN, why aren’t you using an ad blocker?
- hdesh 3y ago
  Maybe they watched it on a TV and do not have access to an ad blocker on the Youtube app on the TV.
  - goalonetwo 3y ago
    SmartTube is a life-saver on TV. It replaces the default youtube app and removes all the ads/sponsored sections
- slongfield 3y ago
  There are some people who see it as an ethical position: ad supported businesses need to serve ads to survive. If you don't want to see those ads, and the business doesn't offer a subscription plan, just don't go to those websites.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - timeon 3y ago
    > just don't go to those websites I know this is Youtube, but in general: I would gladly avoid those sites but they are gaming the SEO. They are getting in the way.
- nine_zeros 3y ago
  Ad blockers don't work on phones, which is increasingly the medium of consumption.
  - silisili 3y ago

atlasunshrugged 3y ago

GCP is an interesting one -- I helped a company go through some of the hoops for GCP and AWS and the former was... difficult. It felt like someone tried to copy AWS, didn't fix all the links or think the whole thing through, and just sort of put it out there. I remember we were locked out of our account for like a month for some reason and there was a lot of handoff between different reps, for churn or for some business process reason I wasn't aware of, but it was a pretty jarring experience that made us not want to invest a lot of time there

neeleshs 3y ago
This is very interesting. My experience at a large company migrating to GCP. The consultants and reps were 10x more eager to help us compared to AWS, and the migration went fairly smooth for most parts
redavni 3y ago
Which aligns with the primary difference between Google and Amazon, customer service. Amazon is as good at service as Google is bad. If my memory serves me correct, Google had outsourced at least some of the GCP customer service to HP.
- YetAnotherNick 3y ago
  Customer service isn't wildly different between GCP and AWS. I think it's the finish of the product. AWS has far more finished product and even for smaller services it mostly works as intended. While GCP it is very hit or miss. I have seen so many edge cases in smaller GCP services like composer, old ML platform, dataflow etc. While GCP is definitely more intuitive. You don't need to create 2 different IAM profile for anything you want to solve. So GCP feels more like Digital Ocean + bunch of services with varying quality.
  - zgluck 3y ago
    GCP has a smaller number of services but they tend to be very well designed with excellent taste. AWS has a bazillion services, often very obviously designed by people without good taste and/or experience. GCP's incompleteness is super annoying. The general daftness of AWS service design is tiring and somewhat soul-sucking. I used to think that Google would eventually get there, but lately I've realized that they are totally happy offering an 80% product forever. So for now I'm very reluctantly team AWS.

gmerc 3y ago

It’s growing because they are slaughtering golden geese at an alarming rate propping up growth - Youtube ads assault - Endless scrolling on SERP to show more ads as you need to scroll through degrading results. - etc every surface has increased ad load, every service increased prices. So of course that props up growth. Ads is in full value extraction mode now, the question is, how sustainable it is, but that’s a question for another quarter See Facebook the same. You can’t share actual links outside the app anymore which drives engagement as every user clicking on a link now goes back right to being a monthly active

wslh 3y ago
Yes, very noticeable. Rows and rows of ads in Google Search, and I am seeing less and less quality results over time.
smileysteve 3y ago
Not just ads in YouTube, but a 20% price increase