8 ms·

Expedia (2019)

137 points by chopsuey5540 3y ago

matheusmoreira 3y ago
> Google has become an existential threat to all our businesses To the web itself.
- sschueller 3y ago
  Apple as well. If you are trying to provide for example a piece of configuration software that runs on a mobile device in a heavily Apple dominant market you are at the whim of Apple App store reviewers.
  - izacus 3y ago
    Apple has beautiful logos on beautiful hardware so they can't be that bad, can they? They think about the users.
epolanski 3y ago
Between Android, App Store, Chrome and Search Google has a very big stronghold over how people access and consume the internet. Google has an insane competitive advantage over most of the internet into knowing exactly what are people looking for and being the first to provide it. This isn't any different to what Amazon does on their shop. They know what sells and for how better than any of their sellers, and they will know what basic product to launch and kill the competition. But honestly, I think that if I was Google or Amazon...I would do the same? They aren't in the business of charity or powering internet users but making money for shareholders. As a user I despise that, but as an entrepreneur monetizing information and channeling it to your own services is such a no brainer. This is a very difficult topic to discuss, one that's born from people defaulting to Google Search and the lack of any realistic competition. It doesn't matter how worse google search gets, it's still going to be the default search for ages due to it being default already on pretty much every device bar Windows computers when using Edge. At some point this is an issue for legislators I fear, because I just don't see how anyone can fight this.
- bomewish 3y ago
  Hate to say it but this is where we get the state to step in and simply dismember the company.
  - yard2010 3y ago
    There's always a bigger fish :)
  - epolanski 3y ago
    I do think that Google is indeed too big to the point it's a threat for the future of the internet and fair competition indeed. But I also don't like the idea of legislators having to sort it out, they may do more damage than good for all the parties, from companies to users to Google.
  - izacus 3y ago
    Dismember into what? Except for a lot of ranting and stamping of feet on HN, I don't see a lot of HNers jumping in and providing free alternative services for Google services? There is a lot of DEMAND for free services for sure, but doesn't seem a lot of people are putting their money where their mouth is? Kagi hasn't grown all that much, neither have services like Nebula?
    - fidotron 3y ago
      Android, cloud, email, youtube, maps, search and advertising could all be entirely separate businesses in an actual sense.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - bongobingo1 3y ago
        Is it possible to do that without there just being implicit back channels between the businesses, and they continue to operate as before? I guess you could enforce some kind of open-tender requirements on their projects or something but that seems extremely difficult.
bomewish 3y ago
Wow. Absolutely got the BITFD shakes a few times reading that.
fidotron 3y ago
One of the reasons ARM could never have started in the US (and a reason to argue against the nVidia takeover) is american b2b culture leads to inevitably competing with your own customers, and I can almost sense the replies in advance defending such activity as better for the consumer even though in the long run it clearly is not. Mr Diller here I am sure is far from angelic but he is doing heroic if futile work. Google simply cannot stop their antics unless forced to do so.
tvc 3y ago
Bit rich considering Expedia's subsidiary Trivago was fined by the ACCC in Australia for pushing hotel listings by the highest paying advertisers to the top of their search results. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivago#Legal_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivago#Legal_issues
- passwordoops 3y ago
  Not rich at all given given this is the game Google is forcing everyone to play
- thecompilr 3y ago
  That is different though, they weren’t pushing their own hotels. Google actually built a competing product and integrated it with all its services including search and maps.
preciousoo 3y ago
What became of this conversation? Better deals? Increased hostility? Indifference? I can imagine a Google exec reading this and laughing. Because no matter what we do you keep paying whatever number we type up
kubb 3y ago
In my impression, a lot of people here hold a surprisingly contradictory set of beliefs. They're huge fans of the current economic system, where the main actors are publicly owned companies, and where we rely on profits growing YOY to generate wealth for everyone (who owns the stocks). And, on the other hand, they're critical of Google which is operating precisely as such a company, and doing exactly what it needs for its profits to grow YOY. Google is being lead by an MBA, has a very extensive management class, and employs a lot of people. The only way to be a lead and earn good money is to have people under you. The structure of Google is very analogous to other companies in the same sector. Frequently there's no other behavior that would make sense for Google to exhibit. The job of all the execs in the company is revenue growth. Could you enlighten me here? Maybe I can update my model with your feedback? Do you believe that you can somehow have your cake (infinite growth) and eat it too (ethical companies which care about the community when the profit margins get slim)?
- ivan_gammel 3y ago
  I personally do not own Google shares directly, it’s mostly ETFs. I do not care much about Google and would rather prefer the portfolio to be diverse enough, meaning that there’s enough competition on the market and enough other companies worth investing. We do not need monopolies to prosper, because they reduce the size of the pie. Any fan of free market would agree with me, because when competition does not exist, free market does not exist.
  - kubb 3y ago
    Just saying, I’m not talking about idealized free markets, but specifically what we have right now. Your ETFs rely on the companies in the basket doing what Google does.
    - ivan_gammel 3y ago
      Maybe those companies should have been smaller and focus on returning money to shareholders rather than on investment in expansion to other markets/products. It all depends on their size and influence.
karmasimida 3y ago
[flagged]
martin_a 3y ago
> I don't think it's good for Google, I don't think it's good for the consumer, I don't think it's good for the country, and it's most certainly not good for us. "it's good for the country"? How much do you need to have taken off until you say (and believe) such things?
mongol 3y ago
It is kind of crazy. Websites allow themselves to be indexed, to become content to display ads above. What if Google just showed ads? Then it would be like the traditional yellow pages. Of course, it is not in Google's interest, but I think it is in the interest of websites everywhere. There should be some licensing schemes which state under what terms your website can be indexed. Think creative commons, but with categories such as "can be indexed for ad-driven search pages", "can be indexed for for-pay search pages" and so on. I think something like this is needed to wrestle control from Google.
miki123211 3y ago
As a consumer, I don't care about where or who I get my results from. If I search for "NYC to LAX Monday", I don't care if I have to click through to a shady website with lots of SEO experts who will probably miss the "Monday" part of my query anyway, I'd rather get a nice list of flights right in my search results. I don't care if those are provided by Google, a third-party website that Google scrapes, somebody Google signs a deal with or somebody who implements a Google-provided API for this and is good at SEO, as a consumer, I care about flying, not clicking links. Forcing Google to hide the flights UI and link me to Expedia is a worse experience for me. Same applies to News, Shopping, facts, answers etc. If the Google results ever get really bad or way too expensive, most people will switch search engines (or switch search engines for a single use-case), like searching for products on Amazon instead of Google or searching for flights directly on Expedia. So far, Google results are getting worse but results from other (free) search engines aren't that much better, so other people stay with Google and there is that.
bvoq 3y ago
The main problem is bad people, people who put shareholder value above all else. However, another big problem is good people leaving when bad things happen. At some point only bad people remain at a company and this will be the fait of Google at some point.
oefrha 3y ago
This is Expedia we’re talking about, the face of an industry that has marketed/SEOed/strongarmed their way into taking a cut on the majority of reservations. They’re literally the Google to the industry they feed on. I bet a lot of business owners hate them more than they hate Google, even though Expedia considers themself “vibrant innovative enterprises that deliver value for consumers”.
crowcroft 3y ago
Hard to think of any other ad sales company that has been able to double their prices every year for five years while offering the same thing. TV networks didn’t, even in their prime. I wonder if that’s because there was more than one of them and they had to … with each other.

137 points by chopsuey5540 3y ago

matheusmoreira 3y ago

> Google has become an existential threat to all our businesses To the web itself.

sschueller 3y ago
Apple as well. If you are trying to provide for example a piece of configuration software that runs on a mobile device in a heavily Apple dominant market you are at the whim of Apple App store reviewers.
- izacus 3y ago
  Apple has beautiful logos on beautiful hardware so they can't be that bad, can they? They think about the users.

epolanski 3y ago

Between Android, App Store, Chrome and Search Google has a very big stronghold over how people access and consume the internet. Google has an insane competitive advantage over most of the internet into knowing exactly what are people looking for and being the first to provide it. This isn't any different to what Amazon does on their shop. They know what sells and for how better than any of their sellers, and they will know what basic product to launch and kill the competition. But honestly, I think that if I was Google or Amazon...I would do the same? They aren't in the business of charity or powering internet users but making money for shareholders. As a user I despise that, but as an entrepreneur monetizing information and channeling it to your own services is such a no brainer. This is a very difficult topic to discuss, one that's born from people defaulting to Google Search and the lack of any realistic competition. It doesn't matter how worse google search gets, it's still going to be the default search for ages due to it being default already on pretty much every device bar Windows computers when using Edge. At some point this is an issue for legislators I fear, because I just don't see how anyone can fight this.

bomewish 3y ago
Hate to say it but this is where we get the state to step in and simply dismember the company.
- yard2010 3y ago
  There's always a bigger fish :)
- epolanski 3y ago
  I do think that Google is indeed too big to the point it's a threat for the future of the internet and fair competition indeed. But I also don't like the idea of legislators having to sort it out, they may do more damage than good for all the parties, from companies to users to Google.
- izacus 3y ago
  Dismember into what? Except for a lot of ranting and stamping of feet on HN, I don't see a lot of HNers jumping in and providing free alternative services for Google services? There is a lot of DEMAND for free services for sure, but doesn't seem a lot of people are putting their money where their mouth is? Kagi hasn't grown all that much, neither have services like Nebula?
  - fidotron 3y ago
    Android, cloud, email, youtube, maps, search and advertising could all be entirely separate businesses in an actual sense.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - bongobingo1 3y ago
      Is it possible to do that without there just being implicit back channels between the businesses, and they continue to operate as before? I guess you could enforce some kind of open-tender requirements on their projects or something but that seems extremely difficult.

bomewish 3y ago

Wow. Absolutely got the BITFD shakes a few times reading that.

fidotron 3y ago

One of the reasons ARM could never have started in the US (and a reason to argue against the nVidia takeover) is american b2b culture leads to inevitably competing with your own customers, and I can almost sense the replies in advance defending such activity as better for the consumer even though in the long run it clearly is not. Mr Diller here I am sure is far from angelic but he is doing heroic if futile work. Google simply cannot stop their antics unless forced to do so.

tvc 3y ago

Bit rich considering Expedia's subsidiary Trivago was fined by the ACCC in Australia for pushing hotel listings by the highest paying advertisers to the top of their search results. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivago#Legal_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivago#Legal_issues

passwordoops 3y ago
Not rich at all given given this is the game Google is forcing everyone to play
thecompilr 3y ago
That is different though, they weren’t pushing their own hotels. Google actually built a competing product and integrated it with all its services including search and maps.

preciousoo 3y ago

What became of this conversation? Better deals? Increased hostility? Indifference? I can imagine a Google exec reading this and laughing. Because no matter what we do you keep paying whatever number we type up

kubb 3y ago

In my impression, a lot of people here hold a surprisingly contradictory set of beliefs. They're huge fans of the current economic system, where the main actors are publicly owned companies, and where we rely on profits growing YOY to generate wealth for everyone (who owns the stocks). And, on the other hand, they're critical of Google which is operating precisely as such a company, and doing exactly what it needs for its profits to grow YOY. Google is being lead by an MBA, has a very extensive management class, and employs a lot of people. The only way to be a lead and earn good money is to have people under you. The structure of Google is very analogous to other companies in the same sector. Frequently there's no other behavior that would make sense for Google to exhibit. The job of all the execs in the company is revenue growth. Could you enlighten me here? Maybe I can update my model with your feedback? Do you believe that you can somehow have your cake (infinite growth) and eat it too (ethical companies which care about the community when the profit margins get slim)?

ivan_gammel 3y ago
I personally do not own Google shares directly, it’s mostly ETFs. I do not care much about Google and would rather prefer the portfolio to be diverse enough, meaning that there’s enough competition on the market and enough other companies worth investing. We do not need monopolies to prosper, because they reduce the size of the pie. Any fan of free market would agree with me, because when competition does not exist, free market does not exist.
- kubb 3y ago
  Just saying, I’m not talking about idealized free markets, but specifically what we have right now. Your ETFs rely on the companies in the basket doing what Google does.
  - ivan_gammel 3y ago
    Maybe those companies should have been smaller and focus on returning money to shareholders rather than on investment in expansion to other markets/products. It all depends on their size and influence.

karmasimida 3y ago

[flagged]

martin_a 3y ago

> I don't think it's good for Google, I don't think it's good for the consumer, I don't think it's good for the country, and it's most certainly not good for us. "it's good for the country"? How much do you need to have taken off until you say (and believe) such things?

mongol 3y ago

It is kind of crazy. Websites allow themselves to be indexed, to become content to display ads above. What if Google just showed ads? Then it would be like the traditional yellow pages. Of course, it is not in Google's interest, but I think it is in the interest of websites everywhere. There should be some licensing schemes which state under what terms your website can be indexed. Think creative commons, but with categories such as "can be indexed for ad-driven search pages", "can be indexed for for-pay search pages" and so on. I think something like this is needed to wrestle control from Google.

miki123211 3y ago

As a consumer, I don't care about where or who I get my results from. If I search for "NYC to LAX Monday", I don't care if I have to click through to a shady website with lots of SEO experts who will probably miss the "Monday" part of my query anyway, I'd rather get a nice list of flights right in my search results. I don't care if those are provided by Google, a third-party website that Google scrapes, somebody Google signs a deal with or somebody who implements a Google-provided API for this and is good at SEO, as a consumer, I care about flying, not clicking links. Forcing Google to hide the flights UI and link me to Expedia is a worse experience for me. Same applies to News, Shopping, facts, answers etc. If the Google results ever get really bad or way too expensive, most people will switch search engines (or switch search engines for a single use-case), like searching for products on Amazon instead of Google or searching for flights directly on Expedia. So far, Google results are getting worse but results from other (free) search engines aren't that much better, so other people stay with Google and there is that.

bvoq 3y ago

The main problem is bad people, people who put shareholder value above all else. However, another big problem is good people leaving when bad things happen. At some point only bad people remain at a company and this will be the fait of Google at some point.

oefrha 3y ago

This is Expedia we’re talking about, the face of an industry that has marketed/SEOed/strongarmed their way into taking a cut on the majority of reservations. They’re literally the Google to the industry they feed on. I bet a lot of business owners hate them more than they hate Google, even though Expedia considers themself “vibrant innovative enterprises that deliver value for consumers”.

crowcroft 3y ago

Hard to think of any other ad sales company that has been able to double their prices every year for five years while offering the same thing. TV networks didn’t, even in their prime. I wonder if that’s because there was more than one of them and they had to … with each other.