12 ms·

I'd dare to say that Google is very bad at doing products. They tried so many times and almost always failed, the list of products killed by Google is huge, The

I'd dare to say that Google is very bad at doing products. They tried so many times and almost always failed, the list of products killed by Google is huge, They really succeeded in search, maps and gmail; all of these products are engineering-first products, created in the early days. One might argue that YouTube and Android should go in that list, but I disagree. YouTube was acquired and it never managed to become something really big (it failed to compete with Netflix for video streaming, with Spotify for music and with TikTok for social network). Android also, was acquired and without a pletora of hardware vendor supporting it, it would have failed too (I'd say that Android without Samsung is nothing -- of course, it's big on embedded things, like cars or TVs, but it's not a world-wide product like gmail). And likewise it is failing in AI, against OpenAI, which looks like another engineering-first product.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> YouTube was acquired and it never managed to become something really big Before YouTube there was Google Video, which was moderately successful (it was just that YouTube was more successful, so it got acquired).
- tigroferoce 3y ago
  I strongly believe that Google Video would have been killed by Google long ago. They bought YouTube because they couldn't create it themselves. And they never managed to turn that into a real product, IMO. But there are just my opinions, of course.
PoignardAzur 3y ago
Youtube failed to become something big? I think you've lost yourself in your argument a bit.
- tigroferoce 3y ago
  It's not that it's not big. It's that it's not as big as it could be. It's not gmail-big or maps-big, at least for me. It is outclassed by many other, in their respective niches (video streaming, music, and social networking), and despite the huge efforts, Google never managed to turn it into a subscription-based service. It's not that it's not big, it's that it is not on the same level than maps or gmail, IMO.
  - Kakashi4 3y ago
    Atleast according to average daily watch time reported in 2019, Netflix was at 164 million hours and YouTube was at 1 billion. I doubt that ratio has changed much since then
asoneth 3y ago
I think YouTube is bigger (by profit, revenue, customers, or total hours used) than Netflix, Spotify, and Tik Tok. See: https://mannhowie.com/youtube-valuation https://mannhowie.com/youtube-valuation Also see: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/28/youtube-is-a-proven-juggernaut-that-rivals-netflix-in-the-streaming-wars.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/28/youtube-is-a-proven-juggerna..., https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/youtube-ad-revenue-tops-8-6b-beating-netflix-in-the-quarter-1235085391/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/youtube-a...
PokestarFan 3y ago
How do you think YouTube failed? If you tried to get someone to name a search engine that's not Google, they could maybe think of Bing or DuckDuckGo or something. If you tried to get someone to name a email service that's not Gmail, they could maybe say Outlook or Yahoo if they're older. But try to get someone to name a user-generated video platform that's not YouTube? YouTube has comparable revenue to Netflix. And Netflix has direct competitors -- such as Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ to name a few that are pretty big on their own right.
trinsic2 3y ago
I don't know about that, they made some good products, or invested in ones that already existed. I don't consider creating a product, and then retiring a product after many years a failure myself. Its more like a nuanced then, some producdts don't change with the times, and others dont work. I did watch that TV series on how some people at google did some unethical things to incorporate the maps idea from a German company. Not sure how true that is, but if it is, then google is just like any other corrupt establishment, willing to do shady things at the expense of the original inventors.
andromeduck 3y ago
But then they did nothing to sell their infrastructure because it was seen as a competitive advantage. Google3/Borg ecosystem should have been productized but that'll never happen now the way things are evolving.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago

> YouTube was acquired and it never managed to become something really big Before YouTube there was Google Video, which was moderately successful (it was just that YouTube was more successful, so it got acquired).

tigroferoce 3y ago
I strongly believe that Google Video would have been killed by Google long ago. They bought YouTube because they couldn't create it themselves. And they never managed to turn that into a real product, IMO. But there are just my opinions, of course.

PoignardAzur 3y ago

Youtube failed to become something big? I think you've lost yourself in your argument a bit.

tigroferoce 3y ago
It's not that it's not big. It's that it's not as big as it could be. It's not gmail-big or maps-big, at least for me. It is outclassed by many other, in their respective niches (video streaming, music, and social networking), and despite the huge efforts, Google never managed to turn it into a subscription-based service. It's not that it's not big, it's that it is not on the same level than maps or gmail, IMO.
- Kakashi4 3y ago
  Atleast according to average daily watch time reported in 2019, Netflix was at 164 million hours and YouTube was at 1 billion. I doubt that ratio has changed much since then

asoneth 3y ago

I think YouTube is bigger (by profit, revenue, customers, or total hours used) than Netflix, Spotify, and Tik Tok. See: https://mannhowie.com/youtube-valuation https://mannhowie.com/youtube-valuation Also see: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/28/youtube-is-a-proven-juggernaut-that-rivals-netflix-in-the-streaming-wars.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/28/youtube-is-a-proven-juggerna..., https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/youtube-ad-revenue-tops-8-6b-beating-netflix-in-the-quarter-1235085391/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/youtube-a...

PokestarFan 3y ago

How do you think YouTube failed? If you tried to get someone to name a search engine that's not Google, they could maybe think of Bing or DuckDuckGo or something. If you tried to get someone to name a email service that's not Gmail, they could maybe say Outlook or Yahoo if they're older. But try to get someone to name a user-generated video platform that's not YouTube? YouTube has comparable revenue to Netflix. And Netflix has direct competitors -- such as Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ to name a few that are pretty big on their own right.

trinsic2 3y ago

I don't know about that, they made some good products, or invested in ones that already existed. I don't consider creating a product, and then retiring a product after many years a failure myself. Its more like a nuanced then, some producdts don't change with the times, and others dont work. I did watch that TV series on how some people at google did some unethical things to incorporate the maps idea from a German company. Not sure how true that is, but if it is, then google is just like any other corrupt establishment, willing to do shady things at the expense of the original inventors.

andromeduck 3y ago

But then they did nothing to sell their infrastructure because it was seen as a competitive advantage. Google3/Borg ecosystem should have been productized but that'll never happen now the way things are evolving.