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People always _always_ forget that Google today is an ad company first. They do search, phones and mobile operating systems as side projects.

websap 2y ago
Gross over simplification.
- majewsky 2y ago
  Out of Google's 2023 revenue of 305.63e9 US-$, 77.8% (237.86e9 US-$) was advertising revenue. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-revenue-of-google/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-reven... They are obviously not only an ad company, but GP only claimed that they are an ad company "first". Can you please clarify which part you consider oversimplified?
  - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
    Consider the case of a YouTuber who gets most of their revenue through superchats. They regularly upload videos, a couple times a week, and receive ad revenue and the od sponsorship deal. Once a week they do a livestream Q&A which is where the bulk of that superchat revenue comes from. Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all and end all of determining what your key business concern is, or what your business should put first.
    - latexr 2y ago
      > Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Maybe, it depends on what they do next. Will they start uploading fewer videos and live-streaming more because they realised that’s where the money is? > Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all and end all of determining what your key business concern is, or what your business should put first. Agreed. But Google does put ads first. All the tracking, web proposals, Chrome, it’s all in service of ads. Perhaps you’re using an ad blocker and that’s making you forget, but Google’s services, like search and YouTube, are huge blobs of ads with a few bits of content sprinkled throughout and the ratio is getting worse in the ads’ favour. So yes, Google is an ad company. Not because it makes the most money from it, but because most of its effort is in expanding and defending their ad revenue. Heck, they literally spend billions of dollars just to make sure you search with their engine to see their ads.
    - consteval 2y ago
      > Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all True, but in addition to the revenue Google ALSO tailors all their products to facilitate their advertising products. It's sort of like a singer who sells merch. The merch makes money but it also props up the singers singing career and funds tours. Chrome revolves around ads, android revolves around ads, maps revolves around ads, gmail revolves around ads. If you take a hard look at all their products their all linked to Google's advertisement offerings in one way or another. That, to me, means adtech is their main line of business.
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      > Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Yes. And if you press them economically, it will show. The only difference is that most people do not optimize their lives for profit.
      - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
        Not at all. In the hypothetical, without getting into the weeds of a business that doesn'tactually exist, if they stop producing the non-livestream content they could quickly find their livestream revenue dry up. They could perhaps pivot, but at that moment, the superchats only exist because of the non-live content they put out.
        majewsky 2y ago
        So what you're saying is they will drive business decisions to ensure the viability of their livestream revenue stream. I feel like we're all in agreement.
    - darby_nine 2y ago
      They are the be all and end all in determining the incentives of a company from outside of it, though. If you sell ads I'm not going to trust any other product you have out of simple conflict of interest.
  - highcountess 2y ago
    Considering that the recent Google code leak only substantiated that Chrome is the honey pot for surveillance and data harvesting that people long suspected, even any supposedly not ad related work is technically also ad related work. It’s something people have a really difficult time preaching logically, the veil of deception of many things. Another big example is TV, which are ad sales companies, not TV show distributors, even if they’ve successfully swindled people into a mindset where they actually pay the providers, for the privilege of being sold advertisement. It’s really a rather interesting and eye opening segment of largely the US society that is both extremely dominant and has effectively been extremely damaging, and yet, people simply cannot see that they are like mindless drones, being programmed and reprogrammed with TV shows and advertisement.
    - rpbiwer2 2y ago
      > Considering that the recent Google code leak only substantiated that Chrome is the honey pot for surveillance and data harvesting that people long suspected I'm vaguely aware of a code leak but haven't delved into the details; I'm curious if you have a link to details about this data harvesting?
blauditore 2y ago
By that logic, any product/organization that generates revenue mainly through ads would be an ad company. Search is the product that (probably) carries most of the ads revenues, so that's the main product, and ads are the means for generating revenue around it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- latexr 2y ago
  > By that logic, any product/organization that generates revenue mainly through ads would be an ad company. What logic? The person you’re replying to didn’t explain their reasoning, so any logic you’re seeing is being constructed in your own head and projected onto someone else. In other words, you’re likely responding to an argument you’ve seen (and disagreed with) before instead of what that poster had in mind (which may or may not jive with what is in your head). Google doesn’t just show ads, they track you and have the infrastructure to sell your information to people who buy ad space. That is fundamentally different from a website that makes money by showing ads, many of which they don’t pick themselves. So yes, Google is an ad company. And they’re one “first” because that’s where their efforts are, not because of the revenue. YouTube, Chrome, their web proposals, it all serves the same goal: ads, ads, ads, and keeping Google’s dominance in the space.
  - wildrhythms 2y ago
    Last I checked Google doesn't 'sell your information to people', but it does offer hyper targeted ads; the ethics of both scenarios are deeply rotten to me.
    - latexr 2y ago
      > Last I checked Google doesn't 'sell your information to people', but it does offer hyper targeted ads So you understand what I’m talking about. I didn’t mean selling the information directly. Because why would they, they make more money by keeping the data to themselves and selling you out indirectly from the information they gathered over and over.
caput770 2y ago
How in the world would they get ads to people without those platforms? Doesn't all the data they use to sell targeted ads come from your search history and phone usage, etc.?
darby_nine 2y ago
I don't know how anyone could forget this given how much advertising has made the internet unusable.
- intended 2y ago
  At this point, I think it’s clear that ads create a bunch of messed up incentives. From Cable, to Newspapers, to the Internet. I guess any information <system? network? Broadcaster?> fares badly against financial consolidation of its <servers / distributors ?> Advertisements are one part of the fall - it forces a fight for attention, and that is a limited resource. We know enough about gaming Attention today, and that converges content that drives revenue in a similar direction, creating a conformity of content that is reproduced. As revenues decline, independent nodes on the network get consolidated, so that you have very similar messages being sent. —— Counter point: As content generated increases, people turn to trusted sources to find out what’s true. That said, trusted sources aren’t just the big media houses, it’s whoever people trust. So some part of the consolidation effect is reduced by having more sources of content. But the new sources of content exist, because they can afford to exist. So it comes back to the fact that advertising subsidizes independent creators. —— Guess the final point would be that this evolves into a discussion on resources and orchestrated information dissemination.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

websap 2y ago

Gross over simplification.

majewsky 2y ago
Out of Google's 2023 revenue of 305.63e9 US-$, 77.8% (237.86e9 US-$) was advertising revenue. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-revenue-of-google/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-reven... They are obviously not only an ad company, but GP only claimed that they are an ad company "first". Can you please clarify which part you consider oversimplified?
- SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
  Consider the case of a YouTuber who gets most of their revenue through superchats. They regularly upload videos, a couple times a week, and receive ad revenue and the od sponsorship deal. Once a week they do a livestream Q&A which is where the bulk of that superchat revenue comes from. Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all and end all of determining what your key business concern is, or what your business should put first.
  - latexr 2y ago
    > Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Maybe, it depends on what they do next. Will they start uploading fewer videos and live-streaming more because they realised that’s where the money is? > Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all and end all of determining what your key business concern is, or what your business should put first. Agreed. But Google does put ads first. All the tracking, web proposals, Chrome, it’s all in service of ads. Perhaps you’re using an ad blocker and that’s making you forget, but Google’s services, like search and YouTube, are huge blobs of ads with a few bits of content sprinkled throughout and the ratio is getting worse in the ads’ favour. So yes, Google is an ad company. Not because it makes the most money from it, but because most of its effort is in expanding and defending their ad revenue. Heck, they literally spend billions of dollars just to make sure you search with their engine to see their ads.
  - consteval 2y ago
    > Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all True, but in addition to the revenue Google ALSO tailors all their products to facilitate their advertising products. It's sort of like a singer who sells merch. The merch makes money but it also props up the singers singing career and funds tours. Chrome revolves around ads, android revolves around ads, maps revolves around ads, gmail revolves around ads. If you take a hard look at all their products their all linked to Google's advertisement offerings in one way or another. That, to me, means adtech is their main line of business.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    > Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Yes. And if you press them economically, it will show. The only difference is that most people do not optimize their lives for profit.
    - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
      Not at all. In the hypothetical, without getting into the weeds of a business that doesn'tactually exist, if they stop producing the non-livestream content they could quickly find their livestream revenue dry up. They could perhaps pivot, but at that moment, the superchats only exist because of the non-live content they put out.
      - majewsky 2y ago
        So what you're saying is they will drive business decisions to ensure the viability of their livestream revenue stream. I feel like we're all in agreement.
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    They are the be all and end all in determining the incentives of a company from outside of it, though. If you sell ads I'm not going to trust any other product you have out of simple conflict of interest.
- highcountess 2y ago
  Considering that the recent Google code leak only substantiated that Chrome is the honey pot for surveillance and data harvesting that people long suspected, even any supposedly not ad related work is technically also ad related work. It’s something people have a really difficult time preaching logically, the veil of deception of many things. Another big example is TV, which are ad sales companies, not TV show distributors, even if they’ve successfully swindled people into a mindset where they actually pay the providers, for the privilege of being sold advertisement. It’s really a rather interesting and eye opening segment of largely the US society that is both extremely dominant and has effectively been extremely damaging, and yet, people simply cannot see that they are like mindless drones, being programmed and reprogrammed with TV shows and advertisement.
  - rpbiwer2 2y ago
    > Considering that the recent Google code leak only substantiated that Chrome is the honey pot for surveillance and data harvesting that people long suspected I'm vaguely aware of a code leak but haven't delved into the details; I'm curious if you have a link to details about this data harvesting?

blauditore 2y ago

By that logic, any product/organization that generates revenue mainly through ads would be an ad company. Search is the product that (probably) carries most of the ads revenues, so that's the main product, and ads are the means for generating revenue around it.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
latexr 2y ago
> By that logic, any product/organization that generates revenue mainly through ads would be an ad company. What logic? The person you’re replying to didn’t explain their reasoning, so any logic you’re seeing is being constructed in your own head and projected onto someone else. In other words, you’re likely responding to an argument you’ve seen (and disagreed with) before instead of what that poster had in mind (which may or may not jive with what is in your head). Google doesn’t just show ads, they track you and have the infrastructure to sell your information to people who buy ad space. That is fundamentally different from a website that makes money by showing ads, many of which they don’t pick themselves. So yes, Google is an ad company. And they’re one “first” because that’s where their efforts are, not because of the revenue. YouTube, Chrome, their web proposals, it all serves the same goal: ads, ads, ads, and keeping Google’s dominance in the space.
- wildrhythms 2y ago
  Last I checked Google doesn't 'sell your information to people', but it does offer hyper targeted ads; the ethics of both scenarios are deeply rotten to me.
  - latexr 2y ago
    > Last I checked Google doesn't 'sell your information to people', but it does offer hyper targeted ads So you understand what I’m talking about. I didn’t mean selling the information directly. Because why would they, they make more money by keeping the data to themselves and selling you out indirectly from the information they gathered over and over.

caput770 2y ago

How in the world would they get ads to people without those platforms? Doesn't all the data they use to sell targeted ads come from your search history and phone usage, etc.?

darby_nine 2y ago

I don't know how anyone could forget this given how much advertising has made the internet unusable.

intended 2y ago
At this point, I think it’s clear that ads create a bunch of messed up incentives. From Cable, to Newspapers, to the Internet. I guess any information <system? network? Broadcaster?> fares badly against financial consolidation of its <servers / distributors ?> Advertisements are one part of the fall - it forces a fight for attention, and that is a limited resource. We know enough about gaming Attention today, and that converges content that drives revenue in a similar direction, creating a conformity of content that is reproduced. As revenues decline, independent nodes on the network get consolidated, so that you have very similar messages being sent. —— Counter point: As content generated increases, people turn to trusted sources to find out what’s true. That said, trusted sources aren’t just the big media houses, it’s whoever people trust. So some part of the consolidation effect is reduced by having more sources of content. But the new sources of content exist, because they can afford to exist. So it comes back to the fact that advertising subsidizes independent creators. —— Guess the final point would be that this evolves into a discussion on resources and orchestrated information dissemination.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]