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Not OP, but here's how I read it: the SEO operators are driving traffic to google's ad network, where google make's its money. They aren't necessarily paying go
by marcus0x62 2y ago
Not OP, but here's how I read it: the SEO operators are driving traffic to google's ad network, where google make's its money. They aren't necessarily paying google much: the ad buyers are doing that, but they deliver the eyeballs to google's ads.
Its kind of like the US hospital system, where doctors are considered by the hospital, if not de jure then certainly de facto, to be the real customers of the hospital. Doctors don't pay the hospital much of anything -- the patients do, usually via their insurance company -- but without the doctors, no procedures happen (i.e., no "traffic.") Hospitals can't bill for room and board, nursing services, therapy, etc., where the hospital makes its operating income without the doctors, and in markets where multiple hospitals exist, doctors drive the patients to the hospital(s) of the doctor's choice. Ergo, the doctor is the "real" customer of the hospital.
The hospitals can and have adapted to get a bigger share of the revenue pie by hiring their own doctors and buying up the clinics that drive a lot of customers to hospitals in the first place, just like Google has introduced products that are more vertically integrated, but the basic dynamic still exists where they are dependent on third parties to deliver customers.
- d0mine 2y agoHospitals are increasingly owned by insurance companies. The customers are not doctors but shareholders. That is why a cure is seen as a threat.
- lostlogin 2y agoThat doesn’t make sense - a sick patient costs the shareholders money.
- simonh 2y agoOnly if you treat the patient. Cures cost money to administer. Better to just deny cover in the first place.
- robertlagrant 2y agoThat's got nothing to do with cures. In that world administering a cure would be cheaper than treating a chronic illness, which is the opposite of what's being said.
- marcus0x62 2y agoSetting aside the previous commenters "the cure is a threat" thing, there's some precedent for this in the US healthcare system in the form of HMOs (particularly Kaiser Permanente.) Part of that is supposed to be vertical efficiency. Part is the idea that it is possible to avoid extremely expensive acute care services with proactive low-cost primary care.
- d0mine 2y agoOne would think so. Unless there are programs that pay you for sick patients (risk adjustment) and you control how much you are willing to spent on a patient. I've made a mistake of consuming healthcare related content due to the recent ceo assassination. Do not recommend.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- marcus0x62 2y ago1) I was making an analogy. 2) I took at look at the most recent CMS data[0] I could find (from 2022,) and out of the top ten owners of hospitals in the United States, zero are payers. I only recognize about half of the parties in the 11-20 part of the list, but of the ones I do recognize, one is related to a payer. I can find no data to support your assertion that insurance companies are purchasing hospitals. They are purchasing physician practice groups, but that only reinforces the dynamic I described where hospitals have to court physicians to drive patients to their facilities. 0 - https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/582de65f285646af741e14f82b6df1f6/hospital-ownership-data-brief.pdf https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/582de65f2...
- ceejayoz 2y agoThe biggest examples would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Pittsburgh_Medical_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Pittsburgh_Medic... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente. I keep hoping my local university hospital system will offer such a thing.
- marcus0x62 2y agoI'm familiar with both organizations. 1) the OP asserted that insurance companies "increasingly" owned hospitals. UPMC and Kaiser have existed for decades. 2) together, they represent less than 2% of the hospitals in the United States.
- d0mine 2y agoHospitals vs. physicians groups is a distinction without a difference in this context (people responsible for making you better). It is like on paper J&J is not responsible for cancer its baby powder causes (some bankrupt entity left holding the bag). To make sure I'm not misremembering, I've asked deepseek in web search mode: "Is it true that hospitals are increasingly owned by insurance companies in US" It says: "In summary, the ownership of hospitals by insurance companies is a growing trend in the U.S. healthcare system, driven by the desire to control costs and integrate care delivery. While this model offers potential efficiencies, it also raises significant concerns about the quality of care and the balance of power in the healthcare industry." I've looked at several links it provided and they are consistent with the conclusion. Try it for yourself.
- pegasus 2y agoBut Google would do just as well (probably better) without the SEOs, no? The SEOs are just manipulating the order of search results to their own interests, but I don't see how this would benefit Google's bottom line.
- marcus0x62 2y agoSEO pages tend to be infested with ads (which google makes money on,) whereas legitimate businesses much less so. Imagine this scenario: you run a B&B on a popular tourist island and take reservations over the web. You pay google to run an ad relevant to your business. Some SEO turkey comes along and builds a ranked-up site that shows that ad, and has no other real reason to exist. Does google make more money or less money with the SEO operator in the equation? Would the original business have even bought a google ad if they could get organic traffic to their site without all the SEO spam?
- coliveira 2y agoYour last point is the most important: SEO forces businesses to advertise on Google, because it is so hard to appear on organic results. Without black SEO, there would be much less need for ads. It is clear that Google has a symbiotic relationship with black SEO.