4 ms·

They could spin these products off into separate companies and cut the integration with the rest of the Google ecosystem.

echelon 2y ago
Probably way too much effort. The apps aren't built for generic infra, but rather Google's internal weirdware. It wouldn't be possible to run it anywhere else without a rewrite.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  I agree, and I like this term "internal weirdware". Real question: Why don't we see more start-ups try to clone old terminated Google services with a freemium model?
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    People don’t want to pay for things.
    - eitland 2y ago
      I want. And I do. Notable examples are Kagi.com and Raindrop.io. I've also been sponsoring a number of projects for a number of months, from journalism to social media startup. But I am getting more hesitant as often when I (and others) do it seems companies think they can increase their prices wildly or do other stuff. I have this exact feeling now with Logseq: I started paying for sync a while ago and it seems so did others and now they are rewriting the whole thing from plain text[1] to some kind of database based storage :-/ [1]: which could be synced over git, transferred effortlessly into another application and was one of the reasons I went with Logseq
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        How many of those companies are profitable? How many do you think you will see a blog post about in a year or two - “Our Amazing Journey” where they won’t either go out of business or get acquired and their product gets shut down”? From Kagi’s website https://blog.kagi.com/status-update-first-three-months#:~:text=We%20are%20currently%20serving%20around%202.1M%20queries%20a%20month,current%20API%20and%20infrastructure%20costs. https://blog.kagi.com/status-update-first-three-months#:~:te... We are currently serving around 2.1M queries a month, costing us around $26,250 USD/month. Between Kagi and Orion, we are currently generating around $26,500 USD in monthly recurring revenue, which incidentally about exactly covers our current API and infrastructure costs. That means that salaries and all other operating costs (order of magnitude of $100K USD/month) remain a challenge and are still paid out of the founders’ pocket (Kagi remains completely bootstrapped).
        freediver 2y ago
        Wrong blog post, try this one ;) https://blog.kagi.com/what-is-next-for-kagi https://blog.kagi.com/what-is-next-for-kagi
        scarface_74 2y ago
        So what do you know about kagi’s profitability :). I’m honestly glad to hear that. Until I heard your interview with Gruber, I thought Kagi was the same company that use to provide a payment platform for Mac indie developers. It’s always good to see a bootstrapped company become successful without enshittification. I put you up there with BackBlaze. I see you have investors now (not saying that is a negative). Are the laws still the same about having to be a “qualified investor”? Can anyone invest - asking out of curiosity.
        freediver 2y ago
        For the particular type of investment we were doing (angel list roll up vehicle with basically our users) one needs to verify they are an accredited investor.
  - aqueueaqueue 2y ago
    There probably are. The real question is why are they not successful. Maybe they need to solve distribution. I use Google Calendar tasks for todos because it is there, handy, for example. As sister comments have said there is no money in it. They are stickiness plays or just bets for Google.
scarface_74 2y ago
Where is the profit for the individual product? There are a lot of services at every BigTech company that would not make sense as an individual product. But they make the overall ecosystem better or make money only because they are a part of the larger company. That’s part of the stupidity of the DOJ trying to force Google to sell Chrome. Who would want it? And how would they profit from it?
- hypothesis 2y ago
  > That’s part of the stupidity of the DOJ trying to force Google to sell Chrome. Who would want it? And how would they profit from it? All valid questions, but it might be that splitting the tool used to bludgeon everyone around is still worth it, even if pace of development slows down considerably.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    There will be no development. Who is going to spend money to develop it and why would they? Microsoft even decided it wasn’t worth it to develop their own engine. Unless you are using Chromebooks, every desktop user who uses Chrome made an affirmative choice to download it.
    - hypothesis 2y ago
      > There will be no development. My point is that maybe it is okay? Runaway churn is at least partially responsible for current situation, where most companies simply unable to compete.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        What companies are trying to “compete” in the browser space? Apple has no reason to compete, it can just make more and more functionality for native apps as can Google if it doesn’t have to worry about Chrome anymore. Microsoft doesn’t care about the browser anymore and just uses Chromium. Firefox’s revenue comes completely from Google. If Google doesn’t have to prop up Firefox for antitrust reasons anymore, why would they?

echelon 2y ago

Probably way too much effort. The apps aren't built for generic infra, but rather Google's internal weirdware. It wouldn't be possible to run it anywhere else without a rewrite.

throwaway2037 2y ago
I agree, and I like this term "internal weirdware". Real question: Why don't we see more start-ups try to clone old terminated Google services with a freemium model?
- scarface_74 2y ago
  People don’t want to pay for things.
  - eitland 2y ago
    I want. And I do. Notable examples are Kagi.com and Raindrop.io. I've also been sponsoring a number of projects for a number of months, from journalism to social media startup. But I am getting more hesitant as often when I (and others) do it seems companies think they can increase their prices wildly or do other stuff. I have this exact feeling now with Logseq: I started paying for sync a while ago and it seems so did others and now they are rewriting the whole thing from plain text[1] to some kind of database based storage :-/ [1]: which could be synced over git, transferred effortlessly into another application and was one of the reasons I went with Logseq
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      How many of those companies are profitable? How many do you think you will see a blog post about in a year or two - “Our Amazing Journey” where they won’t either go out of business or get acquired and their product gets shut down”? From Kagi’s website https://blog.kagi.com/status-update-first-three-months#:~:text=We%20are%20currently%20serving%20around%202.1M%20queries%20a%20month,current%20API%20and%20infrastructure%20costs. https://blog.kagi.com/status-update-first-three-months#:~:te... We are currently serving around 2.1M queries a month, costing us around $26,250 USD/month. Between Kagi and Orion, we are currently generating around $26,500 USD in monthly recurring revenue, which incidentally about exactly covers our current API and infrastructure costs. That means that salaries and all other operating costs (order of magnitude of $100K USD/month) remain a challenge and are still paid out of the founders’ pocket (Kagi remains completely bootstrapped).
      - freediver 2y ago
        Wrong blog post, try this one ;) https://blog.kagi.com/what-is-next-for-kagi https://blog.kagi.com/what-is-next-for-kagi
        scarface_74 2y ago
        So what do you know about kagi’s profitability :). I’m honestly glad to hear that. Until I heard your interview with Gruber, I thought Kagi was the same company that use to provide a payment platform for Mac indie developers. It’s always good to see a bootstrapped company become successful without enshittification. I put you up there with BackBlaze. I see you have investors now (not saying that is a negative). Are the laws still the same about having to be a “qualified investor”? Can anyone invest - asking out of curiosity.
        freediver 2y ago
        For the particular type of investment we were doing (angel list roll up vehicle with basically our users) one needs to verify they are an accredited investor.
- aqueueaqueue 2y ago
  There probably are. The real question is why are they not successful. Maybe they need to solve distribution. I use Google Calendar tasks for todos because it is there, handy, for example. As sister comments have said there is no money in it. They are stickiness plays or just bets for Google.

scarface_74 2y ago

Where is the profit for the individual product? There are a lot of services at every BigTech company that would not make sense as an individual product. But they make the overall ecosystem better or make money only because they are a part of the larger company. That’s part of the stupidity of the DOJ trying to force Google to sell Chrome. Who would want it? And how would they profit from it?

hypothesis 2y ago
> That’s part of the stupidity of the DOJ trying to force Google to sell Chrome. Who would want it? And how would they profit from it? All valid questions, but it might be that splitting the tool used to bludgeon everyone around is still worth it, even if pace of development slows down considerably.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  There will be no development. Who is going to spend money to develop it and why would they? Microsoft even decided it wasn’t worth it to develop their own engine. Unless you are using Chromebooks, every desktop user who uses Chrome made an affirmative choice to download it.
  - hypothesis 2y ago
    > There will be no development. My point is that maybe it is okay? Runaway churn is at least partially responsible for current situation, where most companies simply unable to compete.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      What companies are trying to “compete” in the browser space? Apple has no reason to compete, it can just make more and more functionality for native apps as can Google if it doesn’t have to worry about Chrome anymore. Microsoft doesn’t care about the browser anymore and just uses Chromium. Firefox’s revenue comes completely from Google. If Google doesn’t have to prop up Firefox for antitrust reasons anymore, why would they?