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The Economics of Evil Google

129 points by mkr-hn 14y ago

mkr-hn 14y ago
The article he's talking about is still worth reading, but this is a good summary if you don't have the time/interest to read the whole thing.
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- spenrose 14y ago
  Here it is, and it's quite good: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/03/utilities http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/03/utilitie... "in the long run that's a problem for Google. Because we tend not to entrust this sort of critical public infrastructure to the private sector. Network externalities are all fine and good to ignore so long as they mainly apply to the sharing of news and pics from a weekend trip with college friends. Once they concern large swathes of economic output and the cognitive activity of millions of people, it is difficult to keep the government out. Maybe that deterrent will be sufficient to keep Google providing its most heavily used products. But maybe not. I find myself thinking again of the brave new world of the industrial city, when new patterns of interaction led to enormous changes in economic activity, in culture and personal behaviour, and in the way we think. We upgraded ourselves, in terms of education, hygiene, and social norms, to maximise the return to urban life. And the history of modern urbanisation is littered with examples of privately provided goods and services that became the domain of the government once everyone realised that this new life and new us couldn't work without them"
  - rayiner 14y ago
    See, e.g. the NYC subway system.
michaelwww 14y ago
> Ryan Avent, who argues that Google has been providing crucial public infrastructure... Krugman proceeds assuming that were true, but it's not. There are plenty of free alternatives to Google Reader. All this proves that old saying; never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.
- jasonhanley 14y ago
  Exactly. None of Google's free products amount to anything close to "crucial public infrastructure". Google Apps could be critical for a lot of businesses, but they're charging for that now, and presumably making money. Now, Internet ISPs, on the other hand, might fall under the category of "crucial public infrastructure" and could probably use some government oversight.
  - michaelwww 14y ago
    I found this from the FCC and it's very interesting: http://www.broadband.gov/plan/ http://www.broadband.gov/plan/ In the 1860s, we connected Americans to a transcontinental railroad that brought cattle from Cheyenne to the stockyards of Chicago. In the 1930s, we connected Americans to an electric grid that improved agriculture and brought industry to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and the Great Plains of Nebraska. In the 1950s, we connected Americans to an interstate highway system that fueled jobs on the line in Detroit and in the warehouse in L.A. Infrastructure networks unite us as a country, bringing together parents and children, buyers and sellers, and citizens and government in ways once unimaginable. Ubiquitous access to infrastructure networks has continually driven American innovation, progress, prosperity and global leadership. In communications, the government stimulated the construction of radio and television facilities across the country by offering huge tracts of the public’s airwaves free of charge. It did the same with telephony through a Universal Service Fund, fulfilling the vision of the Communications Act of 1934 'to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.' ... Today, high-speed Internet is transforming the landscape of America more rapidly and more pervasively than earlier infrastructure networks. Like railroads and highways, broadband accelerates the velocity of commerce, reducing the costs of distance. Like electricity, it creates a platform for America’s creativity to lead in developing better ways to solve old problems. Like telephony and broadcasting, it expands our ability to communicate, inform and entertain. Broadband is the great infrastructure challenge of the early 21st century.
alanctgardner2 14y ago
This is getting ridiculous. It's been three weeks of highly public complaining/pseudo-analysis about Google Reader. Now it's 'critical public infrastructure', on par with public transit systems. Can we have a reality check? It's an RSS reader. It was really good. Now it's shutting down. Nobody relies on it to get to work so they can feed their children. Building a replacement doesn't require digging tunnels, buying trains, hiring drivers. The economic argument is interesting, but I'm wondering if this wins for 'Most Hyperbolic Google Reader Shutdown Article'.
- martythemaniak 14y ago
  It's important to note that he's not actually suggesting the government take over Google Reader, just giving an economics-based viewpoint on Google's situation. Combined with the linked article, it makes for good reading.
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  - sologoub 14y ago
    Krugman is completely over-generalizing here. The economic argument would have been sound, save for one detail - Search is massively profitable, and so are Google's core businesses, which is to say advertising. Their Google Apps, App Engine and related services are also very much commercial and face stiff competition. Hell, even search is highly contested, though Google has been able to stay ahead of this one. Google Reader had a massive user base when compared to other RSS readers, but it's hardly a monopoly. I'd understand the uproar if it was the ONLY RSS reader to ever exist, and ever to be possible. There are alternatives. The very definition of monopoly is that you do not have a choice. Remember the old Bell system? Now that was a monopoly. (It used to be illegal to plug in phones not bought from the phone company.)
    - alanctgardner2 14y ago
      This is my point; something like a municipal bus system has very high barriers to entry, even without a government-created monopoly. This extends to operating costs, specialized equipment, union negotiations, etc. Google was operating in a space with lots of players, they just happened to have large market share. They weren't doing anything anticompetitive, and there wasn't any barrier to entry beyond 'You have to do it better than Google, and get your name out there'.
mkr-hn 14y ago
A relevant point of concern: Google Drive isn't actually downloading documents. Maybe someone's already brought this up, but I just tried Google Drive's desktop application for the first time. It downloads what amounts to a shortcut that's a text document with a link to the file on Google Docs. The benefit of syncing is lost--you don't have a copy of a usable file you can open in another program or save somewhere. Even Microsoft's SkyDrive downloads real documents made in the web version of Office.
- michaelwww 14y ago
  The files on my Google drive are actual files, which I proved to myself by disconnecting from the internet and viewing them. Maybe there is a problem with a specific Google app?
  - mkr-hn 14y ago
    I assumed that was for using Google's web apps offline. Did you verify the files on your hard drive contain something more than a link?
    - michaelwww 14y ago
      Yes, I have contents saved locally and in the cloud. But I'm not using Google Docs, just a my own files. Edit: yes, I tried a spread sheet and won't work offline since there is no offline spread sheet app. There may be a way to make it work offline as a packaged app.
      - mkr-hn 14y ago
        I'm talking about files made in Google Docs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428762
- justinschuh 14y ago
  I can't figure out what you mean about the benefits of syncing being lost, because the data is clearly synced. However, I can explain the "shortcuts" you're referring to. Those are for native Google Docs, which don't have a universal representation in other applications (they're tied to remote or locally stored web state) unless you explicitly chose to export to another format. Whereas Microsoft's SkyDrive is just raw MS Office Documents. The tradeoff between the two is that with Docs you get real-time editing and collaboration, but if you want a real local copy you'll need to target a specific export format. Whereas SkyDrive always keeps a local copy, but it requires you to explicitly save and resolve conflicts if you want to collaborate with another user. Of course, if you want to you can just use Google Drive as a dumb file syncing mechanism without real-time collaboration or online editing. You just don't use Google Docs and tell Drive not to convert files to Docs on upload.
bhauer 14y ago
I'm no fan of Google. But what could be a thousand times worse than Google? Oh I know. Search as a public utility.
- venomsnake 14y ago
  That depends ... BBC get the job pretty well as a publicly financed utility. So a search that is focused on quality and not ads supported by levy on broadband with transparency in ranking and inclusion, with prohibition of censorship ... may not be such a bad thing after all. Search is important. Although I would just create an IP law that forces the corporation to put the source code and assets in public domain on the abandonment of a service when it gathers above some usage and traction. Someone will pick it up if the interest is enough. P.S. I am ready for the downvoting that will ensure.
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skc 14y ago
The "Dark Knight" quote of "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" seems apt here to be honest.
calhoun137 14y ago
I don't think it's fair to call Google "evil", but maybe I'm cynical because I spend a lot of time reading about banks, insurance companies, the mainstream media, walmart, lobbyists, drug companies, private prisons, garment factories, weapons manufacturers, gun dealers, patent trolls, the recording industry, and so on.
- pseut 14y ago
  You're misinterpreting the title. Put "Evil Google" in scare quotes and it makes more sense.
ebbv 14y ago
I respect Krugman and agree with him often but this is obviously dumb. It's obvious to anything who knows anything about how the web works. Krugman should have consulted with such a person before posting this boneheaded entry.
EGreg 14y ago
Maybe this is a dumb question, but why wouldn't Google simply sell Reader to some consortium, public or private group to continue running it? In terms of money, shutting Reader down would get them less money than selling it, as long as the price is greater than the cost of transferring the infrastructure. However, maybe it will incur liabilities for Google? http://www.change.org/petitions/google-please-sell-us-google-reader http://www.change.org/petitions/google-please-sell-us-google...
- Kylekramer 14y ago
  If I were to hazard a guess, it is that that Reader is too closely tied to other Google technologies (caching, crawling, search) for it to really function outside of Google.
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pessimizer 14y ago
Warning to people reading the comments before the article: This article is not calling Google evil, it's examining the economic and social incentives of maintaining a public utility as a for-profit company and as a society. I tend to think that putting scare quotes around words in headlines is really condescending behavior from headline writers, but threads like this remind me that I'm not an authority of headline writing. And for the people arguing that Krugman is an ignorant big government fraud for claiming that Google Reader is a public utility - Mr. Johnson's water pump on the corner that half of the people on the block use is a public utility. It's economic analysis, not a communist grab for your guns, or a socialist power play to keep capitalists from doing whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it. edit: hadn't refreshed in a while before replying. This comment is mischaracterizing the level of discourse in this thread now:)
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- javert 14y ago
  You're completely wrong. Krugman hates capitalism and free markets, and is on a crusade to end them. Claiming that X's property is a "public utility" _is_ a power grab.
  - pessimizer 14y ago
    No, it's claiming that it has utility for the public. There's a hint in the name.
    - javert 14y ago
      That's a contradiction. I personally have utility for the public. So do private companies. You can't call these things public utilities without introducing a contradiction into the language. People who try to introduce contradictions into the language only do so because they are _motivated_ to do so, because they want to get something dishonestly. Another good example, besides the one we are discussing, is the idea that people now call whatever they want a "human right." That's a contradiction, because it's not necessarily the case that it's even _possible_ to _produce_ enough of whatever that thing is. Mangling the language is a crime against thought.
MilesTeg 14y ago
After reading the article several times it seems to me that it has nothing to do with Google. The idea that a company that can't price discriminate and isn't able to make a profit to provide a useful good is interesting. Words like 'Evil Google' and 'Monopolist' are just added fluff for link bait.
- pseut 14y ago
  From TFA: "even in a plain-vanilla market, a monopolist with high fixed costs and limited ability to price-discriminate may not be able to make a profit supplying a good even when the potential consumer gains from that good exceed the costs of production" The whole blog post is an analysis explaining why that's true. "Evil Google" may have set people off (but it's pretty clear from TFA that Krugman's not calling Google "Evil"), but "monopolist" is pretty central to the article.
  - MilesTeg 14y ago
    I am not an economist but I don't see why being a monopoly or not has anything to do with it. Would a not-monopoly be able to make a profit if it had high fixed costs and no ability to price discriminate? That's without even delving into the question on if Google is actually a monopoly.
    - pseut 14y ago
      Avent's article (which Krugman's is discussing) discusses Google in the context of possibly being a monopoly. Krugman's presenting an analysis that shows that even a monopolist may not be able to make money in some circumstances where there's positive social value to a service being provided. One would naively expect that a monopolist would be able to make a profit and stay in business in those circumstances even if perfectly competitive firms couldn't, and they often can which is why we have regulated monopolies, but Krugman's showing that isn't always true. If you want, you can take his post as a counterargument to the "why wouldn't Google charge for Reader" question: it's possible that they could not have charged a price that made it profitable. Without any data, who knows if it's true or not, he's just showing how the logic would fit together.
mwsherman 14y ago
It's remarkable how little economics has to say about Google, their motivations, and outcomes. There's nothing wrong with trying to fit new information into existing models, but think of it this way: if you were a fly on the wall for Goog's decision on Reader, would it bear any similarity to this model?
- spinchange 14y ago
  What is the alternative explanation? Reader evidently needed a very non-trivial amount of resources to maintain and didn't have anywhere near the amount of users to justify it. I lament that they couldn't keep it going, but even the guy who started the project inside Google said he and people working on it felt like its days were numbered from the outset.
dreamdu5t 14y ago
"Google... a monopolist with high fixed costs and limited ability to price-discriminate" Google is not a monopoly and neither was Google Reader. Krugman is intentionally disingenuous here to further his argument. Krugman knows Google isn't a monopoly. He doesn't care. He's always trying to push the same narrative with his blog: Big corp is evil so government should step in and save the day! For anyone familiar with his blog, his agenda is extremely transparent at this point.
- badgar 14y ago
  Thank you for identifying that Krugman is both an economist and an ideologue. HN readers identify closely with the former so they often ignore or excuse the latter.
- _stephan 14y ago
  Where does Krugman state that Big corp is evil? Are you talking about banks? Krugman doesn't state that Google is a monopoly and he certainly isn't disingenuous here. He's just using the Google Reader situation and an article by Ryan Avent as a hook to make an interesting economic argument about monopoly markets with a certain cost and consumer demand structure. BTW, building a competitive search engine is arguably associated with relatively high fixed costs, and any social site is hugely affected by network effects. These are both traits that can lead to natural monopolies.
  - dreamdu5t 14y ago
    Where does Krugman state that Big corp is evil? The title of the post is, "The Economics of Evil Google." It's not written as a question, but a statement. Nowhere in the article does he give any indication that it is sarcastic. Krugman doesn't state that Google is a monopoly and he certainly isn't disingenuous here. He doesn't state it, he implies it [1]. Otherwise, what does being a monopoly have to do with Google? High fixed cost and limited ability to price discriminate are not characteristics exclusive to monopolies. I don't see the reason to refer to "a monopolist" unless he is implying that Google is a monopoly. When I read the article, I concluded: * Krugman believes Google had a monopoly on RSS. [1] * Krugman believes that RSS is a crucial public infrastructure [2] * Krugman thinks the solution is a government-provided RSS reader. [3] Just curious, what did conclude from this article that is different? [1] "First, it’s a well-understood though not often mentioned point that even in a plain-vanilla market, a monopolist with high fixed costs and limited ability to price-discriminate may not be able to make a profit supplying a good even when the potential consumer gains from that good exceed the costs of production." [2] "It seems hard at this point to envision search and related functions as public utilities, but that’s arguably where the logic will eventually lead us." [3] "So what’s the answer? As Avent says, historical examples with these characteristics — like urban transport networks — have been resolved through public provision."
bmmayer1 14y ago
Revoking Paul Krugman's Nobel Prize would be a public good.
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liber8 14y ago
This is the fundamental problem with modern liberal economic thinking: >>First, it’s a well-understood though not often mentioned point that even in a plain-vanilla market, a monopolist with high fixed costs and limited ability to price-discriminate may not be able to make a profit supplying a good even when the potential consumer gains from that good exceed the costs of production. Basically, if the monopolist tries to charge a price corresponding to the value intense users place on the good, it won’t attract enough low-intensity users to cover its fixed costs; if it charges a low price to bring in the low-intensity user, it fails to capture enough of the surplus of high-intensity users, and again can’t cover its fixed costs.<< Sure, it's well understood that certain people want others to provide a service that certain people find very valuable, but aren't willing to pay for. That doesn't mean that service must be provided by the government when private parties refuse to provide it. In 2003, I wanted an online store where I could purchase all of my pet-related supplies. This would make me, and society, far more productive because we would not have to spend time going to the pet store and purchasing those products. We could all then spend that extra time being productive. Potential consumer gains exceeded production costs. Unfortunately, actual consumer gains did not exceed pets.com's production costs. So it died. And guess what? It turns out that when a company learned how to properly structure, supply, and support such a service at the right price, people were willing to pay for it, and thus actual consumer gains exceeded actual production costs. The government didn't have to step in and supply this vital service to its citizens. Some of the smarter citizens figured out how to do it, at assuredly a fraction of the cost of whatever government program might have been implemented. Note: before you claim that pets.com failed for some other reason, please stop. I picked it as an obviously frivolous example. You can substitute most other recent government programs if you’d like.
- teebs 14y ago
  His argument is not that it costs more to run Google Reader than there is benefit, so we need the government to run it. His argument is that the benefit to society of Google Reader is greater than the cost to society of Google Reader. Outside of a free market, it is better for society to have Google Reader. Unfortunately, there is no price structure that allows Google Reader to exist as a for-profit service. The market is inefficient, and the government should step in to fix this inefficiency. Therefore, it might be useful to run some services like Google Reader as government services. I think that Google Reader should not be government-run, but he raises a larger point. There could be some internet services that would be better run by the government, and we don't really have any today. I don't think we can dismiss that possibility. I can't think of any sites like that right now, though.
martinced 14y ago
Krugman lost it a long time ago. The final nail in the coffin was when he wrote that it actually was a good idea to mint a $1 trillion coin to dodge the legislation preventing to raise the U.S. debt ceiling. If you're into economy at all you should know that disciples of Friedman did predict the precise situation the eurozone is in right now (including Spain unemployment, the Greek default, Italy and France struggling) before the first euro even circulated... Meanwhile Keynesians have never been able to predict anything more than two or three years before they happened. Keynesians are ultra-short sighted but politicians loves them because they're basically telling them what they want to hear: more state intervention, create even more money (the $1 trillion coin was just ultra rubbish, really), etc. His whole book "End this recession now" is a gigantic pile of shit. The situation ain't good because of the Keynesian doctrine and yet these people want to do more of what does obviously not work: let's print more money. I never had much sympathy for Keynesians but honestly since he wrote about that $1 trillion coin I've entirely lost interest. He lost it.
- jorgeortiz85 14y ago
  Advocating for a $1 trillion coin is a recognition that, if interest rates are effectively 0%, there is no difference between short-term government debt and government-issued currency. Minting a coin is just a hack for the Executive to get around Congress's restriction on issuing debt. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with your Euro rant, bu Krugman has been calling the Euro a bad idea since at least 1998. http://www.pkarchive.org/global/tag.html http://www.pkarchive.org/global/tag.html
kaa2102 14y ago
"Nobody relies on [mail delivery, a national highway system, telephones, wireless spectrum, police, libraries, etc] to get to work so they can feed their children." Necessity for sustenance or transportation does not drive the need for something to be a public utility. I think we are really talking about the tragedy of the commons. This has been a political and legal debate for centuries. The private market is not able to maximize the average utility of citizens in every market and AND earn profit.
gcr 14y ago
Here's how Google should shut down a product: Step 1: Over a period of say three months, slowly increase the average response time of the product. Step 2: Listen to people complain that load time is getting unbearably slow Step 3: "Oh, we'd love to fix this problem but because of $random_infrastructure_issue, and because we've got most of our developers working on Android, we think it's time to shut the product down. After all, it was getting old and slow, right?" Step 4: Feel justified about their decision
arbuge 14y ago
Couldn't read this article initially because it's hidden behind an Evil Paywall. Solution: Evil Google. Googling the title in news and clicking that gets you in without paywall limits.
lazylizard 14y ago
so now Google Reader is like the banks/aig/car makers? too big to fail?

129 points by mkr-hn 14y ago

The article he's talking about is still worth reading, but this is a good summary if you don't have the time/interest to read the whole thing.

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spenrose 14y ago
Here it is, and it's quite good: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/03/utilities http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/03/utilitie... "in the long run that's a problem for Google. Because we tend not to entrust this sort of critical public infrastructure to the private sector. Network externalities are all fine and good to ignore so long as they mainly apply to the sharing of news and pics from a weekend trip with college friends. Once they concern large swathes of economic output and the cognitive activity of millions of people, it is difficult to keep the government out. Maybe that deterrent will be sufficient to keep Google providing its most heavily used products. But maybe not. I find myself thinking again of the brave new world of the industrial city, when new patterns of interaction led to enormous changes in economic activity, in culture and personal behaviour, and in the way we think. We upgraded ourselves, in terms of education, hygiene, and social norms, to maximise the return to urban life. And the history of modern urbanisation is littered with examples of privately provided goods and services that became the domain of the government once everyone realised that this new life and new us couldn't work without them"
- rayiner 14y ago
  See, e.g. the NYC subway system.

michaelwww 14y ago

> Ryan Avent, who argues that Google has been providing crucial public infrastructure... Krugman proceeds assuming that were true, but it's not. There are plenty of free alternatives to Google Reader. All this proves that old saying; never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.

jasonhanley 14y ago
Exactly. None of Google's free products amount to anything close to "crucial public infrastructure". Google Apps could be critical for a lot of businesses, but they're charging for that now, and presumably making money. Now, Internet ISPs, on the other hand, might fall under the category of "crucial public infrastructure" and could probably use some government oversight.
- michaelwww 14y ago
  I found this from the FCC and it's very interesting: http://www.broadband.gov/plan/ http://www.broadband.gov/plan/ In the 1860s, we connected Americans to a transcontinental railroad that brought cattle from Cheyenne to the stockyards of Chicago. In the 1930s, we connected Americans to an electric grid that improved agriculture and brought industry to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and the Great Plains of Nebraska. In the 1950s, we connected Americans to an interstate highway system that fueled jobs on the line in Detroit and in the warehouse in L.A. Infrastructure networks unite us as a country, bringing together parents and children, buyers and sellers, and citizens and government in ways once unimaginable. Ubiquitous access to infrastructure networks has continually driven American innovation, progress, prosperity and global leadership. In communications, the government stimulated the construction of radio and television facilities across the country by offering huge tracts of the public’s airwaves free of charge. It did the same with telephony through a Universal Service Fund, fulfilling the vision of the Communications Act of 1934 'to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.' ... Today, high-speed Internet is transforming the landscape of America more rapidly and more pervasively than earlier infrastructure networks. Like railroads and highways, broadband accelerates the velocity of commerce, reducing the costs of distance. Like electricity, it creates a platform for America’s creativity to lead in developing better ways to solve old problems. Like telephony and broadcasting, it expands our ability to communicate, inform and entertain. Broadband is the great infrastructure challenge of the early 21st century.

alanctgardner2 14y ago

This is getting ridiculous. It's been three weeks of highly public complaining/pseudo-analysis about Google Reader. Now it's 'critical public infrastructure', on par with public transit systems. Can we have a reality check? It's an RSS reader. It was really good. Now it's shutting down. Nobody relies on it to get to work so they can feed their children. Building a replacement doesn't require digging tunnels, buying trains, hiring drivers. The economic argument is interesting, but I'm wondering if this wins for 'Most Hyperbolic Google Reader Shutdown Article'.

martythemaniak 14y ago
It's important to note that he's not actually suggesting the government take over Google Reader, just giving an economics-based viewpoint on Google's situation. Combined with the linked article, it makes for good reading.
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- sologoub 14y ago
  Krugman is completely over-generalizing here. The economic argument would have been sound, save for one detail - Search is massively profitable, and so are Google's core businesses, which is to say advertising. Their Google Apps, App Engine and related services are also very much commercial and face stiff competition. Hell, even search is highly contested, though Google has been able to stay ahead of this one. Google Reader had a massive user base when compared to other RSS readers, but it's hardly a monopoly. I'd understand the uproar if it was the ONLY RSS reader to ever exist, and ever to be possible. There are alternatives. The very definition of monopoly is that you do not have a choice. Remember the old Bell system? Now that was a monopoly. (It used to be illegal to plug in phones not bought from the phone company.)
  - alanctgardner2 14y ago
    This is my point; something like a municipal bus system has very high barriers to entry, even without a government-created monopoly. This extends to operating costs, specialized equipment, union negotiations, etc. Google was operating in a space with lots of players, they just happened to have large market share. They weren't doing anything anticompetitive, and there wasn't any barrier to entry beyond 'You have to do it better than Google, and get your name out there'.

mkr-hn 14y ago

A relevant point of concern: Google Drive isn't actually downloading documents. Maybe someone's already brought this up, but I just tried Google Drive's desktop application for the first time. It downloads what amounts to a shortcut that's a text document with a link to the file on Google Docs. The benefit of syncing is lost--you don't have a copy of a usable file you can open in another program or save somewhere. Even Microsoft's SkyDrive downloads real documents made in the web version of Office.

michaelwww 14y ago
The files on my Google drive are actual files, which I proved to myself by disconnecting from the internet and viewing them. Maybe there is a problem with a specific Google app?
- mkr-hn 14y ago
  I assumed that was for using Google's web apps offline. Did you verify the files on your hard drive contain something more than a link?
  - michaelwww 14y ago
    Yes, I have contents saved locally and in the cloud. But I'm not using Google Docs, just a my own files. Edit: yes, I tried a spread sheet and won't work offline since there is no offline spread sheet app. There may be a way to make it work offline as a packaged app.
    - mkr-hn 14y ago
      I'm talking about files made in Google Docs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5428762
justinschuh 14y ago
I can't figure out what you mean about the benefits of syncing being lost, because the data is clearly synced. However, I can explain the "shortcuts" you're referring to. Those are for native Google Docs, which don't have a universal representation in other applications (they're tied to remote or locally stored web state) unless you explicitly chose to export to another format. Whereas Microsoft's SkyDrive is just raw MS Office Documents. The tradeoff between the two is that with Docs you get real-time editing and collaboration, but if you want a real local copy you'll need to target a specific export format. Whereas SkyDrive always keeps a local copy, but it requires you to explicitly save and resolve conflicts if you want to collaborate with another user. Of course, if you want to you can just use Google Drive as a dumb file syncing mechanism without real-time collaboration or online editing. You just don't use Google Docs and tell Drive not to convert files to Docs on upload.

bhauer 14y ago

I'm no fan of Google. But what could be a thousand times worse than Google? Oh I know. Search as a public utility.

venomsnake 14y ago
That depends ... BBC get the job pretty well as a publicly financed utility. So a search that is focused on quality and not ads supported by levy on broadband with transparency in ranking and inclusion, with prohibition of censorship ... may not be such a bad thing after all. Search is important. Although I would just create an IP law that forces the corporation to put the source code and assets in public domain on the abandonment of a service when it gathers above some usage and traction. Someone will pick it up if the interest is enough. P.S. I am ready for the downvoting that will ensure.

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skc 14y ago

The "Dark Knight" quote of "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" seems apt here to be honest.

calhoun137 14y ago

I don't think it's fair to call Google "evil", but maybe I'm cynical because I spend a lot of time reading about banks, insurance companies, the mainstream media, walmart, lobbyists, drug companies, private prisons, garment factories, weapons manufacturers, gun dealers, patent trolls, the recording industry, and so on.

pseut 14y ago
You're misinterpreting the title. Put "Evil Google" in scare quotes and it makes more sense.

ebbv 14y ago

I respect Krugman and agree with him often but this is obviously dumb. It's obvious to anything who knows anything about how the web works. Krugman should have consulted with such a person before posting this boneheaded entry.

EGreg 14y ago

Maybe this is a dumb question, but why wouldn't Google simply sell Reader to some consortium, public or private group to continue running it? In terms of money, shutting Reader down would get them less money than selling it, as long as the price is greater than the cost of transferring the infrastructure. However, maybe it will incur liabilities for Google? http://www.change.org/petitions/google-please-sell-us-google-reader http://www.change.org/petitions/google-please-sell-us-google...

Kylekramer 14y ago
If I were to hazard a guess, it is that that Reader is too closely tied to other Google technologies (caching, crawling, search) for it to really function outside of Google.
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pessimizer 14y ago

Warning to people reading the comments before the article: This article is not calling Google evil, it's examining the economic and social incentives of maintaining a public utility as a for-profit company and as a society. I tend to think that putting scare quotes around words in headlines is really condescending behavior from headline writers, but threads like this remind me that I'm not an authority of headline writing. And for the people arguing that Krugman is an ignorant big government fraud for claiming that Google Reader is a public utility - Mr. Johnson's water pump on the corner that half of the people on the block use is a public utility. It's economic analysis, not a communist grab for your guns, or a socialist power play to keep capitalists from doing whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it. edit: hadn't refreshed in a while before replying. This comment is mischaracterizing the level of discourse in this thread now:)

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javert 14y ago
You're completely wrong. Krugman hates capitalism and free markets, and is on a crusade to end them. Claiming that X's property is a "public utility" _is_ a power grab.
- pessimizer 14y ago
  No, it's claiming that it has utility for the public. There's a hint in the name.
  - javert 14y ago
    That's a contradiction. I personally have utility for the public. So do private companies. You can't call these things public utilities without introducing a contradiction into the language. People who try to introduce contradictions into the language only do so because they are _motivated_ to do so, because they want to get something dishonestly. Another good example, besides the one we are discussing, is the idea that people now call whatever they want a "human right." That's a contradiction, because it's not necessarily the case that it's even _possible_ to _produce_ enough of whatever that thing is. Mangling the language is a crime against thought.

MilesTeg 14y ago

After reading the article several times it seems to me that it has nothing to do with Google. The idea that a company that can't price discriminate and isn't able to make a profit to provide a useful good is interesting. Words like 'Evil Google' and 'Monopolist' are just added fluff for link bait.

pseut 14y ago
From TFA: "even in a plain-vanilla market, a monopolist with high fixed costs and limited ability to price-discriminate may not be able to make a profit supplying a good even when the potential consumer gains from that good exceed the costs of production" The whole blog post is an analysis explaining why that's true. "Evil Google" may have set people off (but it's pretty clear from TFA that Krugman's not calling Google "Evil"), but "monopolist" is pretty central to the article.
- MilesTeg 14y ago
  I am not an economist but I don't see why being a monopoly or not has anything to do with it. Would a not-monopoly be able to make a profit if it had high fixed costs and no ability to price discriminate? That's without even delving into the question on if Google is actually a monopoly.
  - pseut 14y ago
    Avent's article (which Krugman's is discussing) discusses Google in the context of possibly being a monopoly. Krugman's presenting an analysis that shows that even a monopolist may not be able to make money in some circumstances where there's positive social value to a service being provided. One would naively expect that a monopolist would be able to make a profit and stay in business in those circumstances even if perfectly competitive firms couldn't, and they often can which is why we have regulated monopolies, but Krugman's showing that isn't always true. If you want, you can take his post as a counterargument to the "why wouldn't Google charge for Reader" question: it's possible that they could not have charged a price that made it profitable. Without any data, who knows if it's true or not, he's just showing how the logic would fit together.

mwsherman 14y ago

It's remarkable how little economics has to say about Google, their motivations, and outcomes. There's nothing wrong with trying to fit new information into existing models, but think of it this way: if you were a fly on the wall for Goog's decision on Reader, would it bear any similarity to this model?

spinchange 14y ago
What is the alternative explanation? Reader evidently needed a very non-trivial amount of resources to maintain and didn't have anywhere near the amount of users to justify it. I lament that they couldn't keep it going, but even the guy who started the project inside Google said he and people working on it felt like its days were numbered from the outset.

dreamdu5t 14y ago

"Google... a monopolist with high fixed costs and limited ability to price-discriminate" Google is not a monopoly and neither was Google Reader. Krugman is intentionally disingenuous here to further his argument. Krugman knows Google isn't a monopoly. He doesn't care. He's always trying to push the same narrative with his blog: Big corp is evil so government should step in and save the day! For anyone familiar with his blog, his agenda is extremely transparent at this point.

badgar 14y ago
Thank you for identifying that Krugman is both an economist and an ideologue. HN readers identify closely with the former so they often ignore or excuse the latter.
_stephan 14y ago
Where does Krugman state that Big corp is evil? Are you talking about banks? Krugman doesn't state that Google is a monopoly and he certainly isn't disingenuous here. He's just using the Google Reader situation and an article by Ryan Avent as a hook to make an interesting economic argument about monopoly markets with a certain cost and consumer demand structure. BTW, building a competitive search engine is arguably associated with relatively high fixed costs, and any social site is hugely affected by network effects. These are both traits that can lead to natural monopolies.
- dreamdu5t 14y ago
  Where does Krugman state that Big corp is evil? The title of the post is, "The Economics of Evil Google." It's not written as a question, but a statement. Nowhere in the article does he give any indication that it is sarcastic. Krugman doesn't state that Google is a monopoly and he certainly isn't disingenuous here. He doesn't state it, he implies it [1]. Otherwise, what does being a monopoly have to do with Google? High fixed cost and limited ability to price discriminate are not characteristics exclusive to monopolies. I don't see the reason to refer to "a monopolist" unless he is implying that Google is a monopoly. When I read the article, I concluded: * Krugman believes Google had a monopoly on RSS. [1] * Krugman believes that RSS is a crucial public infrastructure [2] * Krugman thinks the solution is a government-provided RSS reader. [3] Just curious, what did conclude from this article that is different? [1] "First, it’s a well-understood though not often mentioned point that even in a plain-vanilla market, a monopolist with high fixed costs and limited ability to price-discriminate may not be able to make a profit supplying a good even when the potential consumer gains from that good exceed the costs of production." [2] "It seems hard at this point to envision search and related functions as public utilities, but that’s arguably where the logic will eventually lead us." [3] "So what’s the answer? As Avent says, historical examples with these characteristics — like urban transport networks — have been resolved through public provision."

bmmayer1 14y ago

Revoking Paul Krugman's Nobel Prize would be a public good.

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liber8 14y ago

This is the fundamental problem with modern liberal economic thinking: >>First, it’s a well-understood though not often mentioned point that even in a plain-vanilla market, a monopolist with high fixed costs and limited ability to price-discriminate may not be able to make a profit supplying a good even when the potential consumer gains from that good exceed the costs of production. Basically, if the monopolist tries to charge a price corresponding to the value intense users place on the good, it won’t attract enough low-intensity users to cover its fixed costs; if it charges a low price to bring in the low-intensity user, it fails to capture enough of the surplus of high-intensity users, and again can’t cover its fixed costs.<< Sure, it's well understood that certain people want others to provide a service that certain people find very valuable, but aren't willing to pay for. That doesn't mean that service must be provided by the government when private parties refuse to provide it. In 2003, I wanted an online store where I could purchase all of my pet-related supplies. This would make me, and society, far more productive because we would not have to spend time going to the pet store and purchasing those products. We could all then spend that extra time being productive. Potential consumer gains exceeded production costs. Unfortunately, actual consumer gains did not exceed pets.com's production costs. So it died. And guess what? It turns out that when a company learned how to properly structure, supply, and support such a service at the right price, people were willing to pay for it, and thus actual consumer gains exceeded actual production costs. The government didn't have to step in and supply this vital service to its citizens. Some of the smarter citizens figured out how to do it, at assuredly a fraction of the cost of whatever government program might have been implemented. Note: before you claim that pets.com failed for some other reason, please stop. I picked it as an obviously frivolous example. You can substitute most other recent government programs if you’d like.

teebs 14y ago
His argument is not that it costs more to run Google Reader than there is benefit, so we need the government to run it. His argument is that the benefit to society of Google Reader is greater than the cost to society of Google Reader. Outside of a free market, it is better for society to have Google Reader. Unfortunately, there is no price structure that allows Google Reader to exist as a for-profit service. The market is inefficient, and the government should step in to fix this inefficiency. Therefore, it might be useful to run some services like Google Reader as government services. I think that Google Reader should not be government-run, but he raises a larger point. There could be some internet services that would be better run by the government, and we don't really have any today. I don't think we can dismiss that possibility. I can't think of any sites like that right now, though.

martinced 14y ago

Krugman lost it a long time ago. The final nail in the coffin was when he wrote that it actually was a good idea to mint a $1 trillion coin to dodge the legislation preventing to raise the U.S. debt ceiling. If you're into economy at all you should know that disciples of Friedman did predict the precise situation the eurozone is in right now (including Spain unemployment, the Greek default, Italy and France struggling) before the first euro even circulated... Meanwhile Keynesians have never been able to predict anything more than two or three years before they happened. Keynesians are ultra-short sighted but politicians loves them because they're basically telling them what they want to hear: more state intervention, create even more money (the $1 trillion coin was just ultra rubbish, really), etc. His whole book "End this recession now" is a gigantic pile of shit. The situation ain't good because of the Keynesian doctrine and yet these people want to do more of what does obviously not work: let's print more money. I never had much sympathy for Keynesians but honestly since he wrote about that $1 trillion coin I've entirely lost interest. He lost it.

jorgeortiz85 14y ago
Advocating for a $1 trillion coin is a recognition that, if interest rates are effectively 0%, there is no difference between short-term government debt and government-issued currency. Minting a coin is just a hack for the Executive to get around Congress's restriction on issuing debt. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with your Euro rant, bu Krugman has been calling the Euro a bad idea since at least 1998. http://www.pkarchive.org/global/tag.html http://www.pkarchive.org/global/tag.html

kaa2102 14y ago

"Nobody relies on [mail delivery, a national highway system, telephones, wireless spectrum, police, libraries, etc] to get to work so they can feed their children." Necessity for sustenance or transportation does not drive the need for something to be a public utility. I think we are really talking about the tragedy of the commons. This has been a political and legal debate for centuries. The private market is not able to maximize the average utility of citizens in every market and AND earn profit.

gcr 14y ago

Here's how Google should shut down a product: Step 1: Over a period of say three months, slowly increase the average response time of the product. Step 2: Listen to people complain that load time is getting unbearably slow Step 3: "Oh, we'd love to fix this problem but because of $random_infrastructure_issue, and because we've got most of our developers working on Android, we think it's time to shut the product down. After all, it was getting old and slow, right?" Step 4: Feel justified about their decision

arbuge 14y ago

Couldn't read this article initially because it's hidden behind an Evil Paywall. Solution: Evil Google. Googling the title in news and clicking that gets you in without paywall limits.

lazylizard 14y ago

so now Google Reader is like the banks/aig/car makers? too big to fail?