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Google seems unable to have a partner without eventually entering their market and becoming enemies. Apple before Android, Twitter before Google+ - I guess it's

Google seems unable to have a partner without eventually entering their market and becoming enemies. Apple before Android, Twitter before Google+ - I guess it's inevitable with how many different industries Google tries to tackle. I think if this service is entirely defined by autonomous vehicles it's really a complete different service than Uber. No more driver ratings or passenger ratings, all the same car type, and it's own vast legal challenges

VikingCoder 12y ago
"all the same car type" I can't imagine why you think this. I'm picturing that you can order the Google autonomous car that has a 42" TV screen, a hot tub, and a magnum of champagne. Or the stretch limo. Or a flatbed truck. Maybe one without a passenger compartment. Picture "PODS." Portable On-Demand Storage. Except the thing just drives to your house. Picture ordering "Lightning McQueen" for your kid's birthday party. He shows up, and someone is doing the "Talk With Crush" thing, remotely animating Lightning's eyes, etc. Picture ordering "Herbie The Love Bug" to drive your kid and his date to prom. Or ordering the DeLorean from Back to the Future. Or the A-Team van. Or KITT. Or a motor-home / RV. Or a giant truck filled with Arcade Machines. Again, for corporate parties. Or a portable kitchen. Stocked with ingredients you pick. Great for outdoor parties at parks, tail-gating, etc. Or a micro-brew / mini-bar. Whatever bottles you open, you pay for. Stocked blender, ice, brews on tap, etc. Cripes, if you want to test-drive a car, having one that can autonomously show up at your work, or home... Not that you'd necessarily buy an autonomous one, but the idea of bringing the dealership to you? Or ordering a snow-plow. No driver. You click a button, pay $10, and your driveway gets plowed. Or getting a Student Driver car. It sits there watching your kid learn to drive, and saves their ass if they do anything dumb. Gives them a report card. Lets you know how they're doing. Or ordering a Sleeper car. Shows up at my house at 9 pm, and drives me to Chicago by 8 am. I'd order one every weekend.
- bobbles 12y ago
  I'd love a service where I can rent some storage unit out in the middle of the country somewher (I live in Australia..) for cheap cheap prices, then just call a car/van to my house with an app, load it up with gear, and have it delivered out to my storage unit. Seems like a great way to handle people in my situation where I can only afford a small place but don't necessarily want to get rid of all my stuff just because my current location doesnt work for it
  - krschultz 12y ago
    Everything you described, but with people! https://www.makespace.com/ https://www.makespace.com/
    - JacobAldridge 12y ago
      I thought of Make Space as well - but there's a quite a difference between "Manhattan" and "middle of Australia".
  - whatusername 12y ago
    I've seen a few of these around Melbourne... Always seemed like a great business model. http://www.taxiboxmobileselfstorage.com.au/ http://www.taxiboxmobileselfstorage.com.au/
ChuckMcM 12y ago
I noted back in 2008 how this was an interesting side effect of Google's empowerment policy. The way it occurred was that anyone of moderate level inside of Google could start a project involving some outside company. This was seductively easy because those companies always wanted the validation that came from working with Google. But the person could be just a run of the mill senior engineer type (of which there were many). So this engineer and this outside partner start putting together a mashup, and it goes well. The partner is loving the Google traffic and the senior engineer inside of Google is thinking "Wow, this is going to look great on my next promotion request." So it grows and grows, largely unnoticed by the folks who are really the movers and shakers in Google. Then it continues to go well, the engineer has recruited a couple more Googlers to help her work on the project and it hits an tipping point. It really needs a full time project manager and the amount of resources inside the Google cloud it is using has gotten to the point where you needed to allocate them specifically. Since everyone likes success this goes swimmingly and now lots of people in the world are using this mashup service. At that point it gets the attention of the 'big boys'. What happens next is an interesting reverse slicing of the project to figure out what its business model is, how much revenue it is generating, how much it could generate. I always wondered, but never had confirmed if somewhere there was a meeting to look at these and decide on next steps. One of the outcomes of this noticing could be "Hmmm, we have an advantage/key technology and could do this better if we recast this as a Google Product rather than being a provider to this Partner's product." And then there is some announcement of this new product initiative at Google and how cool it is going to be. Meanwhile the original partner now realized that Google isn't a partner anymore, rather they are at best a competitor and at worst a threat to their existence. At that point, depending on their resources they start scrambling to reduce their dependency on Google services in order to avoid that future. I think for most people this is understood as a possible 'success' outcome of working with Google.
- wldcordeiro 12y ago
  The other option that you didn't mention is that Google sees an opportunity for acquiring the partner.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

VikingCoder 12y ago

"all the same car type" I can't imagine why you think this. I'm picturing that you can order the Google autonomous car that has a 42" TV screen, a hot tub, and a magnum of champagne. Or the stretch limo. Or a flatbed truck. Maybe one without a passenger compartment. Picture "PODS." Portable On-Demand Storage. Except the thing just drives to your house. Picture ordering "Lightning McQueen" for your kid's birthday party. He shows up, and someone is doing the "Talk With Crush" thing, remotely animating Lightning's eyes, etc. Picture ordering "Herbie The Love Bug" to drive your kid and his date to prom. Or ordering the DeLorean from Back to the Future. Or the A-Team van. Or KITT. Or a motor-home / RV. Or a giant truck filled with Arcade Machines. Again, for corporate parties. Or a portable kitchen. Stocked with ingredients you pick. Great for outdoor parties at parks, tail-gating, etc. Or a micro-brew / mini-bar. Whatever bottles you open, you pay for. Stocked blender, ice, brews on tap, etc. Cripes, if you want to test-drive a car, having one that can autonomously show up at your work, or home... Not that you'd necessarily buy an autonomous one, but the idea of bringing the dealership to you? Or ordering a snow-plow. No driver. You click a button, pay $10, and your driveway gets plowed. Or getting a Student Driver car. It sits there watching your kid learn to drive, and saves their ass if they do anything dumb. Gives them a report card. Lets you know how they're doing. Or ordering a Sleeper car. Shows up at my house at 9 pm, and drives me to Chicago by 8 am. I'd order one every weekend.

bobbles 12y ago
I'd love a service where I can rent some storage unit out in the middle of the country somewher (I live in Australia..) for cheap cheap prices, then just call a car/van to my house with an app, load it up with gear, and have it delivered out to my storage unit. Seems like a great way to handle people in my situation where I can only afford a small place but don't necessarily want to get rid of all my stuff just because my current location doesnt work for it
- krschultz 12y ago
  Everything you described, but with people! https://www.makespace.com/ https://www.makespace.com/
  - JacobAldridge 12y ago
    I thought of Make Space as well - but there's a quite a difference between "Manhattan" and "middle of Australia".
- whatusername 12y ago
  I've seen a few of these around Melbourne... Always seemed like a great business model. http://www.taxiboxmobileselfstorage.com.au/ http://www.taxiboxmobileselfstorage.com.au/

ChuckMcM 12y ago

I noted back in 2008 how this was an interesting side effect of Google's empowerment policy. The way it occurred was that anyone of moderate level inside of Google could start a project involving some outside company. This was seductively easy because those companies always wanted the validation that came from working with Google. But the person could be just a run of the mill senior engineer type (of which there were many). So this engineer and this outside partner start putting together a mashup, and it goes well. The partner is loving the Google traffic and the senior engineer inside of Google is thinking "Wow, this is going to look great on my next promotion request." So it grows and grows, largely unnoticed by the folks who are really the movers and shakers in Google. Then it continues to go well, the engineer has recruited a couple more Googlers to help her work on the project and it hits an tipping point. It really needs a full time project manager and the amount of resources inside the Google cloud it is using has gotten to the point where you needed to allocate them specifically. Since everyone likes success this goes swimmingly and now lots of people in the world are using this mashup service. At that point it gets the attention of the 'big boys'. What happens next is an interesting reverse slicing of the project to figure out what its business model is, how much revenue it is generating, how much it could generate. I always wondered, but never had confirmed if somewhere there was a meeting to look at these and decide on next steps. One of the outcomes of this noticing could be "Hmmm, we have an advantage/key technology and could do this better if we recast this as a Google Product rather than being a provider to this Partner's product." And then there is some announcement of this new product initiative at Google and how cool it is going to be. Meanwhile the original partner now realized that Google isn't a partner anymore, rather they are at best a competitor and at worst a threat to their existence. At that point, depending on their resources they start scrambling to reduce their dependency on Google services in order to avoid that future. I think for most people this is understood as a possible 'success' outcome of working with Google.

wldcordeiro 12y ago
The other option that you didn't mention is that Google sees an opportunity for acquiring the partner.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]