5 ms·

Somehow in 18 years and billions of dollars of revenue, Google has not figured out another way to make real money.

by pixie_ 10y ago

tomglynch 10y ago
It hasn't been an issue until now. Google is an advertising business making real money by advertising. Is this due to the increasing popularity of ad-blockers?
- smt88 10y ago
  Ad blockers are probably an issue, but people blocking ads probably weren't clicking on many ads, either. Other theories might be the economy starting to dip (which would be reflected in trimming of marketing budgets) and competition. Competition is interesting. In 2005, there were tons of online stores, and users found them through Google search. Nowadays, most brands seem to have an Amazon store. If a user wants to buy something, they'll just go straight to Amazon and bypass Google entirely. As Amazon accumulates more stores and more buyers, Google is increasingly cut out of that search/purchase loop, and stores have less reason to buy Google ads at all.
  - benologist 10y ago
    Ad blocking now covers ~50% of millennials, iPhones, Asus android phones, and soon more. It is snowballing into a "there is no next generation of ad consumers" problem.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
freyir 10y ago
No, but they found a way to kill off competition and defend their monopoly to the tune of $75B in revenue/year.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
walkingolof 10y ago
They have not figured out how to diversify (in any way that makes the company safe from a decline in search ads), thats their failing, they make boatloads of money.
- smt88 10y ago
  I actually think they have found tons of ways to diversify. Google Glass, Voice, and Wave could have been truly revolutionary if they had polished, simplified, and mass-marketed them properly. Google's problem is that they're terrible product designers and they never truly focus on a product the way other companies do. Are you genuinely delighted by any Google product these days? I'm having a hard time thinking what they create that even could be delightful (that regular consumers can buy, anyway).
  - dingdingdang 10y ago
    >> Are you genuinely delighted by any Google product these days I like Google Search, it is good, plain and simple. Regarding any of their other products: for sure no. Gmail works but creeps me out and as an admin, relying on GApps is becoming an increasingly not-fun experience since they rewrite the UI on a biweekly basis while leaving their documentation outdated. Boring and agonizing to have to spent time on something that is essentially easy except for the fact that the settings are hidden in an ever shifting castle of (pixel)sand. Android for me suffers from the same product instability issues, I much much prefer the potential openness of Android to IOS but I certainly do NOT prefer the overt way Google monetizes their users and after fighting with mediocre Android hardware I've ended up with iphone. Low and behold it works, like, plain and simple style. Google has the resources, but the focus?!
- AznHisoka 10y ago
  To their credit, it's incredibly hard to come up with something that shows up as 20% when the whole pie is 100 billion. That just emphasize how successful their search ads not how undiversified they are. would it make you happy if their search business was originally 20 billion? That would make things more diversified.

Somehow in 18 years and billions of dollars of revenue, Google has not figured out another way to make real money.

by pixie_ 10y ago

Somehow in 18 years and billions of dollars of revenue, Google has not figured out another way to make real money.

It hasn't been an issue until now. Google is an advertising business making real money by advertising. Is this due to the increasing popularity of ad-blockers?

smt88 10y ago
Ad blockers are probably an issue, but people blocking ads probably weren't clicking on many ads, either. Other theories might be the economy starting to dip (which would be reflected in trimming of marketing budgets) and competition. Competition is interesting. In 2005, there were tons of online stores, and users found them through Google search. Nowadays, most brands seem to have an Amazon store. If a user wants to buy something, they'll just go straight to Amazon and bypass Google entirely. As Amazon accumulates more stores and more buyers, Google is increasingly cut out of that search/purchase loop, and stores have less reason to buy Google ads at all.
- benologist 10y ago
  Ad blocking now covers ~50% of millennials, iPhones, Asus android phones, and soon more. It is snowballing into a "there is no next generation of ad consumers" problem.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

freyir 10y ago

No, but they found a way to kill off competition and defend their monopoly to the tune of $75B in revenue/year.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

walkingolof 10y ago

They have not figured out how to diversify (in any way that makes the company safe from a decline in search ads), thats their failing, they make boatloads of money.

smt88 10y ago
I actually think they have found tons of ways to diversify. Google Glass, Voice, and Wave could have been truly revolutionary if they had polished, simplified, and mass-marketed them properly. Google's problem is that they're terrible product designers and they never truly focus on a product the way other companies do. Are you genuinely delighted by any Google product these days? I'm having a hard time thinking what they create that even could be delightful (that regular consumers can buy, anyway).
- dingdingdang 10y ago
  >> Are you genuinely delighted by any Google product these days I like Google Search, it is good, plain and simple. Regarding any of their other products: for sure no. Gmail works but creeps me out and as an admin, relying on GApps is becoming an increasingly not-fun experience since they rewrite the UI on a biweekly basis while leaving their documentation outdated. Boring and agonizing to have to spent time on something that is essentially easy except for the fact that the settings are hidden in an ever shifting castle of (pixel)sand. Android for me suffers from the same product instability issues, I much much prefer the potential openness of Android to IOS but I certainly do NOT prefer the overt way Google monetizes their users and after fighting with mediocre Android hardware I've ended up with iphone. Low and behold it works, like, plain and simple style. Google has the resources, but the focus?!
AznHisoka 10y ago
To their credit, it's incredibly hard to come up with something that shows up as 20% when the whole pie is 100 billion. That just emphasize how successful their search ads not how undiversified they are. would it make you happy if their search business was originally 20 billion? That would make things more diversified.