7 ms·

Google is destroying the internet is a good way to put it. AD dollars are their only priority. I hope Google dies because of it.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
zx8080 3y ago
What a fantasy. It does not show any sign of profit decrease. How would a company die with $279.8B revenue, steadily increasing yearly?
- mxkopy 3y ago
  I suspect that the revenue increases have more to do with the addition of new users in developing markets rather than actual value added. Once all potential users have been reached, Google will have to actually improve their product.
  - dereg 3y ago
    No such suspicion is necessary. Google's revenue from the United States has only increased as a share of its total revenue over the past decade. https://abc.xyz/assets/4c/c7/d619b323f5bba689be986d716a61/34ac6dab5f586b2e6e008b99fe683e35.html https://abc.xyz/assets/4c/c7/d619b323f5bba689be986d716a61/34...
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- nicechianti 3y ago
  [dead]
- chongli 3y ago
  I think the theory of Google's death is that they are "killing the golden goose." The idea is that they are killing off all the independent websites on the internet. That is, all the sites besides Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/NetFlix/Reddit/etc. that people access directly (either through an app or a bookmark) and which (barring Reddit) block GoogleBot anyway. These are all the sites (like CNET) that Google indexes which are the entire reason to use search. They are having their rankings steadily eroded by an ever-rising tide of SEO spam. If they start dying off en masse and if LLMs emerge as a viable alternative for looking up information, we may see Google Search die along with them. As for why their revenues are still increasing? It's because all the SEO spam sites out there run Google Ads. This is how we close the loop on the "killing the golden goose" theory. Google uses legitimate sites to make their search engine a viable product and at the same time directs traffic away from those legitimate sites towards SEO spam to generate revenue. It's a transformation from symbiosis/mutualism to parasitism. Edit: I forgot to mention the last, and darkest, part of the theory. Many of these SEO spam sites engage in large-scale piracy by scraping all their content off legitimate sites. By allowing their ads to run on these sites, Google is essentially acting as an accessory to large-scale, criminal, commercial copyright infringement.
  - water-your-self 3y ago
    Directs traffic away not to generate revenue but to generate revenue faster this quarter in time for the report. They could make billions without liquifying the internet but they would make billions slowly
  - Denzel 3y ago
    > Google uses legitimate sites to make their search engine a viable product and at the same time directs traffic away from those legitimate sites towards SEO spam to generate revenue. [Disclosure: Google Search SWE; opinions and thoughts are my own and do not represent those of my employer] Why do you assume malicious intent? The balance between search ranking (Google) and search optimization (third-party sites) is an adversarial, dynamic game played between two sides with inverse incentives, taking place on an economic field (i.e. limited resources). There is no perfect solution; there’s only an evolutionary act-react cycle. Do you think content spammers spend more or less resources (people, time, money) than Google’s revenue? So then the problem becomes how do you win a battle with orders of magnitude less people, time, and money? Leverage, i.e., engineering. You try your best and watch the scoreboard. Some people think Google is doing a great job; some think we couldn’t be any worse. The truth probably lies across a spectrum in the middle. So it goes with a globally consumed product. Also, note, Ads and Search operate completely independent. There’s no signals going from Ads to Search, or vice versa, to inform rankings; Search can’t even touch a lot of the Ads data, and Ads can’t touch Search data. Which makes your theory misinformed.
    - chongli 3y ago
      Also, note, Ads and Search operate completely independent That’s the mistake. They should be talking. Sites that engage in unethical SEO to game search rankings should be banned from Google’s ad platform. Why aren’t they? Because Google is profiting from the arrangement.
    - vasco 3y ago
      When I enter a search query, that goes into Ads so that half the page can be relevant Ads instead of search results. That's a signal.
- reaperducer 3y ago
  What a fantasy. It does not show any sign of profit decrease. How would a company die with $279.8B revenue, steadily increasing yearly? At one time both buggy whips and Philco radios had hockey stick growth charts, too. You must not bet old enough to remember when people thought MySpace would always drive the internet.
  - gretch 3y ago
    > You must not bet old enough to remember when people thought MySpace would always drive the internet. You know there's a difference between "people thought" and dollars. Some people think the earth is flat. Opinions can change very quickly - like 5 years ago, people thought elon musk was the hero of the internet. Here's the stats on MySpace revenue: It generated $800 million in revenue during the 2008 fiscal year.
    - verve_rat 3y ago
      And MySpace generates about 10% of that now. Google could be generating $27 billion in revenue in 2038 and be considered a massive failure compared to what it is now. I fail to see the point you are trying to get at?
- chinchilla2020 3y ago
  Their search results are declining rapidly in quality. "<SEARCH QUERY> reddit" is one of their most common searches. Their results are filled with SEO spam and bots now. At some point a competitor will emerge. The tech crowd will notice it and begin to use it. Then it will go widespread.
mathstuf 3y ago
I'm reminded of the 00's era joke that Microsoft could burn billions of dollars, pivot to becoming a vacuum cleaner manufacturer, and finally make something that doesn't suck. I don't think Google dying would be good (lots of things would have to migrate infra suddenly), but the adtech being split off into something else would certainly be a welcome turn of events, IMO. I'm tired of seeing promising ideas killed because they only made 7-figure numbers in a spreadsheet where it'd have been viable on its own somewhere it wasn't a rounding error.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

zx8080 3y ago

What a fantasy. It does not show any sign of profit decrease. How would a company die with $279.8B revenue, steadily increasing yearly?

mxkopy 3y ago
I suspect that the revenue increases have more to do with the addition of new users in developing markets rather than actual value added. Once all potential users have been reached, Google will have to actually improve their product.
- dereg 3y ago
  No such suspicion is necessary. Google's revenue from the United States has only increased as a share of its total revenue over the past decade. https://abc.xyz/assets/4c/c7/d619b323f5bba689be986d716a61/34ac6dab5f586b2e6e008b99fe683e35.html https://abc.xyz/assets/4c/c7/d619b323f5bba689be986d716a61/34...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
nicechianti 3y ago
[dead]
chongli 3y ago
I think the theory of Google's death is that they are "killing the golden goose." The idea is that they are killing off all the independent websites on the internet. That is, all the sites besides Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/NetFlix/Reddit/etc. that people access directly (either through an app or a bookmark) and which (barring Reddit) block GoogleBot anyway. These are all the sites (like CNET) that Google indexes which are the entire reason to use search. They are having their rankings steadily eroded by an ever-rising tide of SEO spam. If they start dying off en masse and if LLMs emerge as a viable alternative for looking up information, we may see Google Search die along with them. As for why their revenues are still increasing? It's because all the SEO spam sites out there run Google Ads. This is how we close the loop on the "killing the golden goose" theory. Google uses legitimate sites to make their search engine a viable product and at the same time directs traffic away from those legitimate sites towards SEO spam to generate revenue. It's a transformation from symbiosis/mutualism to parasitism. Edit: I forgot to mention the last, and darkest, part of the theory. Many of these SEO spam sites engage in large-scale piracy by scraping all their content off legitimate sites. By allowing their ads to run on these sites, Google is essentially acting as an accessory to large-scale, criminal, commercial copyright infringement.
- water-your-self 3y ago
  Directs traffic away not to generate revenue but to generate revenue faster this quarter in time for the report. They could make billions without liquifying the internet but they would make billions slowly
- Denzel 3y ago
  > Google uses legitimate sites to make their search engine a viable product and at the same time directs traffic away from those legitimate sites towards SEO spam to generate revenue. [Disclosure: Google Search SWE; opinions and thoughts are my own and do not represent those of my employer] Why do you assume malicious intent? The balance between search ranking (Google) and search optimization (third-party sites) is an adversarial, dynamic game played between two sides with inverse incentives, taking place on an economic field (i.e. limited resources). There is no perfect solution; there’s only an evolutionary act-react cycle. Do you think content spammers spend more or less resources (people, time, money) than Google’s revenue? So then the problem becomes how do you win a battle with orders of magnitude less people, time, and money? Leverage, i.e., engineering. You try your best and watch the scoreboard. Some people think Google is doing a great job; some think we couldn’t be any worse. The truth probably lies across a spectrum in the middle. So it goes with a globally consumed product. Also, note, Ads and Search operate completely independent. There’s no signals going from Ads to Search, or vice versa, to inform rankings; Search can’t even touch a lot of the Ads data, and Ads can’t touch Search data. Which makes your theory misinformed.
  - chongli 3y ago
    Also, note, Ads and Search operate completely independent That’s the mistake. They should be talking. Sites that engage in unethical SEO to game search rankings should be banned from Google’s ad platform. Why aren’t they? Because Google is profiting from the arrangement.
  - vasco 3y ago
    When I enter a search query, that goes into Ads so that half the page can be relevant Ads instead of search results. That's a signal.
reaperducer 3y ago
What a fantasy. It does not show any sign of profit decrease. How would a company die with $279.8B revenue, steadily increasing yearly? At one time both buggy whips and Philco radios had hockey stick growth charts, too. You must not bet old enough to remember when people thought MySpace would always drive the internet.
- gretch 3y ago
  > You must not bet old enough to remember when people thought MySpace would always drive the internet. You know there's a difference between "people thought" and dollars. Some people think the earth is flat. Opinions can change very quickly - like 5 years ago, people thought elon musk was the hero of the internet. Here's the stats on MySpace revenue: It generated $800 million in revenue during the 2008 fiscal year.
  - verve_rat 3y ago
    And MySpace generates about 10% of that now. Google could be generating $27 billion in revenue in 2038 and be considered a massive failure compared to what it is now. I fail to see the point you are trying to get at?
chinchilla2020 3y ago
Their search results are declining rapidly in quality. "<SEARCH QUERY> reddit" is one of their most common searches. Their results are filled with SEO spam and bots now. At some point a competitor will emerge. The tech crowd will notice it and begin to use it. Then it will go widespread.

mathstuf 3y ago

I'm reminded of the 00's era joke that Microsoft could burn billions of dollars, pivot to becoming a vacuum cleaner manufacturer, and finally make something that doesn't suck. I don't think Google dying would be good (lots of things would have to migrate infra suddenly), but the adtech being split off into something else would certainly be a welcome turn of events, IMO. I'm tired of seeing promising ideas killed because they only made 7-figure numbers in a spreadsheet where it'd have been viable on its own somewhere it wasn't a rounding error.