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I'm surprised Google hasn't forgotten about Google fiber.
by ddlutz 2y ago
I'm surprised Google hasn't forgotten about Google fiber.
- thrtythreeforty 2y agoI'm forced to conclude that it's actually making money, else they would have killed it by now. I have it - signed up the day it was available at my house. One of the few Google things I'm pretty sure will continue to exist.
- benatkin 2y agoI think it must be that it will have the net effect of making people less free. They throw out stuff that could make money when it's good for freedom like Google Reader.
- astrange 2y agoI've been told why Reader was shut down and it was the opposite of this. (I can't repeat it because I forgot most of it.)
- somanyphotons 2y agoGoogle is perfectly willing to shut down a profitable product
- teractiveodular 2y agoAny examples you'd care to point out? All the high-profile Google shutdowns I can think of either failed in the marketplace (Stadia, Plus) or were successful but not making money (Reader, Hangouts).
- klooney 2y agoTheir DNS service comes to mind- although I guess it was divested, not killed.
- bagels 2y agoThey did kill it before. But it's back again.
- jldugger 2y agoGOOGLE: There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.
- HaZeust 2y agoAnd when they’re all dead, there’s only one thing you can do: Run their pockets and look for loose change.
- teractiveodular 2y agoFiber was not killed in the cities where it had already launched. What's new is that they're expanding again.
- hirvi74 2y agoI have also had Google Fiber since near its inception. I imagine it is profitable for Google because instead of tracking my browsing data, Google can just track all my packets now.
- LeafItAlone 2y agoOr maybe leadership has, and that’s why it’s still alive.
- wil421 2y agoThey did in my area 7 years ago almost as soon as it was announced. They wired new condos and apartments but nothing else. Luckily AT&T installed it on the pole by my house. I moved and lost fiber but have 1.2 down over coax but only 200 up.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Luckily AT&T installed it on the pole by my house This seems to be Google Fiber's purpose. Spurring the telcos into investing to maintain share.
- Dylan16807 2y agoThere was a spur from them starting up at all. I don't want to diminish that too badly. But since then, increasing their coverage area from a fraction of a percent up to 1% of the US population, I don't think that has spurred very much.
- bb88 2y agoThey basically did at some point about a decade or so ago maybe. Wimax and LTE were taking off at that time. Then about 2 years ago, Google woke up and started pushing fiber again. It's clear now that high speed fiber is the future. Cable companies aren't upgrading their networks anymore. It's unclear if the wireless companies will be able to support 10gig service. And the single mode fiber laid into the ground a decade or more ago has only increased in value.
- adgjlsfhk1 2y agois there any desire for residential 10g service? it's pretty hard to image how 90% of families would use up 200meg
- Schnitz 2y agoEver download a 100GB game? The 5x speed increase from 200mbit to 1gbit is significant. Most families have kids that game.
- vel0city 2y agoI'm actually downloading one right now off Steam, and I'm limited more by IOPS on the drive I'm installing to than I am my internet speed due to the compression/encryption/unpacking. Not even using much more than 100Mbits consistently here, but I am installing to a microSD on a gaming handheld. But devices like this are getting more popular especially for a multi-kid household. But even then, it's not something most people are constantly doing. Maybe a couple of times a month. I'd still probably go with more than 200Mbit for a family, but knowing how many of the families I know use their home internet they're rarely coming even close to routinely maxing out a 500Mbit connection even with several kids.
- bb88 2y agoThat's kinda like saying back in the 1990's that 90% of families wouldn't use more than 56.6k. Well, because that's all they had access to.
- UncleOxidant 2y agoThat's the problem. I'd be afraid that if I signed up for it they'd just cancel it a year or two later.
- scottyah 2y agoIt does align pretty closely to their mission statement "to organize the world's information and make it accessible and useful for everyone", so it might be easier to make a case for its continued existence. It also is another branch of Alphabet so not directly in the Google mgmt chain. Though it looks like Alphabet is looking to sell it off, according to a reuters article Feb 5th, 2024.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- saagarjha 2y agoMaybe the AI people convinced them that downloading models would require faster internet.