
This Is How Google Will Collapse - lawrenceyan
https://hackernoon.com/how-google-collapsed-b6ffa82198ee
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jefftk
The article reads like it was written several years ago, despite the "October
14th 2019" date. It turns out it previously had a "Apr 24, 2017" date:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190418231249/https://medium.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190418231249/https://medium.com/forwardtick/how-
google-collapsed-b6ffa82198ee)

(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)

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ddevault
It seems to have been updated, it has explicit references to events in 2019.

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jefftk
You're right, it's from a mix of time periods.

What stuck out to me and got me looking for timing information, though, was
that it doesn't feel well integrated. There are ways to update old articles so
that they are fully current, but this one is mostly taking an old article and
adding more examples without thinking about how this affects the overall
argument.

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dangus
I think this article underestimates how diversified Google has become.

Dismissing YouTube as unprofitable seems laughable, big media companies are
probably kicking themselves for not trying a similar concept earlier. That’s
the kind of business where an eventual single digit profit margin will make
you tremendously wealthy.

Google Maps is another example of an ad driver that’s not easily replaced by a
competitor. Only giants like Apple and Microsoft can compete on that product.

G Suite has made major inroads in the lucrative enterprise productivity space.

Google is also slowly building a devices business, and all you have to do is
take a peek at Apple to know how successful that can be.

Google has the #1 web browser with growing market share to alarming Internet
Explorer levels with its search engine and tools set as the defaults.
Comparisons to Microsoft’s fall from grace assume history will be repeated,
but unlike IE6, nobody’s making a faster/noticeably better to the end user
browser than Chrome.

As far as the search ads itself, I don’t know that the article makes a
compelling case that users simply don’t use search engines or the general
Internet anymore. The current trend of ad blocking is that they are getting
less and less effective. I’m sure Amazon and Facebook have taken a slice of
that advertising pie but it seems unrealistic to expect them to take the whole
thing.

Not only that but Google’s ad platform allows website owners to place ads
directly on sites, so an external link on Facebook can take a user right back
into Google’s revenue space.

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lidHanteyk
I don't think that we read the same article. In particular, if over 85% of
Google's revenue is from ads, then there's no way that the rest of the
business can carry Google, nor that any particular single department could
survive on its own. Youtube has never been profitable, and their acquisition
by Google is likely what saved them from running out of cash.

If there comes a day beyond online advertising as we know it, then Google will
collapse; Google cannot compete effectively outside the Web.

You are almost right, but didn't look high enough. Alphabet, the big holding
company at the top, can survive Google's collapse, and Alphabet is
diversified.

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dangus
I guess I didn’t really address the advertising very well.

I would suspect the advertising _itself_ has been diversified as well, but I
can’t say I can prove it.

That’s why I think any sort of “collapse” would be so slow that it could be
mitigated by other growing segments.

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stanski
I'm not sure anyone has really stopped clicking "I Agree" as he author claims.
Seems more wishful thinking than reality.

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Synaesthesia
A company like google should be publicly owned. What they provide as a service
shouldn’t have to make a profit.

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pasttense01
There have been numerous posts on HN showing why Google will collapse:
information search on Google just isn't very good any more--results for
information search (not talking about product search) are dominated by
shopping results, blogspam, membership required/pay sites...

Someone will build a better mousetrap.

