
Apple makes billions from Google Search each year - onetimemanytime
https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-makes-billions-google-search-goldman-sachs-report-2019-2
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jws
To put that back into relatable numbers, there are about 1B installed iOS
devices. So Google is paying $9/year for each device to be the default search
engine.

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luckylion
Are those all capable to run the latest version / receive updates? Otherwise,
they're paying even more per device.

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reaperducer
_Are those all capable to run the latest version / receive updates? Otherwise,
they're paying even more per device._

You can still use the web browser all the way back to the original iPhone.
Updates are irrelevant.

Source: Googled using Safari on my launch day iPhone just a few days ago.

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y4mi
Updates are relevant, if we're talking about possibly changing the default
search engine.

It's currently Google...and if they want to change it, they'd have to update
these EOL devices. This could significantly increase the price per device

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nkingsy
My question is, would Apple default to different search engine if they weren't
getting paid? Given Google's utter dominance in search, it would likely be
seen as anti-user behavior to default to something else.

This one and the fact that Microsoft takes all the licensing revenue from
Android seem to bubble up every few months. Head-scratching stuff from
companies playing on levels of scale where strange things start to make sense.

~~~
solarkraft
I think Apple has the power to establish a competitor - After all most
searches are simple and DuckDuckGo well satisfies those. I stil seek out
Google every once in a while, but how many users will go through the trouble
to change the default, especially when you have !g?.

My next question is even if they do lose on search, with all their very
successful "side" businesses, how much would it impact them at this point?

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zozbot123
Google is actually pretty well optimized for the simplest, most mindless
searches. It sucks for anything complex, though - Bing/DDG is a lot better
there.

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nkingsy
I think mindless and complex might not be the right words to use here.

I find google searching to be similar to writing. If I distill the question
down to the crucial elements and use clear english, I get great results. If I
throw all the elements of my question in and hope for the best, I usually am
disappointed.

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tonmoy
That is about 7% of google’s 2018 revenue! It is 30% of google’s net operating
income!!

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wmf
I looked it up: "Cost of revenues was $59.5 billion, consisting of [traffic
acquisition cost] TAC of $26.7 billion and other cost of revenues of $32.8
billion. Our TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 23%." So yeah,
you have to spend money to make money.
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204419...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204419000004/goog10-kq42018.htm#s31376B09D3B756EEB619A1219E4F06AA)

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josefresco
Apple is sure concerned about privacy of their users until the Google dump
truck full of cash arrives. Apple isn't the one tracking you everywhere but
they're happy to sell access (to you) to someone who does!

~~~
r00fus
Wait a minute. Google is the market leader in search. Apple offers/highlights
DDG, Bing and other engines, but many folks want Google.

~~~
nodesocket
Agree, most users (excluding developers/power users), still default to Google.
The default search engine can also quickly be changed if you wish.

~~~
josefresco
> The default search engine can also quickly be changed if you wish

Then why is it worth $9.4 billion?

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pcprincipal
The concept of owning demand is explored really well in this blog post[1]. A
good excerpt:

> In short, if somebody successfully inserts themselves between you and your
> customer, they can exercise tremendous control over you, including taking a
> big chunk of your profits or outright killing you.

[1] [https://florentcrivello.com/index.php/2018/10/22/own-the-
dem...](https://florentcrivello.com/index.php/2018/10/22/own-the-demand/)

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resters
I would love to know how google determines the value of being the default
search engine... estimating it is required to agree to the fee structure.

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Hernanpm
interesting, that is the price to stop apple create its own search engine.

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netdur
There's absolute no way they can do, the search engine is very very expensive
to operate, to be successful you have to be better than Google and that
require none existing technologies (such quantum storage).

edit: Google is not doing the best at searching, they are doing the best by
budget current economy allows, to be better than Google you have to cut cost
of operation in very dramatic way, so you can expand the beyond where Google
stands now, other than that, you can't outperform Google.

~~~
hindsightRegret
I, for one, welcome our quantum word salad overlords.

~~~
shhehebehdh
Don't be rude to non-skilled English speakers. The comment is wrong but not
because of its poor English.

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Theodores
In Apple's reporting where they don't have the breakdown in iPhone sales any
more there is talk of revenue from other services going up. Maybe this is part
of that success story.

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eugeniub
Meanwhile DuckDuckGo (probably valued at under $50 million) is worth less than
1% of that fee. No wonder Google continues to retain a monopolistic market
share.

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wuliwong
That seems like a really low estimate but I have no clue what DDG is currently
valued at. They raised $10 million recently but after a little search I wasn't
able to see at what valuation they raised the money at.

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eugeniub
Me neither. I just guessed that it was a 20-30% stake, hence under $50m.

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aboutruby
They must negotiate very well because as an iOS user I would be disappointed
to not have Google as default (like when Firefox switched to Bing).

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ronsor
I thought Firefox switched to Yahoo

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calibas
Yahoo is just Bing wearing different clothes.

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JohnJamesRambo
Quite a cost to pay for a generation of people that don't know how to set a
default search engine.

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2019ideas
This is the biggest benefit of Apple users.

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max76
I'd like to see a citation that Apple users are more likely to not change
settings than average users.

Most people don't enjoy configuring systems and leave most of the defaults
most of the time.

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2019ideas
The most obvious and not controversial- Home screen on the iphone vs a home
screen on Android.

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bgdnyxbjx
Interesting. That’s like more than the entire yearly revenue of Bing.

