
Would Google search make more money if they charged 1 cent per search? - jkuria
https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/1387/would-google-search-make-more-money-if-they-charge.html?childToView=1425#answer-1425
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ineedasername
No.

First: A penny is _a lot_ for a search. Maybe not in First world countries,
but in the developing world where average annual income can be a few hundred
dollars, a penny per search could add up to a discernible % of your income.

Second: Even granting the premise that the cost wouldn't be a factor, this
would add too much friction to the user experience. Given _any_ alternative,
much less one that returned halfway decent results, most people wouldn't
bother with the hassle of setting up a payment account.

Think about how Craigslist demolished the newspaper Classifieds business in an
incredibly short period of time. They were pretty cheap, the local paper might
charge $5 to start, but _everyone_ used them for services, for job listings,
etc., so you got lots of eyeballs on your ad. In aggregate these used to be
roughly 40% of ad revenue for a paper. It's estimated that by 2000, there was
nearly $20billion in such revenue. There was, however, a lot (relatively) of
friction for the average user: Fill out a form, get a check or money order,
mail it in... Then came Craigslist. It was free. You didn't even need to
login, you just typed and hit enter. When it went nationwide in the early
00's, it went viral fast, and in a matter of about 2 years it was all but over
for printed classifieds. (Ebay was of course the other murderer, but "For
Sale" classifieds were only a fraction of the volume, so I attribute this
primarily to Craigslist. It's the story of how a company that even today
grosses under $1billion in revenue killed a market that was 20x that size in
the US alone.)

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sharemywin
I'm sure they are quite happy not having to paying for a free product to sell.

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bitxbitxbitcoin
No but that's because 1 cent is way too much for much of the world.

