
Google, Mighty Now, but Not Forever - cot6mur3
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/12/technology/personaltech/googles-time-at-the-top-may-be-nearing-its-end.html
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magicalist
This article is pretty bad, based entirely on some analyst who says "Google
doesn’t create immersive experiences that you get lost in", whatever that
means, and some really tenuous comparisons to other companies.

The hilarious thing is that this was only written in February and this
analyst's view of Microsoft's impending obsolescence is already trending in a
radically opposite direction. Shows exactly why lines like

> _Even Microsoft — the once unbeatable, declared monopolist of personal
> computing software — has struggled to stay relevant in the shift from
> desktop to mobile devices, even as it has continued to pump out billions in
> profits._

are so completely worthless as predictors of anything.

~~~
frandroid
I find the comparison compelling, but if you want to criticize it, it's
because Microsoft _has_ managed to diversify more than it is given credit for,
so that today it has something like 15 separate $1bn+ annual revenue
businesses.

But one doesn't need to diversify to be successful. Apple is working well with
few products.

The comparison with Microsoft works well at the research level. Microsoft's
research led to a tablet as a early as 2001, but without the proper vision,
was not able to turn it into a viable product until Apple ate its lunch. Both
Microsoft and Google are lacking visionaries to work towards new
possibilities, rather than just new technologies.

~~~
magicalist
> _I find the comparison compelling, but if you want to criticize it, it 's
> because Microsoft _has_ managed to diversify more than it is given credit
> for_

Actually I would criticize it as anyone using a hugely successful company as a
cautionary tale should have more to back themselves up than the gut instinct
of two tech bloggers, because clearly it could turn around as quickly as they
are claiming Google is going the other way.

If in fact instinctive feelings on which companies are hot right now are so
fickle...maybe not write entire articles based entirely on them?

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querious
A) 20% growth in revenue per year is not "flattening out". It's massively
exponential growth. B) Google is at the cutting edge of robotics and computer
vision. I'd say they are in an excellent position to cash in on the next big
market.

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ksk
Personally, I don't understand this obsession with making money from research.
IMHO research should be primarily about exploration and discovery, never about
products or money. Why can't you just invest a part of your profits for the
express purpose of just doing something interesting? If along the way, that
interesting idea manages to be made into a product, then sure go do that,
otherwise, you just contributed something interesting to the human knowledge
pool.

I guess at some level merely the existence of money minded people offends my
sensibilities. :)

~~~
apendleton
Because Google is a publicly traded company and has a fiduciary obligation to
put its resources to use making many for its shareholders. It's apparently
pretty hard to actually succeed at making a lawsuit for breach of fiduciary
duty stick, but waste is one of the valid reasons for which one can bring such
a suit. They can do outlandish research, but there has to at least be a
glimmer of rationalization for how the thing could make them money eventually.

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lepht
It seems perhaps the NY Times has it out for Google recently:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9612129](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9612129)

~~~
magicalist
Actually I think it's just this author. He seems to just write tech articles
about "sure X seems successful now, but maybe it's about to lose everything!"

~~~
cmsj
On a long enough timescale, he's right every time :)

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Htsthbjig
What is the biggest market in the world?

Energy and Cars...

Google is not aiming at brand advertising. They are aiming at becoming an
essential company for physical cars in the future, like Apple became with
phones in the past.

Lots of companies would love to "sink" growing 19 percent in profits per year
as a big company.

It is of great help to have Captain obvious tell us that because the world is
finite, all companies growth must stop some day, specially big ones.

------
guyzero
Previous NY Times articles:

Ford, mighty now, but not forever. GE, mighty now, but not forever. Microsoft,
mighty now, but not forever.

Upcoming NY Times articles:

Apple, mighty now, but not forever.

~~~
smacktoward
The New York Times: mighty now, but not forever.

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Oletros
Farhad Manjo using Ben Thompson analysis, what could be more impartial?

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MrZongle2
Mostly unrelated: I was surprised by how poorly drawn the accompanying
android-with-a-cane illustration was. I understand that minimalism is a style
unto itself, and intentionally poor drawing (as if in MS Paint) can be used to
imply other things...but this just seemed amateurish, as if the NYT couldn't
afford a decent illustrator.

~~~
davydka
Maybe the image was blown up larger than what's in the print version? The
illustrator's style seems to look better in the smaller format.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=stuart+goldenberg+illustrati...](https://www.google.com/search?q=stuart+goldenberg+illustration)

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spinchange
Is it just me or is the central premise here: "Google is going to miss out on
the future, because the future is advertising of the past" ? (e.g. old media
style brand or "lifestyle" advertising)

Which is not to say that the end (headline) result isn't likely. No company
dominates and continues to lead and grow in every market it plays in, ad
infinitum. I just don't think a back to the future on display ads is going to
be their undoing. Some feel there's a bubble in display and facebook ads
happening right now anyway.

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hyperion2010
The idea that advertising will survive in a world with even weak intelligence
is amusing to me. The second a user has a digital representative that can
collect enough data to make informed decisions and gather data on various
products and has a modicum of data on what their human actually needs
advertising depts will be replaced with far more service oriented equivalents
that don't try to exploit things like habit formation to get people to buy
products they don't need.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
You're assuming the intelligence will be independent and not owned by the
advertisers.

That may happen eventually, and I'd be surprised if commodified IQ enhancement
with reasoning skills wasn't available within - say - 10-15 years.

But there has to be a mainframe-like stage before then, because the first
versions of the technology will be industrial (Watson++), not domestic.

Google are well placed to be big players at that stage. More speculatively, so
are Amazon and Facebook.

MS are maybe half-way to thinking that far ahead. Apple don't seem to be,
because they're too fixated on shiny trinkets now and not on long-term
strategy. (Siri was a creditable v0.1 attempt but doesn't seem to have
improved at all since release. Watch is - to be polite - not a player in this
market.)

But even after that stage, how can you be sure that a commodified agent won't
be acting in the interests of its creators/sellers/sponsors instead of its
owner?

~~~
hyperion2010
I would like to argue that if companies manipulate agents that people are
supposed to trust deeply then they will rapidly loose customers. At an
individual level I'm worried this wouldn't happen, but the massive losses the
US tech sector has suffered following Snowden give me hope that we won't just
roll over. At the end of the day my hope is that something akin to HIPPA (bad
example I know) will be put in place to protect data that is shared/collected
by a personal digital agent.

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daddykotex
I have had a talk with a friend of mine about this. The current system doesn't
allow a Company to be around very long if it doesn't show any growth.

This is kind of sad. I think this is where most company will start making
shady decisions to improve growth.

~~~
nullspace
Is this true though? Most big companies (that have been around for very long)
start giving out dividends to their shareholders. This becomes a nice but
relatively safe source of income that many people prefer over risky companies
- that will either skyrocket or crash-n-burn.

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higherpurpose
Not one, but two anti-Google articles on NYT today? Interesting.

~~~
Oletros
It is not from today, it is from February

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cot6mur3
Interesting advertizing industry trend based analysis of Google's and
Facebook's financials of late and some future projections - quite informative.

