[whatshisface]

>Google hasn’t shown an ability to ptofitably sell anything but ads.

The $31B revenue would be huge for almost any company. The magnitude of Google's largest cash cow, a glowing golden cow towering over the farm house, makes their normal-sized livestock look small. Because everything is so insignificant compared to advertisements, Google has killed projects that could be the entire product of a sustainable smaller company.

[scarface74]

$31 billion revenue of 8 years? To put that in context, that’s about the same amount of revenue from Apple’s non iPhone business in one quarter.

https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/11/reminder-apple-financial-...

And that’s $31 billion in revenue not profit.

The profit over 8 years is only $21 billion.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android-generate...

[whatshisface]

How many companies make 2.6B/year in profit? Rather, how many startups sell for over 1B? Comparing it to another gigantic business is missing the point in the same way that comparing it against ads is. Google has had many giant successes that only appear small when juxtaposed against unimaginably enormous successes.

[scarface74]

So besides Android, what other profitable product have they had? Rumors are that YouTube is still break even.

[gamblor956]

Consider that Google offers the operating system for free, the software for free, and only charges OEM for optionally including Google's software on their phones, and only recently began selling its own phones...$21 billion of profit is pretty damn big.