[dpflan]

It’s the power of Google as a portal to the internet and search engine; clearly it is a powerful position to have: Google can access demand for a service, and once it reaches a certain threshold decide to throw resources at creating their own version to keep you in their ecosystem.

I would like to know what Google team is in charge of using search trends to identify services to offer.

[devoply]

What does Google gain? Maybe some data, and that's probably what this is about, getting speed test data from lots of users. But revenue wise I don't think it gains anything and sties currently offering the service go out of business over night. Why go after Genius, well probably because it has some peripheral business interest like Google music which is benefiting from this behavior.

[malcolmwhite]

Google wants to keep users at google.com so it can keep showing them ads. Each time a user clicks away to speedtest.net or genius.com, that is a missed opportunity for revenue.

[jjeaff]

Except it's very likely that those 3rd party sites are monetized with Google AdWords. But I guess Google can make a bit more by cutting out the middle man.

[close04]

> What does Google gain?

~20 years ago some people were wondering what does Google gain from giving free service. The point is Google is trying to be the one stop shop for the whole internet no matter what you need.

Unfortunately I don't see anything changing for Google especially in the US where lobbying is such a cheap way to turn all legislation to their advantage.

[dpflan]

I can see: speedtest indicates an interest in checking internet service which could lead to internet in Google Fiber in a particular region: assuming GF is still functioning. This is probably a stretch.

Yes, making a node that connects to another service seems like a goal.

[dodobirdlord]

Having a good idea of what kinds of internet speeds people have around the world is no doubt hugely useful for all sorts of things like planning Stadia[0]. But moreover, Google is a member of the M-Lab[1] project that runs the speedtest servers, so why not add the feature?

[0]https://stadia.dev/

[1]https://www.measurementlab.net/

[tachyonbeam]

It's very similar to what Amazon does. They get information about demand for a certain product, and then make custom versions of the most popular third-party products sold on their site, competing directly with people who sell on their platform.