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by grotorea 952 days ago
> Android -- a cost center. No viable business model. Maybe Samsung would fork AOSP for their phones.

The Android company could simply get paid licensing fees for its OS and extras like Microsoft? Or maybe AOSP would instead continue as a intercompany project somewhat similar to Linux (the kernel).

> Cloud -- has to run at a loss in the immediate future to capture marketshare

That's dumping and I don't think it should be allowed so routinely anyway.

> Email -- nobody pays for email. Get ready for a much smaller mailbox and ads targeted by email contents. Get "sponsored" emails in your feed.

So, if people care they can pay for the paid service.

> YouTube -- was a separate company before

Was it profitable through? I see Alphabet published revenue numbers but I didn't find profit numbers. So maybe it would be hit by costcutting like limiting video length in some cases.

> Maps -- will become a free tourist map, may have to pay to unlock any zone except your home.

OpenStreetMaps exists, so an independent Google Maps company would have to compete with that.

> Search -- if it can sell ads independently, could be a viable business.

It's the starting and most profitable part that paid for all the rest, no? How it could not be viable.

> Advertising -- all the other units need advertising to survive. This could be a clearinghouse

But is the profit in the clearinghouse part or the selling ad space part? I'm guessing both.

1 comments

> It's the starting and most profitable part that paid for all the rest, no? How it could not be viable.

It relies on your information taken from your phone/email/search/youtube history/etc. Without all that data the value of ads is much lower.

You mean the ad people may have to explicitly pay for information they want to use? Horrifying stuff.