| "They did not earn it. _______ charge exorbitant prices because they can -- they have you by the balls, and you don't really have an option not to pay them -- not because their services are actually worth ______." I've heard this sort of statement from just about anyone looking from the outside into any other profession. Developers, Photographers, Architects, Plumbers, Lawyers whoever don't actually earn their rates. Their services aren't actually worth $$$. They charge exorbitant prices because they can. Sorry - it's all hogwash. Someone's services are worth something to you, otherwise you wouldn't be paying them. It's a business decision. You can pay to have your car fixed so you can get to work, you can pay to get your stove fixed so you can cook, you can pay to have your toilet fixed so your feces go to the sewage treatment plant instead of spewing all over your floor, you can pay to have a building designed so you can build it or live in it, you can pay for a non-stop flight so you can be there in time for the meeting with PG, and so on. Google made $2.89B profit on $10.645B revenue in their most recently reported quarter. An additional $14M in legal expenses per quarter is no doubt far less than they normally spend on a regular basis for legal. In fact, Google has no less than 70 openings for legal positions posted on their website. ~$4.5M a month in legal fees is an extraordinary sum to the average HN commenter (including me), it is not an extraordinary sum for a company the size of google, but merely a regular cost of doing business. |