Comment by RestlessMind
4 years ago
Not a fan of Google, but
> How else do you explain how they are willing to pay a competitor $14 billion+ a year?
Obvious that they have more than >14B+ value extracted out of their competitor's ecosystem per year? I am not sure if you are aware of this or not but when Apple screwed FB with all the anti-tracking changes, there was one notable exception - the browser. Guess who benefited the most? All the ad dollars, which used to be spent on FB and other user-targeting based ad products, are now being diverted to search ads. Just read Google's earnings report - YT revenue declined while Search Ads revenue shot up.
> Who do you think business would rather target iPhone users or Android users?
Think 2-3 steps ahead. How do businesses target users? Via ads in a significant way. If they cannot target iPhone users anymore based on user data, what do you think they will use instead? The next best thing they know - Search Ads. Btw this is why you will Apple and Amazon's ad revenue surging as well.
What I am saying that it is at most a Pyrrhic victory that Google only managed to statistical capture the 30% poorest demographic and still has to pay its competitor to keep from being locked out of being able to reach the highest income demographic.
On top of that, Google doesn’t even compete in the worlds largest cellphone market - China. Sure most phones run “Android”. But without any Google services.
> at most a Pyrrhic victory
Then you don't understand the strategy behind Android. This is a fantastic article to help you explain: https://techcrunch.com/2011/03/25/search-googles-castle-moat...
TL;DR: Android was one of the best moats Google could build for its data-and-ads business.