Google, perhaps more than any other company, is responsible for the character of the internet today. Its search engine controls over 80% of the market. YouTube is the gold standard for video distribution, and Google’s ad platform is only rivaled by Facebook’s in terms of market dominance. The Android operating system controls over 70% of the global mobile market, and ChromeOS has similar numbers in the educational market. Google is one of the most successful companies in history, with some of the most successful products under its belt, and yet the road to this success is littered with the graves ofhundredsof failed or abandoned products and services, and this doesn’t even get into the years of poor support across its many products.
So the question is, why has Google put so many of its products into the ground, and why does it still offer some of the worst consumer support in the industry? Sadly, there are no answers, and it’s not like Google has been eager to chime in as it’s continually sued across the globe for its anticompetitive practices, which is why it grows increasingly easy to see why so many consumers despise Google and its controlling grip on the internet.
Hustle and grind with a bit of luck is how Google took over the world
Google wasn’t the first search engine on the World Wide Web, but its page rank system and reliance on backlinks to establish value made it better than just about every other search engine available at the time. It emerged from the dotcom boom of the ’90s and went from receiving its first injection of VC capital in 1998 to turning its first profit in 2001. By 2003, Search was bringing in over $1 billion in revenue, an increase of over 400,000% since its founding.
The startup ethos and monumental growth that helped propel Google to the number one spot in the tech world still define how Google operates, to its detriment. From the earliest days of the company, employees have been encouraged to act as entrepreneurs and use one day per week on personal projects. This so-called “20% time” is where Google services like AdSense and Gmail were born. And ifonline rumorsare to be believed, launching a new product or service is the key to climbing the corporate ladder, which means polish, support, and accountability all fall by the wayside.
Google wants to find the next big thing before someone else does. If it throws a million engineers at a million different projects, one of them will surely be a masterpiece. And if it fails to bring in the desired users or revenue, it has no problem pulling the plug and eating the loss because there are dozens of other nascent or soon-to-be-launched ideas ready to go.
There are essentially two Googles. One maintains all the long-term services like Ads, YouTube, and Google Search. There’s not much glamor on this side of things, but it keeps the lights on and brings in money to fund the other side of Google. This other side of Google is a startup incubator. So, the reason Google kills so many projects is because Google startsa lotof projects.
Another one bites the dust, hey, hey
This philosophy of growth isn’t fundamentally wrong from a business perspective — Google is rolling in money, after all, so it can afford to try lots of things. The problem lies in how Google presents itself — and more importantly, its products — to the world. From a consumer perspective, Google is just as committed to Hangouts as it is to Docs. Google knows otherwise, but there’s no way for us to know from the outside until the axe swings.
It’s at this point, somewhere between consumer perception and corporate intention, that trust dies. Not all at once, of course; some betrayals cut deeper than others. Plenty were hurt bythe loss of Inbox, but thankfully many of its features lived on in Gmail.The loss of Google Play Musicalso stung, but YouTube Music does mostly the same thing. Even though these kinds of losses hurt, they’re understandable.
Google’s betrayals hurt the most when it totally abandons the projects it’s led people to believe they can rely on.Google Domains is the latest example of this. Before the September 2023 sale to Squarespace, Google Domains was responsible for over 10 million domains. Then there is Stadia, a train wreck we all got to watch in slow motion as its players dwindled to nothing, causing the entire platform to be shuttered.
This capriciousness is no longer targeted solely at consumers, either. For years, Google has been considered one of the best places to work in the US. In addition to the well-known perks of Google employment, it was also considered to have a high degree of job stability. Then, in January,Google let go of over 10,000 employeeswithout warning or explanation. This was six months after telling employees that there were no plans for layoffs. No one, apparently, is safe from the whims of Google. Heck, this applies to YouTubers and Android developers as well, with policies for both services that border on indentured servitude if you wish to remain monetized. For the likes of you and me, Google is an awful business partner.
What’s next for Google, and can it change its poor reputation?
If the status quo remains the same, Google has little incentive to change. It brings in 11-digit profits even in a bad year, sokilling a project that has hundreds of thousands of users(Stadia) or has been around for over a decade (Google Domains) isn’t a problem.
But the status quo that Google has enjoyed for the last 20 years is far from certain going forward. The ever-present possibility of greater regulation is perhaps the specter that most haunts Google’s nightmares. The company has faced a relentless barrage of litigation since at least 2005, when Agence France Presse brought a lawsuit against the search giant, which was settled out of court in 2007.
As Google (and its market share) has grown, so too have the stakes of the lawsuits brought against it.The latest case Google is embroiled ininvolves its dominance of the online search space. The US government alleges that Google’s practice of paying smartphone makers (particularly Apple) to make Google search the default search engine is an unlawful abuse of its virtual monopoly. It’s impossible to know what the outcome of the trial will be, but if it ends up affecting Google’s bottom line, it’s possible that even more of Google’s services could be pulled as it tries to shore up its revenue.
Another threat to the status quo is the emergence of generative AI. Services like ChatGPT have the potential to upend the online search space by providing better results polluted with fewer ads. In response to the November 2022 release of ChatGPT,Google released its own generative AI, Bard — but given that Google makes most of its money from ads on its search engine, any threat to its search engine dominance is a threat to its bottom line.
There’s no telling how Google will react to a drop in its revenue. It could double down on app development to find the next cash cow to augment its income, or it could respond by trimming as much fat as possible. All we can really know for sure is that Google won’t mess with Ads or Search if it can help it, but everything else is probably expendable, so it’s probably best if you don’t get too attached.
At the end of the day, Google’s reputation is in the gutter, so you have to wonder when the company is going to do something to actually change this perception. There’s no better time to start not being evil, like the old days.
