Google had an internal product called GoogleBase that was a huge "database" of "all products" based on Bigtable. Unfortunately, the whole thing had been misrepresented by the original managers, who moved to another project, and the dozens of engineers on the project were all struggling.
I asked Larry Page about this at a meeting, and he said, "We'll get back to you" and someone did and I responded, but there was no feedback, and eventually, a hundred person years later, it was all cancelled.
It was stressful for me and unproductive.
Difficult to change a business model if it's working quite well (financially). Long-term thinking and short-term bonus payments don't align.
Kudos for your decision to leave.
Android is only a defensive play for Google not a profit center
Surely there must be a typo in one of these words? I can’t imagine 25 humongous ones being loose change for any business.
https://www.engadget.com/2016-01-21-android-22-billion-in-pr...
This is their total net income between 2010 and 2016.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/net-...
They pay Apple a reported $18 billion a year to be the default search engine on Apple devices.
Say Google does the right thing. Enables great apps, charges 4% instead of 30%, everything goes well.
What does Apple do in response? If they do nothing, Android eats their market share. That's kind of the point, isn't it?
But that means they can't do nothing. They'd have to respond in kind; do the right thing too. Which means it's not a competitive advantage for Google. All they do is lose the 30% they're getting right now.
Even worse if Apple is foolish and the move actually succeeds, because then Android gets a real monopoly instead of this duopoly fig leaf they each use to claim they have competition.
This why duopolies are just as bad as monopolies if not worse. We need real competition and barriers to entry low enough that someone without a vested interest in the status quo can actually enter the market.
I guess the question is how many phone consumers buy apps (or pay for content in those apps)? And if paid app availability improved (or got worse for their platform), would that affect the next phone they bought.
Android as a platform is completely at odds with Google as a business, and will continue to be so as long as Google's is only revenue stream is online advertising.
The honest truth is Google culture never existed, they just had most people fooled for a long time.
But at the top, for a public company, the only culture that truly exists is the next quarterly report. Once you're on the "must show XX% quarterly growth" treadmill, your decisions will be dictated by strategies to further that. Unless you have a crazy person at the top willing to burn money and investor sentiment (e.g. Elon Musk, Zuckerberg, Jobs. Google doesn't have crazy founders running it anymore, which is why Google Bets are kind of a joke, and why the company continually kills stuff that you need to be in the long hall for to make a success (e.g. gaming studios, red studios -- they finally got a hit Cobra Kai -- and killed it, etc)
That's why some of the earlier comments about understanding Apple's App Store behavior as "good intentioned" is off. That MAY have been the original reason behind Jobs wanting it, to gate keep the platform and protect brand image and quality, but it is NOT the reason for charging high fees today.
Apple made $72 billion on App Store revenue in 2020. Their total revenue was $274 billion, so 26% of all revenue came from the App Store. That is the reason for the inertia in keeping the Store exactly the way it is.
The App Store's purported benefits to the platform: security, quality, etc could all be maintained for a fraction of that. Apple is not spending $72 billion a year on store maintenance. It's very clear this is about money, not high minded principle.
1. Lots of pressure for google products and services to become standalone businesses
2. Too much imbalance of power between business teams and engineering teams within Google Play. The business teams just saw it as copycat App Store and the engineers and product leads didn’t have the influence to overturn this. In some ways this is against what the broader Google culture was thought to have. (Eng/prod > bd).
3. Androids existence as a defense and not as an opportunity to create the future. Android has always been this and it’s engrained culturally.
Imagine if Ford could make 30% profit on selling cars, and didn't even have to manufacture the car.
Fortnite alone is worth hundreds of millions to Google. There's a reason they're willing to compromise any supposed principles they had over it.
Then there are additional effects, like how their control over the Play Store impacts their advertising opportunities on Android.
I bet you a dollar his bonus is directly, or indirectly tied to Play store revenue. Companies destroy themselves from the inside due to misaligned personal vs. organizational incentives.