Yeah, it's fashionable to point out that Google does what it does to sell more ads. But isn't this getting very boring? We don't hear things like "x is making a TV program to sell more ads" or "x is making a new car to take in more revenue".

I believe it's necessary to repeat this point because of the constant churn of new users who are otherwise ignorant of Google's business model. I still hear people say, "I'm so glad Google is nice enough to give us free apps!"

I don't believe you actually ever heard anyone say that.

I've heard folks say things to that effect. "Google is awesome. They have the best search and email and smartphone software. For free! And they're fighting corrupt ISPs!"

It's nice when Google does things that benefit a lot of people, but they're a for-profit corporation and not motivated primarily by altruism. People might not fully understand that or its significance and simply enjoy Google products, but I think it's useful knowledge.

But did you also hear them say, "...and they're doing it as a charity" and then get shocked when you revealed that Google is actually a for-profit organization that makes money via advertising?

Because that's the part I'd find hard to believe.

It's a nuanced point. aros said some people believe Google is "nice" which isn't wrong in my experience. I didn't interpret aros' words to mean that people explicitly deny Google is a for-profit corp nor espouse that it is a charity, but people have expressed warm fuzzies about Google.

My takeaway was that many people produce warm feelings about an entity that doesn't necessarily reciprocate or find those warm feelings important in it of themselves.

I personally like Google (so far). E.g. I could have seen them siding with ISPs, trying to dismantle net neutrality, and using their capital to stifle innovation keeping them at the top.

But if sometime in the future, Google enacts policies that aren't so "nice", people may do well to avoid confusion by remembering that Google isn't inherently "nice", but they are inherently "for-profit".

Fortunately, what you believe doesn't dictate reality.

Agreed, it's a bit silly to assume that all Google cares about is ad revenue. Plus, improving internet accessibility and making more revenue aren't mutually exclusive. Why do self driving cars? Def no ad revenue there.

I agree with you completely until

> Why do self driving cars? Def no ad revenue there.

Sure there is. Many people commute in their cars for 1-2 hours per day, when it is illegal for them to look at ads on their smartphone. If Google makes this legal, it's another 10%ish increase in the waking hours that people may be clicking on their ads.

I think that Google's ambitions are a lot higher than this, of course. Self-driving cars will be a lucrative business for them in numerous ways. And increased ad revenue will be one of them.

The business model in a self-driving car is THE SELF-DRIVING CAR...

… that deliberately takes routes which maximise your exposure to its owners advertising, services and products.

... unless they're interested in taking in a loss for each vehicle or only selling to the richest people in the world.

The business model for the self-driving car is a computer-scheduled, dynamically-provisioned taxi service cheap enough that nobody needs to own a car in the city. Because self-driving cars don't need to park (they can just move on to the next assignment or deprovision), if they catch on then in-city parking decks can be redeveloped into business space or park space.

You forget transportation of goods. Pretty much all over-land cargo in the U.S. and most of that elsewhere (less so, because trains) could be transported by self-driving cars/drones. Not sure if that is larger or smaller than transportation of people at this point, but it's still an astronomically huge market.

US is actually pretty big in freight trains.

Mostly because, freight and passenger trains interfere badly. No passengers = easier freight. A big wave of deregulation of the market a few decades ago helped, too. The Economist ran a special about the US market a few years ago.

Transport is something like 30% of the world economy isn't it?

I don't believe ad revenue in self-driving cars will be meaningful. I don't think google will force people to watch ads after they pay for being driven.Maybe only as a discount ,but most will prefer not to, the same way that today, there aren't any attractive options to watch ads for pay.

Not force, but the fact is that people will have more time to do whatever they want while their car drives them somewhere, during which many will be browsing the Internet through choice, and browsing the Internet generally involves looking at ads.

Frankly, I'm not entirely sure such a roundabout benefit even comes up in management's eyes compared to the difficulty of getting self-driving cars working and on the roads, but it is one.

I hope you realize that Google's "ad" revenues aren't only from people seeing ads. They also use the tracking information of how you use products.

Google loses thousands of eyeballs every year to traffic accidents that could be all but eliminated with automation.

Considering the source is Bloomberg, I'm assuming the author wanted to tie the satellite plans back to Google's core revenue stream.

> Why do self driving cars? Def no ad revenue there.

No ad revenue. But there's lots of car revenue.

Assume self-driving car is perfected, Google can easily offer better mobile/local ads for both business and consumer because of context.

Show popups ads of ongoing/upcoming events of the current street you are on. Going to the movie theatre, recommend a nearby lunch spot. Feeling lucky? Let the car plan your weekend

This bring huge potential to ads

"I'm feeling lucky"

Really?

Imagine how many more hours a day you'll have to look at your android device when you don't have to pay attention to driving to and from work? Or going on road trips.

sure there is. if you make self driving cars, instead of spending my time driving, I'll spend that time on my phone, tablet, or laptop. More time spent online = more ads clicked. I work from home, but I still end up driving for several hours a week. Some people drive several hours a day. Lots of ads getting clicked if everyone has a self driving car.

It isn't silly to assume considering that an overwhelming majority of Google's revenue comes directly from advertisements.

As for self driving cars, I can think of a ton of marketing use cases including tracking how often people drive, where they go, how long they stay there, the frequency in which someone goes to a location, what type of features in the car the user takes advantage of...

And that's just from the top of my head in 30 seconds. I'm sure the marketing kids at Google can think of far more ways to milk you.

I suspect that technology giants like Google and Facebook are trying to wean themselves from ad revenue, to become conglomerates like other companies of that size, like GE.

The alternative is massive problems in a few years, when somebody has the guts to kickstart a consumer laptop that comes with adblock preinstalled.

You mean, smartphone with adblock pre-installed.

Android (and iOS) make it (intentionally?) much harder to install adblock than any pc browser.

It's silly to assume that Google has no aspirations beyond their current business. Ad revenue pays for their dreams...

I get the feeling that this "Google is doing X only because of ad revenue" meme is starting to get into Illuminati territory. I find it as believable as that thing a group of anti-vaxxers told me yesterday, that 'Bill Gates is really trying to depopulate the world using vaccines to sterilize people', as evidenced by 10 second quote from his 2010 TED talk, taken out of context.

You don't think making money is one of the goals behind Tesla or SpaceX?

Even if you have some other intrinsic motive, you gotta pay your employees with money, and you gotta get that money form somewhere.

Well, of course. That's why Elon said that Tesla and SpaceX need to be profitable; it's just not the primary goal.