Has Google Muffed the Bunny? Translation: Is Googzilla from Warped Ad DNA?
February 3, 2021
I read “This is How Google will Collapse,” written not by a student allegedly named Daniel Colin James, affiliated in some way with an entity called Empirics Asia. Yep, another name ending in –ic like politic, semantic, and the worst word of this set ethic.
The write up is a dark prognosis for the GOOG. I visualized a somber physician telling a patient, “Look at the bright side, you have more years to live before you die an agonizingly slow death.”
The main point of the write up is that Google chased the hopes and dreams of artificial intelligence. That’s a useful endeavor, but Google did little to respond to certain user cohorts embracing ad blockers, Amazon taking the product search traffic from under Googzilla’s snout, and Facebook pushing hard into online advertising.
The write up notes:
Google’s then-CEO Sundar Pichai famously predicted in 2016 that “the next big step will be for the very concept of the ‘device’ to fade away” and that “over time, the computer itself — whatever its form factor — will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. We will move from mobile first to an AI first world.” Google’s ability to acknowledge the coming trend and still fail to land in front of it reminded many observers of its catastrophic failures in the booming industries of social media and instant messaging.
I circled in red this statement from the Empircs’ post:
Google was a driving force in the technology industry ever since its disruptive entry in 1998. But in a world where people despised ads, Google’s business model was not innovation-friendly, and they missed several opportunities to pivot, ultimately rendering their numerous grand and ambitious projects unsustainable. Innovation costs money, and Google’s main stream of revenue had started to dry up. In a few short years, Google had gone from a fun, commonplace verb to a reminder of how quickly a giant can fall.
Not exactly E=mc^2 but more of a what goes up must come down—sort of like a Loon balloon. The gas leaks out and then plop.
Stephen E Arnold, February 3, 2021
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