Comment by floatingatoll | Hacker News Reader

Comment by floatingatoll | Hacker News Reader

Their support site is far more valuable than the landing page.

From the main support index at https://support.google.com/googleone/ here are various tidbits of useful content that the surrounding HN comments wished for (sorry, none describe the "expert help" available):

"Get Google One":

https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9004013

> With Google One, you get more storage, help from experts, and extra member benefits. You can share your membership with up to 5 family members.

"How your existing storage works with Google One":

https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9004014

> You'll get storage through your Google One membership, which will become your new storage limit. You'll no longer buy storage through Google Drive.

"Claim a Benefit":

https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9003266

> Google One hotel deals depend on the day, time, and other factors. There might not be a deal for every hotel search.

https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9080668

"Learn where Google One is available":

> Create or join a family; Use Google Play Family Library; Subscribe to the Google Play Music family plan; Use a family calendar

How on Earth are hotel discounts related to cloud storage?

My guess would be a slow introduction of concierge type services linked into their phone AI thing that they launched 6 months ago to great fanfair, and a general move from software service companies (and my bank.) into offering concierge type services in general.

Banks have been doing concierge for ages, if you're at a "expensive enough" level (and it's not as expensive as one first might assume, my bank offers a full concierge service for 10 000€ / year that's basically "it's 2 am and you want something specific and you're wherever, call this number and we'll find it for you").

I don't think tech companies can compete with that; if you want a concierge on retainer you want a guy you can talk to and explain your weird request. Nobody is paying 10+k a month to get a "barely close enough" answer. I also don't believe that's what they aim.

Instead they intend to go for the "fake concierge, but close enough": tie-ins into all their sub products, in an unified subscription and interface, at a small fraction of the cost. Oh you want an hotel ? We have that. Renting a car ? Buying a musical instrument ? Make a reservation at a restaurant ? Done. Oh, you want that actually unique request that does not get enough volume by month to be a business on its own ? No, we don't do that, but here is the google search results for it.

In other words, I believe Google One aims to play in the same court as Amazon Prime.

Founder’s Club is a good example of the mid-tier concierge services, as it exists exclusively to provide concierge-like discounts for a specific demographic target at a significant enough to overcome the “not enough volume” concern that banks face.

These discount services have one critical weakness for most of us: you must spend at least 10x the membership fee each year on compatible services to benefit from the discounts. If you don’t spend at least $2000/year on eligble costs, paying $200/year for discounts rarely makes any sense once you add up the money saved.

Credit cards try to democratize through “points” but the same math applies when comparing to a debit card.

Yeah, the hotel benefits creep me out. At first glance, it’s an iCloud-like storage plan, fine. But reading more and finding the hotel benefits makes me think “oh right, Google wants to track everything I do online and offline and sell my info to advertisers.”

Yep it creates a direct connection between a cloud service and what you type in Google search box. That... seems strange. It make it sound like a repository for all of your data/activity on all Google services not just, you know, the data you upload to their cloud service.

hotels are cloud storage for people?

Yes.

Maybe they try to move toward aAmazon Prime-Style "one subsription to feed all your live-areas"-Service. Next time they might add pLay store-flatrates for books, video, music, apps and then combine it with youtube premium.

It doesn't even include a messaging platform!

They’re both offered by Google.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com