Ask HN: Why doesn't Google offer more paid services? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why doesn't Google offer more paid services?

9 pointsgtirloni15 comments

E.g. Gmail and Search that doesn't show ads or track you everywhere.

Because advertising value of poor and dumb users of the internet is more profitable.

And Google is pretty bad at creating products so no one is willing to pay for them - Gmail, Search Google Cloud etc. - they can survive on the market only because they are free.

As long as Google products are free they can suffocate any potential competition. If Google products were paid for there would exist healthy competition that would marginalize Google in a blink of an eye.

Why do you think Google's product are bad? I find Gmail, GCloud (do you mean the Cloud Platform) ect work perfectly. What's wrong with them, apart for the "evilness" of collecting huge amounts of data of the user?

Well, Gmail was ok but then they decided to slow it down massively for no benefit. Sure paid services may work better, but "integrated" services are worth more so apple/google all in is the preferred approach.

All other paid mail options are better, such as protonmail etc. It's just too expensive for me though. So I use GMail. Google can beat competition with storage space, integration and infinite money from Google cash cow etc. But the products are crap and I concur with the other person who commented on it that it's just another Google product to show ads and track me.

What do you find in other services that you think is better? Like proton-mail vs gmail.

It works very well, no downsides, apart the fact I need to pay. I'm not the product.

Gmail web almost eat all my memory and is kind of shitty and not snappy at all. I think even office 365 looks better atm. I don't know what happened to google, but it's probably something really wrong. Maybe it got too big that nobody cares anymore?

disclaimer: employee

"Google is pretty bad at creating products so no one is willing to pay for them"

doesn't track when facebook switched to gmail after giving up on microsoft exchange.

edit: also I work in ads, but won't bother responding to the "google just wants to manipulate dumb people" point. if you're starting from the assumption of malice I don't think the discussion would lead anywhere. and probably don't want to say more anyway, will delegate that to PR.

Lots of people are paying for Gmail and Cloud, these are not good examples for your argument.

> Lots of people are paying for Gmail

You mean organizations who use it as their internal email service, correct? What, exactly, do you get compared to the free Gmail?

I mean personal domain, managed SSO, support, etc for starters.

Support and privacy plus your own domain.

Google makes money off the activity and behavior of people using their free products. They sell the data to the highest bidder. If it wasn't free nobody would use them. This is to serve them advertising and sell info to spammers and marketers than will send them email.

Just a quick correction, Google doesn't sell your data. They sell targetted ads, that is, they promise advertisers that their ads will reach whoever they require targetting.

Here are a few simplistic observations:

1. Let's consider 2 type of users to which ads could be served. The premium segment willing to pay have a certain profile. By removing the premium segment the entire group will have less value in the eyes of advertisers.

2. Google offers plenty of integrated services. They have only a few profitable when taken separately. Most of them are to support the few generating profit.

3. Would you pay separately for email, drive, search, ...? Probably not, so a flat price for all would make more sense. In this case you might be more valuable as part of a bigger pool of ad consumers. Remember you're a "premium" user willing to pay for certain services that you can have for free. A gold mine for advertisers. I should keep your contact for when I'll have some saas to sell.

4. If sold separately, each service will have at least one competitor specialized on a single product. Eg. Dropbox for Google drive.

5. They will probably have more premium/freemium services. People were missing the incentive to pay for something that could be free. Not anymore.

Google and Facebook not switching to more paid services is an open admission that subscriptions and paid does not work on the web in a sustainable/profitable way for b2c services that don't generate content. OR at least that the payment services are not there, or the fees are prohibitive, or deregulation is needed.

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