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Comment by armitron | Hacker News Reader

No matter what happens with Stadia and its market, Google simply cannot afford to kill the projects in the next few years. It would be a huge blow to their already tarnished reputation wrt keeping services alive. They need to prove to the world that they can long-term commit to major challenges even if they are suffering in the short-term.

Judging by Alphabet's stock price and their years of shuttering services at the cost of their reputation, it seems shareholders disagree with you.

They're not mutually exclusive. Google's search and advertising cash cow is so profitable, the company grows despite its boneheaded mistakes in so many other areas. If you read the article, every single developer mentioned they have no trust in Google not canning the service, and who can blame them? At this point, it's becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

> every single developer mentioned they have no trust in Google not canning the service

I never said developers have faith in Google. I said shareholders do. My point is Google doesn't really care what developers think.

But that's kinda the problem. If Google doesn't care what developers think, they are very unlikely to succeed with Stadia.

I agree. I actually think Alphabet's long-term (10+ years) future is pretty grim.

It doesn't untill it does.

Their business depends on developers just like Lehman brother's depended on the mortgage market. Pride before fall, etc.

You ignore facts on the ground at your peril.

So what happens when more people start using ad blockers and advertisers move more toward FB where ads are harder to block and better targeted?

Out of the major tech companies - Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google.

Google is one of the least diversified and has been the least able to pivot over the past decade.

That's why Chrome market share is so important for Google, and why they will stop other advertiser to use it, and adblockers too. Chrome is the advertising channel for Google... and the entry point for Google Ads

And when ad blockers get so much better on other browsers people can switch. Especially now that IE is Chromium based.

Also in the US and to a lesser extent other developed countries, the wealthier more lucrative users are using iOS. Google knows this. That’s why they pay Apple a reported 8-12 billion a year to be the default search engine for iOS.

Improving their stock price is exactly what they've been spending their reputation on by doing this - if the stock price had also tanked then this strategy would have been an absolute failure on every axis. It's undeniably bought them better numbers in the short term; the argument is that they are killing their long term potential.

there's an interesting thought exercise i read where someone suggests Google stock would go through the roof if they fired their entire workforce and cut all R&D and just coasted on the ad business

For all of the lack of success they’ve had with everything else, if they just focused on

Ads, GSuite, Youtube, Android, Chrome, and GCP, how much would it affect their profit?

If that's the case, they should consider some kind of official statement that they'll provide support until at least X date.

Then they have to actually provide support until at least X date. Which, if it’s not successful, they don’t want to do.

> They need to prove to the world that they can long-term commit to major challenges even if they are suffering in the short-term.

Isn't that Waymo?

Disclsure: Work at Google, but opinions are my own.

Waymo hasn't launched, so it can't flounder and flop.

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