Google cannibalizing their assets? Isn’t it a bit early for that? | Hacker News Reader

Google cannibalizing their assets? Isn’t it a bit early for that?

thenextweb.com

15 pointsjoop22 comments

They know that only a fraction of the user base will ever use it (because they certainly won't ship with it, anymore than Firefox does). They know people shutting off ads aren't clicking anyhow. They know that the people savvy enough to use the ad blocker are also the leading edge people who recommend browsers to other people.

Finally... how would they block ad blockers, even if they wanted to? Ad-blocking proxies are just as feasible as ever. And Chrome is supposed to be open source.

Conclusion: Instead of fighting what you can't fight, roll with it, get the leading edge people on your side, then cash in on the marketshare of the masses who don't block ads.

It's not really that mysterious... unless you're trapped in first-order thinking.

a few months ago we visited an Internet start-up where the CEO told us a funny story of how one of his developers used an Ad Blocker. He took the developer aside and explained to him that their whole business, his company and his salary depended on income on ads. He explained to the developer that if he wanted to work in this business it would be odd to fight the economic systems that pay for your food. The developer ended up removing the ad blocker.

This is some of the worst writing I've read in a while. Good work. (What exactly is funny about this story? Employee does something, boss says no, employee complies. I guess the funny part is that the employee is wiling to work for a micro-manager like this "CEO"?)

Anyway, I used to work for an ad company. We all blocked ads. Ads are annoying and ugly, and we were not our company's revenue source, so it didn't matter.

I am looking forward to an IE release that blocks Google ads, and a Chrome release the blocks non-Google ads. That will be very fun to watch.

I think Google knows the success of Chrome depends on the plugin community. The open support of AdBlock is a signal that Google will prioritize user interests over everything else.

Seems like a smart move to me -- getting Chrome out is strategically important -- browser diversification mitigates bigger risks, such as MS pushing a default ad blocker through ie; and helps them raise the bar on all browsers (esp. js rendering) to make their web apps run better.

Well, I would think it's safe to assume that most people who have Google Chrome are trailblazers in the online world and probably don't click on a lot of ads and make them money anyway. Also, looking at the browser statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers) Google Chrome is just about 0.74% of the browser market.

Right now it's important for them to get Chrome on more computers. It will be interesting to see if this strategy changes when Chrome starts getting more traction.

What are some examples of companies cannibalizing their own business and suffering because of that? Has it ever happened?

Sun, perhaps, with Java. Business-wise, it makes very little sense for a company that makes expensive proprietary hardware to develop a programming language that lets you write once and run anywhere.

The connection is pretty tenuous though - Linux may've eaten Sun's lunch anyway. But it would've been a little harder if we had to port all our #ifdef'd C++ software from Sun servers to commodity Linux Dell boxes, instead of just moving a few JAR files over.

I'm still not seeing that connection, as it lowered the barriers to entry of using their product and gave them the platform to say "we have the best hardware for running Java".

It lowered the barriers to entry for using everybody else's product too, though. I think it probably helped other people more than Sun, though. IIRC, the Sparc had a pretty advanced development environment in the mid-90s, yet developing on/for a Linux system in the same time period was pretty painful.

And they said "we have the best hardware for running Java", but the average business doesn't care. They just want their software to run, cheaply and fast. Everybody I know runs their Java apps on commodity Dell servers. Maybe it was different in the first dot-com boom; IIRC, Sun servers were the big thing back then.

Many chain stores end up doing this. Krispy Kreme had a great business because people would drive an hour out of their way to eat there -- but that means that having two locations within an hour of each other is redundant.

Starbucks does this intentionally. They place franchises within walking distance of each other (in downtown Boston, there are literally 2 Starbucks on opposite sides of the block), knowing that they'll cannibalize each other's sales. But they do it for branding reasons: by placing stores so close together, they make Starbucks ubiquitous and turn it into a cultural phenomenom, which helps the corporate bottom line at the expense of individual franchisees.

It seems to have worked fairly well, at least up until the recent economic downturn.

Dunkin Donuts as well. In my town, there are 3 Dunkin Donuts within a 500 foot triangle. One is standalone, one's in a supermarket, one's in a gas station.

Starbucks does not franchise operations.

http://www.starbucks.com/customer/faq_qanda.asp?name=common

Crossing the street during a morning commute in a busy city is not trivial. There probably is some cannibalization of sales, but they may make up for it with the people who don't want to take the extra minute or two it costs to cross the street during rush-hour.

I'd be interested to see data on this.

What's the install base for AdBlock on Firefox?

I don't think Google has anything to worry about, only the geeky are going to block ads (and invite all the headaches involved in doing so)

As a web designer, I need to see the web as my customer does, which means I don't use AdBlock or Greasemonkey etc.

Makes perfect sense. Somebody will be providing an ad blocker no matter what. If it is Google then they get to control how it works, why it works and when it works.

well, yes and no. They aren't writing it but inviting (urging?) other developers to come up with one. That kind of surprised me...

Sounds about right.

It's been a while since I last had cause to use the google toolbar but didn't that have a adblocker?

This news doesn't seem all that surprising.

[edit]Just realised I'm mixing pop-up blockers and adblockers. I don't think this makes the parent comment any less valid.

I instead thought "Other browsers will have ad blockers, so there are people who won't use Chrome if it doesn't have one." Implying that Google might consider that market segment and the browser strategy pretty darn important. Just a different take.

I think I agree with you. As an outsider Chrome looks like an application platform/sandbox for Google apps ('Google's AIR') that is just disguised as a browser. With their own platform they can move features more quickly than by fitting the apps into whatever box Apple/MS/Mozilla build. It could be the early MS playbook all over again. So...

Build whichever browser components remove barriers to entry for users (ad block, compatibility with many existing web apps, better performance/stability/ease of use, etc.) => build widespread adoption => commoditize desktop operating systems.

products of large companies traditionally suffer by having to strategically support other products of the same company. This is a major reason why products of large companies often get beaten by products of smaller uncommited ones. If Google has truly decided not to go this route with Chrome (or any of its products), I think is pretty great.

The next big step for chrome would be if it could use any firefox plugin ;) I know its almost an oxymoron.

Firefox extensions use too much of Firefox's internals to be portable to another browser. That's why extensions often break between minor releases of Firefox.

If you want portability, write a user script (greasemonkey), not an extension.

I think, people who write, should perhaps, and want, read just the basics about grammar, and how to use, commas.

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