There's always been a touch of Willy Wonka style unreality about Google Fiber.
Municipalities across the U.S. know that their broadband sucks, and they wrote proposals to Google in lieu of real action, hoping Google could solve their problems with their magic wand.
Google still has a "non-evil" and academic reputation in some quarters, although anybody who makes a living on the streets of the internet knows that Google is the most dangerous and rapacious company on the net. People think, for instance, that Google is a noble warrior against web spam, although Google sustains web spam by (i) being the only signficant source of traffic for many site types, and (ii) making it possible to monetize crappy content. In fact, Google has gained "question answering" capabilities in the last few years thanks to web spam farms run by companies like eHow.
What gets me is that, in a time where the world is overflowing with capital (signified by low interest rates and general low investment returns) both the private and public sectors in the U.S. seem completely indifferent to investments in infrastructure.
(And why should they? Telecom companies can make minimal investments in infrastructure and charge champagne prices for beer products.)
Google steps in because, like Microsoft, they've got a small number of wildly profitable products and an inability to use the profits from those products to create new products of comparable profitability.
This is good for Kansas City, but it's one of just a long list of distractions, such as snake oil fixed wireless schemes for rural access, that have stood in the way of a real national plan for broadband U.S.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but what's the problem? It seems to me that the worst senario here is that Google supplants traditional telcos, and essentially becomes another monopoly for >1Gbps web access. Compared with what we have today, I'm pretty happy with that outcome.
Actually, the worst outcome will be that the general public doesn't care enough, Google fiber flops, and the traditional model becomes further entrenched.
I would also be a bit happier with a real, innovative, public broadband program. I don't think the US has the political culture to pull that off.
> In fact, Google has gained "question answering" capabilities in the last few years thanks to web spam farms run by companies like eHow.
I was under the general impression that they're trying to minimize this. It also seems like this kind of plague would affect any dominant search engine.
> I would also be a bit happier with a real, innovative, public broadband program. I don't think the US has the political culture to pull that off.
The political culture is one that caters to specific groups. If it was "broadband for farmers" then you'd get the farm lobby pushing for it. If it was "broadband for the poor" then you'd get the food stamp crowd on board. If it was "broadband for investment banks" then you might get the bank crowd on board.
The fact that most infrastructure doesn't get broad-based political support is a symptom of "what's in it for me." It why it's so difficult to solve problems like Air Traffic Control systems being from the 1970s -- most people think, "I only fly once in a while, so why should I give up <insert preferred program here> in order to pay for upgrading the ATC system?" Sure, many people use the internet, but the average user doesn't think about how much better things could be.
I get it -- broadband would benefit everyone either directly or indirectly, but it's hard to sell those benefits to the general electorate because money for broadband would mean less money for some other, more politically "interesting" project.
I don't think anyone in America (Republican, Democrat, Independent) wants terrible infrastructure. The political hot potato is deciding how to pay for it. Regardless of tax or spending philosophies, it necessarily follows that spending on X takes money from Y. With money we spent for 1 year in Iraq, we could have paid for national broadband (among other things), however we also spend $80 billion per year on food stamps. Both of those priorities however, have some unexpected consequences. The defense contractors make money, but it also creates jobs and stimulates economic output (see WWII). Food stamps also create taxable events and drives economic activity, though both activities, when viewed in purely economic terms are net losses for the economy, the degree of which is outside of the scope of this discussion. Public broadband on the other hand would be a net gain for the economy because increased infrastructure efficiency greases the wheels of the entire economy. Better roads = lower trucking costs and more consumption and therefore more spending and jobs. However, it's hard to quantify those theoretical benefits to the electorate. Same goes for public broadband.
There are some tasks ideally suited for government and utilities, infrastructure, police/fire, defense are certainly among them. Public broadband is more relevant to governmental roles than subsidizing private business (i.e. GM, Fiskar, Solyndra, Bank of America, etc.) Our infrastructure should be "too big to fail," but alas..
I'll say that you can have good times for a while with the "Big G" but there will come a day when they need to post better numbers for their investors and they decide the little bit of margin from their ecosystem belongs to them.
Back in the 1990's, venture capitalists wouldn't fund any company that competed with Microsoft. For quite a long time, there's been no funding for companies that compete with Google. Thus, there's a "lost generation" of companies that have never gotten off the ground since to Google's dominance of the web landscape.
Have you used adwords? I have. And it is pretty transparent about almost everything that should be available to the advertiser. They certanly have the website base and actively moniter ads for inapprpiate content, increasing overall prosperity of the network. Although it could get them more money, they play for long term and keep the standard high. They need to make money like every other company.
Comments
There's always been a touch of Willy Wonka style unreality about Google Fiber.
Municipalities across the U.S. know that their broadband sucks, and they wrote proposals to Google in lieu of real action, hoping Google could solve their problems with their magic wand.
Google still has a "non-evil" and academic reputation in some quarters, although anybody who makes a living on the streets of the internet knows that Google is the most dangerous and rapacious company on the net. People think, for instance, that Google is a noble warrior against web spam, although Google sustains web spam by (i) being the only signficant source of traffic for many site types, and (ii) making it possible to monetize crappy content. In fact, Google has gained "question answering" capabilities in the last few years thanks to web spam farms run by companies like eHow.
What gets me is that, in a time where the world is overflowing with capital (signified by low interest rates and general low investment returns) both the private and public sectors in the U.S. seem completely indifferent to investments in infrastructure.
(And why should they? Telecom companies can make minimal investments in infrastructure and charge champagne prices for beer products.)
Google steps in because, like Microsoft, they've got a small number of wildly profitable products and an inability to use the profits from those products to create new products of comparable profitability.
This is good for Kansas City, but it's one of just a long list of distractions, such as snake oil fixed wireless schemes for rural access, that have stood in the way of a real national plan for broadband U.S.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but what's the problem? It seems to me that the worst senario here is that Google supplants traditional telcos, and essentially becomes another monopoly for >1Gbps web access. Compared with what we have today, I'm pretty happy with that outcome.
Actually, the worst outcome will be that the general public doesn't care enough, Google fiber flops, and the traditional model becomes further entrenched.
I would also be a bit happier with a real, innovative, public broadband program. I don't think the US has the political culture to pull that off.
> In fact, Google has gained "question answering" capabilities in the last few years thanks to web spam farms run by companies like eHow.
I was under the general impression that they're trying to minimize this. It also seems like this kind of plague would affect any dominant search engine.
> I would also be a bit happier with a real, innovative, public broadband program. I don't think the US has the political culture to pull that off.
The political culture is one that caters to specific groups. If it was "broadband for farmers" then you'd get the farm lobby pushing for it. If it was "broadband for the poor" then you'd get the food stamp crowd on board. If it was "broadband for investment banks" then you might get the bank crowd on board.
The fact that most infrastructure doesn't get broad-based political support is a symptom of "what's in it for me." It why it's so difficult to solve problems like Air Traffic Control systems being from the 1970s -- most people think, "I only fly once in a while, so why should I give up <insert preferred program here> in order to pay for upgrading the ATC system?" Sure, many people use the internet, but the average user doesn't think about how much better things could be.
I get it -- broadband would benefit everyone either directly or indirectly, but it's hard to sell those benefits to the general electorate because money for broadband would mean less money for some other, more politically "interesting" project.
I don't think anyone in America (Republican, Democrat, Independent) wants terrible infrastructure. The political hot potato is deciding how to pay for it. Regardless of tax or spending philosophies, it necessarily follows that spending on X takes money from Y. With money we spent for 1 year in Iraq, we could have paid for national broadband (among other things), however we also spend $80 billion per year on food stamps. Both of those priorities however, have some unexpected consequences. The defense contractors make money, but it also creates jobs and stimulates economic output (see WWII). Food stamps also create taxable events and drives economic activity, though both activities, when viewed in purely economic terms are net losses for the economy, the degree of which is outside of the scope of this discussion. Public broadband on the other hand would be a net gain for the economy because increased infrastructure efficiency greases the wheels of the entire economy. Better roads = lower trucking costs and more consumption and therefore more spending and jobs. However, it's hard to quantify those theoretical benefits to the electorate. Same goes for public broadband.
There are some tasks ideally suited for government and utilities, infrastructure, police/fire, defense are certainly among them. Public broadband is more relevant to governmental roles than subsidizing private business (i.e. GM, Fiskar, Solyndra, Bank of America, etc.) Our infrastructure should be "too big to fail," but alas..
/rant truncated
> anybody who makes a living on the streets of the internet knows that Google is the most dangerous and rapacious company on the net.
I make a living on the streets of the internet, and could not disagree more with your conclusion.
You don't speak for everyone, because you certainly don't speak for me.
I'll say that you can have good times for a while with the "Big G" but there will come a day when they need to post better numbers for their investors and they decide the little bit of margin from their ecosystem belongs to them.
Back in the 1990's, venture capitalists wouldn't fund any company that competed with Microsoft. For quite a long time, there's been no funding for companies that compete with Google. Thus, there's a "lost generation" of companies that have never gotten off the ground since to Google's dominance of the web landscape.
You are clearly in a minority though. I bet that at least 80% of internet marketers hate Google.
Have you used adwords? I have. And it is pretty transparent about almost everything that should be available to the advertiser. They certanly have the website base and actively moniter ads for inapprpiate content, increasing overall prosperity of the network. Although it could get them more money, they play for long term and keep the standard high. They need to make money like every other company.
Not really but a friend of mine was scammed out of $40k legit AdSense earnings.
As for the quality of AdWords - I have not forgotten about the 500 million dollar fine Google received for pharmacy ads.
> Not really but a friend of mine was scammed out of $40k legit AdSense earnings.
Can you give more details? Are you/he suggesting Google scammed him? Any reason/evidence to believe so?
> As for the quality of AdWords - I have not forgotten about the 500 million dollar fine Google received for pharmacy ads.
Adwords is better when compared to competitors. This does not mean it is perfect. Automation can do only so much.