Good to see the post from the former Google Engineer. Everyone not able to read between the lines ATM should read that … cuz that’s exactly what’s going on.
It’s like if a bunch of empires or feudal states heard rumour that there was super rich gold mine somewhere in the mountains … they’d all be madly clamoring to conquer those mountains first so hard you’d get pure feverish chaos.
That’s what this AI moment is … all of big tech … they just want to win the platform war even if it doesn’t exist yet.
First Microsoft Windows in the 90s, then Apple and Google with smartphones and Facebook with social media … they are all lessons for the industry. Winning a platform war gets you at least a decade of printing money.
And it seems like a pernicious consequence of allowing and enabling monopolies. The more they succeed, then the bigger (and more inefficient) the fight is to become one.
In all those cases, it was mostly the better product that won.
Microsoft won with PCs in the 90s because its office suite was the best. Apple and Google were lightyears ahead of BlackBerry and Palm, and Facebook was a much better user experience than Myspace.
Google is going to lose this battle because their model is simply less useful than Copilot or ChatGPT(and those aren’t really great to begin with)
In all those cases, it was mostly the better product that won.
I’d suspect it’s not quite clean cut as that. Sure there may be reasons why a particular victor wins, but as for being “better”, I’d bet it’s always more complex than that. Windows Phone, for instance, probably a lot going for it but AFAICT, had a poor app dev experience or something, and so never took off.
Google is going to lose this battle because their model is simply less useful than Copilot or ChatGPT(and those aren’t really great to begin with)
Well, Google have a more clear path to monetisation with their ads business and more opportunities to leverage the internet with their search supremacy. Given that all AIs tend to be a bit crappy, being “good enough” may be enough for Google to be the last one standing.
Yeah, it’s never the best tech that wins. It’s the cheapest viable tech that wins. VHS/Beta, Windows/Mac, Nintendo/Turbografx, Kitchenaid/Viking. The list goes on.
Good to see the post from the former Google Engineer. Everyone not able to read between the lines ATM should read that … cuz that’s exactly what’s going on.
It’s like if a bunch of empires or feudal states heard rumour that there was super rich gold mine somewhere in the mountains … they’d all be madly clamoring to conquer those mountains first so hard you’d get pure feverish chaos.
That’s what this AI moment is … all of big tech … they just want to win the platform war even if it doesn’t exist yet.
First Microsoft Windows in the 90s, then Apple and Google with smartphones and Facebook with social media … they are all lessons for the industry. Winning a platform war gets you at least a decade of printing money.
And it seems like a pernicious consequence of allowing and enabling monopolies. The more they succeed, then the bigger (and more inefficient) the fight is to become one.
In all those cases, it was mostly the better product that won.
Microsoft won with PCs in the 90s because its office suite was the best. Apple and Google were lightyears ahead of BlackBerry and Palm, and Facebook was a much better user experience than Myspace.
Google is going to lose this battle because their model is simply less useful than Copilot or ChatGPT(and those aren’t really great to begin with)
I’d suspect it’s not quite clean cut as that. Sure there may be reasons why a particular victor wins, but as for being “better”, I’d bet it’s always more complex than that. Windows Phone, for instance, probably a lot going for it but AFAICT, had a poor app dev experience or something, and so never took off.
Well, Google have a more clear path to monetisation with their ads business and more opportunities to leverage the internet with their search supremacy. Given that all AIs tend to be a bit crappy, being “good enough” may be enough for Google to be the last one standing.
Yeah, it’s never the best tech that wins. It’s the cheapest viable tech that wins. VHS/Beta, Windows/Mac, Nintendo/Turbografx, Kitchenaid/Viking. The list goes on.