The Fall of Google

2010.01.24   prev     next

The fall of Google? That’s right, you heard it here first. (Far as I know.)

Google was launched with a really clever, genius discovery: the recursive PageRank system that drives the Google search engine, and that drove the other, pre-existing search engines into obscurity.

Then Google came out with Gmail. While not as genius as PageRank, Gmail did feature a few very nice ideas that weren’t being implemented in existing webmail systems: It wasn’t littered with in-your-face ads; it encouraged you to keep all your old emails, not to delete them, nor sort them into folders, and instead to search them to find what you want; and it displayed replies with their original message as a single, stacked thread, so messages that go together are viewed together. Very nice indeed — but nowhere near as revolutionary as Google search.

Then came Google Maps. A substantial improvement over both MapPoint and MapQuest.

What’s come out recently from Google? The Chrome web-browser. Read the Chrome comic book and you will be impressed with how many nice improvements they are making to the traditional web-browser. But use Chrome for a bit, and how different is it, really, from pre-existing browsers? Not a lot.

So we see a pattern of a really awesome app launching the company, a couple fairly awesome apps sustaining the reputation, and then a yeah-that’s-a-good-idea app not really doing much.

And now we have Android. Another OS. What’s so great about that? And the Android phones — yikes. A plethora of iPhone wannabes with very limited app space, and far less than 1% of mobile apps. Google’s own Nexus One is made by HTC, the unoriginal manufacturer of most Windows Mobile phones, plus a bunch of other boring phones besides.

The pattern almost couldn’t be more consistent:

• PageRank utterly blew away all prior search engines.

• Gmail beat the other web-mail sites pretty handily, but didn’t exactly blow them away.

• Google Maps did beat other map programs, but not handily.

• Chrome hasn’t beaten the other browsers, but is doing pretty well in their space.

• Android isn’t even doing that well — and is going virtually nowhere as a percentage of mobile apps.

Google ran a a big help-wanted ad several years ago that said only this:

If you figured out that puzzle and went to the website, you found an even trickier puzzle. Solving that one led you to a job application. You can imagine what kind of person it attracted. Whacky math whizzes who might be able to manipulate some very complex formulas on those rather rare occasions when a company in the computer business needs that sort of thing. But also probably without a creative, aesthetic bone in their body. And so it shouldn’t be at all surprising that every successful product Google has made (search, Gmail, Maps, Chrome browser) is just a close copy of someone else’s pre-existing product, but with technical efficiency improvements under the hood.

The people at Google aren’t just uncreative math whizzes — they also are idealists who believe that things should be “free” and that they’re certain to be better when they’re free. This vision, I think, arises naturally in the particular breed of programmer who spent a lot of his time hanging out with other programmers, and writing little, free apps that impressed the group. Hence, Google thinks it can do the same thing to iPhone that it did to AltaVista, HotMail, MapQuest, and to some extent FireFox, by making things “free” and “open.”

But Google beat out AltaVista, HotMail, and MapQuest not by making “free” or “open” products, but by making technical, under-the-hood, mechanical improvements. I’m not seeing anything like that in the Droid or the Nexus One. Google’s apparently hoping that “open” will work the same magic that PageRank did when their company was starting. It won’t.

Similar to Google’s groundbreaking discovery of the magic of PageRank, is Apple’s discovery of the incredible magic that happens when developers are freed from rampant piracy, as well as from the costs and hassles of packaging, distribution, and credit-card handling. What happens is that development goes into turbo overdrive.

And contrary to Google’s hopes, most skilled, creative programmers are happy to trade the freedom to release their app “freely” (i.e. without the computer maker’s approval) for freedom from piracy, freedom from distributor approval, freedom from packaging, freedom from credit-card handling, and all the other things that prevent most developers’ apps from ever being available to the consumer, and for the lucky remainder, leaves them with maybe 10-20% of sales — 30% if they’re really lucky indeed.

How about virtually no piracy? How about 70% of sales, and no hassles or barriers at all, save Apple’s approval, which — despite not-so-subtle implications to the contrary — is easily obtained for well over 99.9% of apps?

And now that Google is obviously trying to relegate the iPhone to the trashcan of AltaVista and HotMail, why should Apple play nice any more? The hot rumor is that Apple is working on their own replacements for the Google technologies that are currently in heavy use on the iPhone.

Good luck, Google. You’re going to need it. And savant-like math skills aren’t going to save the day.

Update 2010.01.31 — My thoughts exactly.

Update 2010.03.27 — iAd, April 7th?

Update 2011.09.23 — Apple apparently is ditching Samsung for other memory chip suppliers, in retaliation for Samsung’s shameless cloning of Apple’s hardware, packaging, and advertising. Maybe Apple’s long-term strategy is to dump anyone who tries to stab them in the back. Word to the wise.

Update 2011.11.09 — Apple just bought a really far-out mapping company.