Ask HN: How much would Google make if they charged for their products/services?

1 pointspung1 comment

On the topic of trusting Google with personal data--if Google charged an all-access price (e.g. $10/mo) for access to Gmail, Docs, Sheets, YouTube, Maps etc., how would this business model compare to today's strategy of free services with ads?

Would you pay for the added privacy?

View on HN

They do:

https://gsuite.google.com/

(They market it as "for business", but I know several people who pay for it on their personal domain just for fewer ads, and once subscribed myself just so I could get a me@customdomain.com GMail address & YouTube account.)

It works well for people with disposable income, but a small minority of America has disposable income these days. Google probably makes a lot more money selling advertisements against everyone else than they would if they charged everybody for products, and it lets the general public access products that they'd never get otherwise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com