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Comment by lalos | Hacker News Reader

As long as Google reports 90% of the revenue from a single stream (Ads), anything else is a pet project that can be canceled or left to rot since there is no strong incentive to keep working on it. I try to back up whatever work I do on any Google service. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me -> Google graveyard for more info: https://www.lifewire.com/google-graveyard-products-1616198

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Ads for google probably is monetization schema now days, and not single stream of revenue. Stream is likely very diversified: search, youtube, mobile search, maps, AdSense, AdMob, shopping. So, they have incentive to try to build new product and monetize them using Ads, it just doesn't always work, and they shutdown products/features.

Yeap, I was talking about the actual reporting of income and you are on the same page as me "stream is LIKELY very diversified...". We just don't have that info, therefore I don't know the services that are winners and the losers. Am I using a service on the loser side?

There's a caveat there; Google is very incentivized to keep around any service on which it can display those ads! Gmail isn't going away any time soon in large part for that reason.

Yes but there's another caveat there, I don't have that info. How do I know that Google Reader (remember it?) generates data that can be mined for their profit and how do I know it doesn't until they announce that they kill it? I know that mail and search are untouchable, was talking about the broader services.

Does Gmail show ads? I had the impression that was not the case now.

Another question is if gmail content is source of targeting data.

They have "Promotions" for Gmail, but you can disable them, although I don't think Google explicitly tells you that it's an option. Google also doesn't use your Gmail emails for ad targeting or tracking, as per this quote:

> When you open Gmail, you'll see ads that were selected to show you the most useful and relevant ads. The process of selecting and showing personalized ads in Gmail is fully automated. These ads are shown to you based on your online activity while you're signed into Google. We will not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads.

from this page:

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en

I just got one in the inbox list for Nokia (by a reseller) - not an email: clicking it takes you to an advertisement.

Edit: I have noticed adverts depend on how your access Google e.g. I found the iOS YouTube app way worse than the website in the browser.

This is likely based on how captive of an audience they believe they have at the moment.

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