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Comment by onlyrealcuzzo | Hacker News Reader

You really think Google -- who has floundered in this space for years -- is going to dominate a market that is already dominated by a company (Amazon) with a 50% larger market cap?

Walmart and Target have been trying to chip away at Amazon's lead, and they're only getting buried deeper in the dust. Google doesn't exactly have a reputation for entering new markets and dominating them, either...

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People don't search things on amazon, they search things on google, which link to amazon.

So yes, they have a huge potential.

They always have sucked doing things IRL, so it's not a certain win. But owning the road to the competition shop is powerful.

Not to mention they can force the hand of small shops: use our API or go down in ranking.

Is that still true? For most products Amazon search seems much improved to me, it used to be quite poor. Plus on mobile people may be biased to search via the app.

Most people don't even know what an URL is. They can't tell the difference between an app and a website. They think google is the internet. Hell, even the ones that do know better type the site URL into google to go to the site they want.

That's wrong. There was a study [1] on this exactly that found that most people (in the US I think) who search products start with Amazon and not Google. In one of the recent Amazon earning reports, they reported $10B advertisement revenue, which is another indication that direct product search on Amazon is huge.

[1] Google it :)

Most lists I've seen on the topic show Amazon as having the 3rd most trafficked search engine (after Google and YouTube)

Actually Google is getting shittier and crappier every day. Btw. I usually look for things on Amazon, they search engine has the same issue as Google's. Only spam (they call it ad) in the first N positions. I would seriously pay for a service which has no PII data collection (still can measure the effectiveness of your engine), no ads and relevant results.

>Google doesn't exactly have a reputation for entering new markets and dominating them, either...

Mobile OS's (Android)

Online Video (Youtube)

Online Maps (Google Maps)

Webmail (Gmail)

None recently, granted.

Weren't they all acquisitions?

Gmail wasn't.

Gmail was internal. Maps was mostly built by a couple acquisitions, but it wasn't anything like Youtube, where the acquired companies were big established players in the space.

Don't for get calendar and docs

I feel like MS Word (offline) still has a majority marketshare for general documenting, and calendars outlook also has a big chunk of the market.

Depends on where you draw the boundaries in markets certainly...

Yeah but all those are not IRL activities, so there is a small chance that they mess that up. They are really not good with real people.

I mean, looking at a map used to be an IRL activity.

Mapquest was already successful before Google maps.

So isn't that a perfect example of Google entering a new market and dominating it?

Google Maps is very much real life. And it was very easy to mess up. Big usability achievement.

In fact I think it's underrated. It truly changed my world. Earlier I was always nervous when driving and frequently speeding. It's so liberating to be able to call a friend and say "uh I'll be 8 minutes late, sorry".

Google photos was launched in 2015 and hit a billion users in 2019 [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Photos

> already dominated by a company (Amazon) with a 50% larger market cap?

I wouldn't if Amazon was doing a good job. Between the astroturf reviews, fake products and fictional shipping times Amazon leaves a lot to be desired.

But I do agree Google won't be the solution. Google is too hidebound and suspect now to solve this one.

I think the future is in independent online retailers. The good ones will thrive and the rest will vanish, and they aren't going to suffer the FAANGs any more than necessary.

No, but with Shopify, Woo Commerce, and Big Commerce - maybe.

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