Hacker News Reader

Comment by chiefalchemist | Hacker News Reader

Customers? I think you mean users. People using Google are not its customers. These people are the source of its raw materials.

Google's custoners are the entities that purchase the products Google produces with that raw materials (i.e., data).

This will help get you up to speed.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...

View on HN

People do pay for Google products, Gmail and Google Maps being some of the most common.

Corporations are typically on the hook for those bills; very rare for an individual human person to be directly responsible.

Just to point out services that average consumers do actually pay for: YouTube Premium, apps and media on Google Play (which Google gets their cut of), Google hardware (Nest/Home products, Pixel products, etc.), Google Fi and Fiber, and increased storage in Drive and Google Photos. There's undoubtedly others I am forgetting as well.

Of all the users and all of Google's revenue, what percentage are we talking about? It's not as significant as you're assuming.

I never said it was. It definitely pales in comparison to ad sales and enterprise business. Just pointing out that there are indeed consumers who are paying Google for products and services.

And what percentage of Google's revenue is that?

It is by no means their bread and butter. In fact, it's been argued (by Thiel) that much of Google activity outside its core business is a smokescreen for its monopoly and other exploits in data harvesting/advertising.

I pay for additional Google Drive storage.

Do you pay full price? For do you think that price is subsidized by Google's ability to harvest your online activity?

I suggest you list to the link above. You're not the customer.

In fact I believe I do. I just checked it again, and they have exactly the same (or higher) prices as major competitors (MEGA, Dropbox, OneDrive, Backblaze).

One product is not a business model. Please take a moment to update your software:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com