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Comment by collaborative | Hacker News Reader

It's a monopoly on eye balls. People don't casually walk in front of domain names, they must find them on Google

As a result, spending ad money on Google is ridiculously expensive, but companies accept this because there is no alternative hoping to "build long lasting relations" with the people who make them pay upwards of 1 dollar per click

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At the same time it is also a huge bubble, that Google is just hoping will never burst. People and businesses way overestimate the impact their ads are having and way underestimate the impact, that treating customers well can have.

I definitely think this is the strategy of google leaders, they've heard to much of "how do you monetize your products?" from investors and now they are maximizing profits for that current software generation. I wonder though if that bulk of money will be that much of an advantage when the tides turn. It could attract the wrong kind of leadership amongst other things like customer distrusts and turn the company into an IBM of some sort. Namely, I would rather maximize youtube premium memberships (which is at "only" 50 millions) over ads (surely they've local-maximized the balance between the two as it is) - but its easier said than done.

I think both are important. Word of mouth is useful and important but no one would use google to search to buy stuff if that was the only way to reach customers.

Also, if your established it probably a good idea not to let new competitors get a foot hold in the market with an easy google win.

It's also pretty effective for local businesses because not a lot of local businesses are tech savvy enough use it effectively.

> people who make them pay upwards of 1 dollar per click

FWIW, the cheapest (quality) clicks I've seen, at least in the B2B space, is closer to $3/click, and it can quickly balloon to upwards of $10/click especially on company brand names where competitors are bidding on another company's brand name.

Knowing this, I cringe every time I'm screensharing with someone and they search "[B2B Company] login" to login to a tool they use every day. Each login = $2-$10

It's not uncommon for companies to spend $100k+/year JUST bidding on their own company name.

It honestly escapes me how these companies can be sustainable. The whole market is sooo inefficient. Companies also pay crazy money to appear in privileged positions in supermarkets shelves, and they will often pay crazy money for simply being in the supermarket at all

I just don't get where all the marketing money is coming from. Bootstrapping is clearly not an option these days

Computers DOUBLED the productivity of the USA since the second world war. All that money went to a few people and groups, and none of it went to average people. For decades, companies have just been sloshing the same giant pile of cash around and around the Ads ecosystem.

That bag of chips did not cost $4 to make, not even a little close.

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