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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

Google's future is markedly better than Facebook's ? No way.

Facebook has stickiness and the network effects to keep people on it. Google has none of that. If a better search engine appeared overnight everyone would switch to it and that would be the end of Google. If a better social network appeared very few people would switch. In fact I would postulate that if Microsoft managed to convince Mozilla and Apple to change the default search engines to Bing that it could be almost enough to send Google into a death spiral.

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How many people do you know who use gmail? Every time they go on the webmail client they are pretty much back on Google's homepage.

Between all the people who use Android, Chrome, gmail etc, Google would be just fine if Apple and Mozilla changed default search engines.

At the moment, Facebook are a one trick pony that many people can easily live without.

Literally one-hundred percent of the people I know who are really serious about email are moving away from Gmail. It was only in mid-2012 that they passed Hotmail for being the biggest email service in the world. Gmail is very popular among certain types of (mostly technical) people.

In fact, it's probably Android that has put them over the edge. Gmail still has a fragile position. At least as far as my browsing habits are concerned, using Gmail didn't lead me back to google search or any of their other services.

Could you imagine what the world would look like if somehow in 4 or 5 years Firefox OS ended up eating Android's lunch?

Search is a major component of their advertising business, which these days is their core business. If people switched they'd definitely be in a major pinch.

Most people I know use gmail, and not a single one of them is thinking of changing due to privacy concerns (as far as I know). What better option is there for a non-technical person anyway?

80%+ of people who own smartphones use android, and they have phones for most niches - big, small, cheap, stylus, unlockable, replaceable battery etc. They have several manufacturers making phones with it. Their position there is not fragile either.

I'd love to see Firefox take off, but there is no way it is going to be bigger than Android.

Sure, there is a very small chance that everyone will stop using Google's products, but the chances of people moving off Facebook is much greater.

People said the same things about iPhones, Blackberries before that and Palm before them.

There is always some company that's going to eat the dominant company's lunch.

To think otherwise is to ignore history.

You are missing my point. It is not that it is impossible for people to move away from Google, just that it is far more likely that they will move away from Facebook.

And I don't remember anyone saying that people wouldn't eventually move away from iPhones, blackberries and Palm pilots. People might move away from Android, but it would take many years, and it probably won't be en masse to FFOS.

Facebook has stickiness and the network effects to keep people on it

People thought that about Myspace as well.

If a better social network appeared very few people would switch

Yeah, right. A wholesale exodus from Facebook isn't just possible, it's likely, if not inevitable, IMO. Just based on historical trends... the Internet is fickle, man.

> If a better social network appeared very few people would switch.

As evidenced by MySpace? With social networks you can split your time between many, the worse ones' usage gradually decaying. The network effect is there but it's not like everybody has to switch at the same time.

Didn't Mypace also enjoy a network effect?

No, it did not. Myspace existed before the concept of social networking really solidifed. Not to mention that Myspace was much more niche in that its main userbase was the young and somewhat technically savvy. Myspace was more of a homepage-builder than it was a social network the way we think of it today.

The concept of social networking solidified with Facebook, and they were in the perfect position to capitalize on the masses moving to the internet for a large chunk of their pass-time. Network effects just didn't exist for Myspace, as seen by the handful of social networks that existed simultaneously with it. Facebook changed the game, and they will dominate until something else similarly changes the game. Whatever it will be, it will look nothing like Facebook.

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