Google Profits Plummet 27% In Q3 (arstechnica.com) 51
Google's parent company Alphabet released its Q3 2022 earnings yesterday and "they show a 27 percent drop in profits compared to last year, with weaker-than-expected earnings and revenue," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Revenue was up 6 percent year over year to $69.1 billion, a sharp growth decline from 2021 Q3, which saw 41 percent growth. Profits were at $13.9 billion, down from $18.9 billion in Q3 2021. As usual, Alphabet earnings are mostly about Google ad revenue and click-through rates, with the company citing reduced spending from the "insurance, loan, mortgage, and crypto subcategories" in particular. Worries about the economy and inflation are causing many Google customers to cut their ad budgets.
Alphabet doesn't break down the non-ads business in much detail, but the two biggest money losers on Alphabet's reports are the "Other Bets" section and Google Cloud. Other Bets lost $1.6 billion, more than the $1.29 billion loss a year ago. "Other Bets" is the "non-Google" part of Alphabet and includes long-term R&D projects like Waymo self-driving cars and the "Wing" drone delivery project. Google says the only significant revenue generators for Other Bets are the "health technology" projects -- that would be Verily and/or Calico -- and "Internet services," aka Google Fiber.
The other big loser is Google Cloud, which lost $699 million this quarter, up from $644 million in Q3 2021. "Google Cloud" on the earnings report combines the Amazon Web Services-fighting infrastructure business and Google Workspace's suite of productivity apps like Gmail and Google Docs. Workspace definitely earns money by showing ads to its 3 billion users, charging for user storage, and charging businesses for Gmail accounts with custom domains. The infrastructure business -- Google Cloud Platform -- is growing, but it's still struggling as the No. 3 cloud provider behind Amazon and Microsoft. Google is taking a "longer-term path to profitability" with Cloud Platform.
Alphabet doesn't break down the non-ads business in much detail, but the two biggest money losers on Alphabet's reports are the "Other Bets" section and Google Cloud. Other Bets lost $1.6 billion, more than the $1.29 billion loss a year ago. "Other Bets" is the "non-Google" part of Alphabet and includes long-term R&D projects like Waymo self-driving cars and the "Wing" drone delivery project. Google says the only significant revenue generators for Other Bets are the "health technology" projects -- that would be Verily and/or Calico -- and "Internet services," aka Google Fiber.
The other big loser is Google Cloud, which lost $699 million this quarter, up from $644 million in Q3 2021. "Google Cloud" on the earnings report combines the Amazon Web Services-fighting infrastructure business and Google Workspace's suite of productivity apps like Gmail and Google Docs. Workspace definitely earns money by showing ads to its 3 billion users, charging for user storage, and charging businesses for Gmail accounts with custom domains. The infrastructure business -- Google Cloud Platform -- is growing, but it's still struggling as the No. 3 cloud provider behind Amazon and Microsoft. Google is taking a "longer-term path to profitability" with Cloud Platform.
Still hugely profitable (Score:2, Interesting)
Google earned almost $14 billion in profit this quarter on almost $70 billion in revenue, during a downturn. Somehow, that's bad performance?
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Re:Still hugely profitable (Score:5, Interesting)
Google earned almost $14 billion in profit this quarter on almost $70 billion in revenue, during a downturn. Somehow, that's bad performance?
They would have earned more if they stopped shitcanning stuff that people want.
They axed Google Reader instead of charging for it. Now I'm paying $5/mo to run my own instance of MiniFlux.
They axed Google Inbox instead of charging for it. Now I'm paying Shortwave $9/mo for a similar experience. The moment they drop their attachment to GMail, I'm dropping GSuite.
They took a decade to improve scheduling in Google calendar. I'm already paying Calendly a few bucks every month to handle it.
They stopped selling tablets several times over the last decade, so wherever I need one, I just buy some random POS tablet from Amazon...but most of my customers decided to just switch to iPads.
They kept jacking their cloud prices and making things ridiculously complex, so I switched to Digital Ocean.
They kept having non-stop problems with their smart-home devices if you were using a GSuite account as well as stagnation, and super annoying "Ok Google, turn off the lights"..."Ok man, I'm going to totally turn off 17 lights for you....aaaaand it's done. I've done turned 'em all off for you, ok? Is there anything else I can keep rambling on about to make this conversation longer?". Anyways, their solution to the GSuite issue was to set up a free GMail account to fix it (i.e. who gives a fuck about our paid users), so I just switched to Alexa.
They dropped their security system the week I was planning on buying it, so I bought a Ring system instead.
I'm really only dependent on Google for four things at the moment and I'm just waiting for a better solution:
* "Click to sign in with GMail"
* Gmail
* Calendar
* Google Photos integration from my cell phone
Every year when things settle down during the winter at my company, I spend a day or two looking at and playing with open source and paid alternatives. If I find something decent, I'll switch and dump them. Hopefully this year is the year, because I'm sick of everything from their shitty support and unwillingness to support or improve a product once they've release it to their woke-culture bullshit that keeps getting YouTube channels demonetized or banned. Police Activity is a great public service. Demonetized because it shows our own government killing and frequently murdering people.
Oh, and let's not forget manipulating search results. I tested searching for Republican candidates in my area, and they ended up pretty far down the list--below their opponents hit-pieces on them. Not that I'd vote Republican, but that's more of a threat to our democracy than a bunch of boomer cosplayers taking an unguided tour of the capitol on January 6th.
Fuck Google.
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If you are really paying $250/year for mail, calendar and rss, I may have a bridge to sell you.
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This. I assume the number of people willing to pay $5/m for an RSS reader can be counted on one hand, after an industrial accident that took away 4 fingers.
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This. I assume the number of people willing to pay $5/m for an RSS reader can be counted on one hand, after an industrial accident that took away 4 fingers.
Look at the big brain on this guy. Apparently he's figured out a way to deploy web apps for $0/mo. No wonder Google is losing revenue.
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let's not forget manipulating search results. I tested searching for Republican candidates in my area, and they ended up pretty far down the list--below their opponents hit-pieces on them.
So do you have some evidence that this is manipulated at all? Because from where I'm sitting, while all politicians tend to lie, many Republicans' campaign sites are willfully perpetrating a well-known fraud, and deserve to be ranked down on their own lack of merit so blatantly that it could happen algorithmically without any special casing whatsoever. It would take manipulation of the search results to make that not happen>
Not that I'd vote Republican, but that's more of a threat to our democracy than a bunch of boomer cosplayers taking an unguided tour of the capitol on January 6th.
Found the red pill troll
Aww, poor republican babies (Score:1)
When people don't accept your fraud you try to cancel them, what fucking hypocrites
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Yeah, can't imagine why he posted anonymously. Google is more of a threat to our democracy than a direct threat to the peaceful transfer of power at the behest of a one-term loser that wanted to hang onto power through illegal and violent means!
What an idiot.
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Google Photos integration from my cell phone
I just use Dropbox
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below their opponents hit-pieces on them.
Are you sure the hit pieces were written by opponents? Based on how republicans act they write their own hit pieces every time they open their mouths.
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If Google wants more revenue, they should quit offering garbage CPM's.
Other advertisers? 3.5CPM!
Google? 0.01CPM!
The fact that so many people put google ads on their site, and then let google set their CPM's to pretty much zero so that they would push as much garbage through as possible rather than paying ads. If someone is stupid enough to have adsense on their website and is happen with the few dollars they get, go into your control panels and reset the floor every month until the revenue flatlines. Google
Damnit! (Score:5, Funny)
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Hey, a Stanza Wagon MT 4WD is a unicorn car among hipsters right now.
CEOs want a recession (Score:5, Interesting)
So the folks at the top are actively trying to engineer a recession. And the Federal reserve is happy to help in the misguided belief that what we need is a recession to control inflation and not, for example, actually enforcing antitrust law and solving the supply chain problems.
One of the first things to go when you're gearing up to create a recession is your advertising dollars. So yeah google, Facebook Twitter and everybody else that sell adverts is going to take a hit. At least in the short run.
That said the economy grew last quarter despite the CEOs best efforts. And there's $750 billion in infrastructure spending about to hit the country. So it's going to be hard to make that recession happen.
Mind you, if the Republican party takes the House of Representatives they've already said that they're going to play politics with the debt ceiling. That will highly increase the odds of a recession which would suit them just fine since voters would probably want to blame Joe Biden. It's a pretty common tactic they've used in the past where they actively hurt the economy for the sake of some points in the next election.
Re:CEOs want a recession (Score:5, Informative)
And the Federal reserve is happy to help in the misguided belief that what we need is a recession to control inflation and not, for example, actually enforcing antitrust law and solving the supply chain problems.
One of the biggest reasons for inflation in the U.S. is companies raising prices above and beyond the rate of inflation to reap higher profits [cbsnews.com]. They're using the cover of inflation to hide what they're doing [businessinsider.com].
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What a staggeringly uninformed view point (yours and your links, who should know better).
We're on our 8th price increase to our customers in 2 years.
This is raw material and energy driven, I don't believe the pointy heads have quite absorbed the transport and demurrage costs accumulated in the last 12-18 months in their models.
And we're not making record profits...
Those links reference a couple of boutique products, and deeper reference analysis by Lawrence Summers who seems to have started his investigatio
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Keep making excuses. Companies are raising prices because they can [cnn.com] which in turn drives up their profits and inflation. The same inflation they say will happen if they raise workers salaries.
So while companies are dramatically raising their prices to maximize profits they are not subsequently raising their workers salaries. And what happens when people's paychecks can't keep up with rising prices? They stop buying. And what happens when people stop buying?
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What? Raising prices doesn't logically mean a company is making more profit - that's just stupid.
And yes, our firm has implemented massive pay increases, multiples of previous COLA adjustments - iirc the last precovid COLA was 2.3%. The one in 2022 was 10.5%.
Sounds like you're just bloviating talking points you've read off some handbill.
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So, workers screaming for 15 USD an hour did not drive up employer costs?
So, COVID did not impact just about every industry and the service & transport sectors due to employees being home sick with the bug or too scared to be around any other human being?
So, purchasing managers are not to blame for grossly over-ordering goods, and a lot of the wrong goods, from overseas that choked the supply chain and drove up shipping container costs to outrageous levels while clogging the ports?
So, some workers took
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So, workers screaming for 15 USD an hour did not drive up employer costs?
Nope. Companies jacked up prices and we all paid for it. https://fortune.com/2022/03/31... [fortune.com]
A bit difficult to claim wages are driving up your costs while posting record profits.
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This seems to be ignoring inflation caused by high energy prices caused by a major supplier being unavailable due to war
No, that is accounted for.
you guys keep inventing random new conspiracy theories about this
No, it's been the same theory. I've posted three different links previously about how 50%+ of inflation is due to corporate profits. It's literally been the same story every time. Now you're making up bullshit reasons to pretend it's not true so you can continue to worship capitalism. Well, it's a shitty religion.
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>> A bit difficult to claim wages are driving up your costs while posting record profits.
>This seems to be ignoring inflation caused by...
Does not invalidate the point. Inflation is also being caused by *record profits*. How to claim that there are not record profits because of wages are up and yet there are record profits. Hmmm. Obfuscate, obviously.
Re:CEOs want a recession (Score:5, Insightful)
No. The Netherlands can sell a Big Mac for the same prices as the US with $22/hr and full health benefits + pension.
So, COVID did not impact just about every industry and the service & transport sectors due to employees being home sick with the bug or too scared to be around any other human being?
Yes. Because companies insisted on outsourcing and JIT for short term profits.
So, purchasing managers are not to blame for grossly over-ordering goods, and a lot of the wrong goods, from overseas that choked the supply chain and drove up shipping container costs to outrageous levels while clogging the ports?
No, because they didn't. JIT.
So, some workers took the COVID crisis as a reason to say F**K IT I am just going to drop out of the workforce?
Old folks retired because they feared for their lives. Rightly so, given how little caution Americans took. Not many wanted to die for Wall Street
Re: CEOs want a recession (Score:3)
McDonaldâ(TM)s doesnâ(TM)t have to provide healthcare in the Netherlands. How much does that add on top of the hourly wage in the US,
I remember reading during the last big car company bailout in the US that healthcare costs added something like $1,300 to the price of American made cars. Broken system.
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Re:CEOs want a recession (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words you seem to have found a bunch of random or tangently related links to put at the bottom of your post and claim to be citations with the idea that nobody's going to click them and instead they'll just assume your citations are accurate and therefore your points valid.
It was a nice scam except there were two problems. First points you made were just ordered nonsense so any of your citations were bound to be nonsense of one kind or another. Honestly I figured you'd just link to a bunch of right-wing bullshit fake news sites. But linking to sites that don't actually support your comments works too I guess.
And second and an even bigger problem I clicked the Damned links. Seriously man wasn't even that hard. I hadn't bothered because again usually when one of you guys likes a bunch of crap it's just crap like the daily Mail or some other right-wing claptrap. But I got to say this is a new low for you guys on the right wing. I'm honestly insulted that you thought you'd get away with it.
Seriously. Be better.
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So, workers screaming for 15 USD an hour did not drive up employer costs?
Apparently not, since corporate profits are at a 50-year high.
Trust (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason their cloud products are still failing to thrive in the market is quite simply, we dont trust Google. And thats a shame because their cloud offerings are good.
Continuity is a huge factor in business decisions to use a platform to develop for. We want at least some confidence that the software we develop specifically for that platform will still have a platform to run in in 3, 5, 10 or more years. Sure things get updated, but its one thing to update a product to a newer api, and another thing entirely to move an entire server cluster to a completely different system with entirely different apis and expectations.
And Google keeps killing products. Microsoft doesnt with its Azure. Amazon doesnt with its AWS. Digital Ocean doesnt. And some of those AWS things probably have, like, 3 users (I'm being hyperbolic but you get my point). But they are still there after all those years. (Theres actually a few things they have deprecated. But they are entirely realistic deprecations. Python2.8 cores on Lambda. Because you should have updated to Python3 by now. A few things like that. None particualrly onerous).
Googles product murdering chickens are coming home to roost.
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Google truly embraces the "MVP" minimal viable product attitude from SCRUM.
Google tools remind me of buying real-world tools at Harbor Freight, single use tools that aren't the best but sorta work and you know they are going to break or be discontinued.
AWS and Azure are going to own the cloud except for schools that use Google. Speaking of schools, Google Classroom has got to be the worst LMS ever created.
Building on Google is like building on sand and let's not even talk about their tech support when stuf
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Google truly embraces the "MVP" minimal viable product attitude from SCRUM.
So does AWS. The V1 of most of their services tends to be barely usable. The difference is that that generally Amazon keeps improving the services after that. In the worst case, it leaves them on life support but almost never completely shuts them down.
Re:Trust (Score:4, Informative)
And some of those AWS things probably have, like, 3 users
When I was working at AWS, we wrote and tested code to keep back-compat for an API that had 30 total users. Eventually the customer support reached out to every user and asked them to migrate off the API.
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The reason their cloud products are still failing to thrive in the market is quite simply, we dont trust Google. And thats a shame because their cloud offerings are good.
Don't forget their recent Workspace disaster, entirely brought on by themselves in what should have been a fully predictable outcome.
Back in 2006 they had "Google apps for domains" and offered "free for life" accounts to beta testers, most all at the time were power users and IT people just wanting to play around with "enterprise" offerings but at home.
This was in exchange for both word of mouth and gaining experience with their business apps.
This was one of the main reasons googles cloud offerings made any
Has anyone done research of the affects of... (Score:1)
... censorship and bias at profit margins of such companies able to censor and bias its users?
early 90s (Score:2)
Not sure why, I'm kind of hoping for an early 90s type event where a bunch of well known internet brands fold. Could this be the start? Both FB and Goog are falling. What does it take to push them over the edge?
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There were no "well-known Internet brands" in the early '90s. The public Internet was still very much a niche in those days. Are you sure you're thinking of the dotcom bubble a decade later?
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Yep, I meant late 90s but maybe it was just after that even.
In related news ... (Score:2)
Google Profits Plummet 27%
The company renamed its domain from 1e100.net [google.com] to 7.3e99.net. :-)
Does anyone trust Google/Alphabet products anymore (Score:2)
The only reason people use Chrome and Gmail are because they're free. Companies pay for their custom gmail domains, but they keep an eye on the exits in case they need to change email services.
If it isn't a browser (to view ads), an email service (to deliver ads), or an advertising service (to auction ads), Google has no interest in it past version 1.0 and the PR buzz that brings.
Frankly, I'm amazed they haven't stuck a fork in ChromeOS yet.
Re: Does anyone trust Google/Alphabet products any (Score:2)
Transitioning away from Gmail is a pain (no surprise), but it's worth it. Our current email provider is a hosting service we've used for nearly 20 years for web hosting. And they will almost certainly still be there in another 20 years.
With Google, you just never know. Will they kill the service? Make weird changes for no reason (like MS and Windows)? It's a huge relief not to have this worry lurking in the background all the time...
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>With Google, you just never know. Will they kill the service? Make weird changes for no reason (like MS and Windows)? It's a huge relief not to have this worry lurking in the background all the time...
About Gmail? I think you need to take a few deep breaths. Gmail has only been around for 18 years but I think we can expect Google to continue it more or less as is.
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I have other free email options but none of them can filter out anywhere near as large a percentage of the over 3,000 spam emails I get every month as gmail. I have never gotten SpamAssassin or any other categorizer to even get vaguely close, which makes sense because Google is doing spam detection over many mailboxes and I am not.
The idea that people are only using gmail because it's free is dumb, because there are lots of free options. I use it because literally no other email system does what it does.
Wow, I'll have to Ecosia that (Score:2)
Yup!
https://www.ecosia.org/search?... [ecosia.org]
Arrogance is not an asset. Just a cost. (Score:1)