Ask HN: What would it take to eat into Google's web dominance?

Ok, this is a very open question but I wondered what it would take after reading yet another Google story on HN [1]

Let's assume that nothing is off limits but I would love to hear people's thoughts on what it would take to (eventually) decimate Google's grip on the web.

FWIW I ditched using all Google services directly last year as I have had enough of them touching almost everything I do: I use DDG for search and host my own email and I have used FF for several years now. I also switched from Android last year as my wife upgraded her iPhone 6S to an 8 and I took the 6S off her. Works great tbh.

I sometimes wonder what could happen if Apple and Microsoft blocked tracking and ads at the OS level. After all, neither of them make any appreciable money from them (ok, I am referring to desktop OS's here!) and it may annihilate their competitors primary revenue source.

Anyway, thoughts/discussion appreciated.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19493378

2 comments

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verdverm 7y ago ↗

Moving to Apple does not mean you are avoiding Google. http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2018/09/29/google-apple-safar...

FWIW, I moved to only Google products because they are superior and more secure. I trust the people developing these products more than any other company right now.

43920 7y ago ↗

Almost all of Google's profit comes from ads on Google-owned sites [0]. Adsense ads and non-ad products are a much smaller portion of their revenue, and Google only keeps 30% of the revenue from third-party ads, meaning almost all of their profit comes from first-party.

Given that, I doubt any attempt to block trackers or ads is ever going to seriously affect Google. It would be pretty easy to block Adsense ads that run on third-party sites, but for the first-party ads, Google can bundle the ads and content together in a way that prevents adblockers from easily blocking just the ads, without also blocking access to the service completely (and actually, I'm surprised they haven't done that already).

I can't find a breakdown of Google ad revenues by product, but considering how many ads each product has, I'm guessing the vast majority of that revenue is from search. Given that, it seems like the best way to capure significant revenue from Google is by creating an alternative search engine (like DDG), or creating another product that avoids the need to use search entirely (voice assistants maybe?)

[1] https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2018Q2_alphabet_earnings...