Google, big tech, disruption, and the international marketplace

[Milchan]

Mod's note: The following 37 messages were cut out of...
Google Updates and SERP Changes - August 2019
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4957935.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 4:00 am on Sep 2, 2019 - (PDT -8)

See notes at the end of the August updates thread and near the beginning of the new Sept updates thread, about the clean-up in progress on several threads at once.

Google Updates and SERP Changes - September 2019
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4962430.htm [webmasterworld.com]

This discussion is about "Google, big tech, disruption, and the international marketplace".

The "Aug - Sept Updates" material will eventually be removed from this discussion, and most of this mod's note will then be dropped...
</end mod's note>


------- post by Milchan ------

Google are only going to make people stay on google properties more and more meaning everyone logically gets less traffic and they are hoping people revert to paid ads with them and increased revenues.

It is the clear path they have been following these last years and the only way that will change is if they are forced to do so by legislation or one possibility is they might revert things slightly themselves at some point in order to try to placate the judges in any upcoming anti trust cases - that would only be a temporary change though and they would find another way to follow the same route in a more disguised fashion.

The only way google will be stopped at this point (and others like Amazon, facebook etc) is :

1. If there is serious changes in the law - unlikely as those in charge dont understand these things enough.

2. If there is a big backlash from the public and they move away from using such services in protest - unlikely as most people don't understand the impact or care.

3. If someone comes up with a new tech/service that disrupts things to the point where it destroys the models these companies work on - this is probably the best hope and is in fact probably quite likely. I don't know what it is (if I did I'd be doing it!) but I think it is inevitable that the next big evolution is the 'disrupting of the disrupters' when there are less and less old things to disrupt. It will be satisfying ironic if google is brought down by such a disruption, although who knows what the replacement will be like.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 2:33 pm (utc) on Sep 2, 2019]
[edit reason] Cleanup after thread split to new threads [/edit]

[RedBar]

@heisje - Absolutely, I've personally been involved with it for the past 40+ years with the Asian children of my co-directors, now all in their 30s, and I feel sure that everyone knows, or should know, that Google's CEO was born, bred and educated in India before going to Stanford.

Don't under-estimate anyone's natural talents at one's peril:-)

[heisje]

Agreed.
But not in their native lands - disruptive innovation hard to bloom in China & India, no true support, thus the migration to greener pastures. Copy/Evolve/Paste and giant scale will be the norm for the foreseeable future in these countries, even in the military. Maybe Russia is slightly more fertile, but even there what we have observed to date is little more than Copy/Evolve/Paste and giant scale.

Giant scale may be rendered obsolete fast by disruptive innovation (ex. electric cars with modern batteries vs internal combustion?).

True liberty and open markets are essential for such innovation.

.

[RedBar]

<off topic again>

@heisje

But not in their native lands - disruptive innovation hard to bloom in China & India, no true support, thus the migration to greener pastures.

Oh! I have to assume that you have never, ever been to India, correct?

I am what some would describe as "true, blue English", I am not an Indian defending India however my family has been trading with them for decades.

You are utterly and truly mistaken in your beliefs of "no true support", its computing knowledge and power is immense (check Bangalore / Benglaru University), the USA in particular has been outsourcing to India for at least the last 30+ years since they simply couldn't do the "stuff" there. Indians are being poached / encouraged to go to the USA every week since the US cannot find / does not have any / enough home-grown talent.

So ... a disrupter will happen since it always does, it most probably will NOT be from where Joe Public believes it will be when the fact is known, what is absolutely certain is that it WILL happen ... I simply hope I get to see it because it should be AWESOME:-)

</beginning to wonder whether we ought to make this a new thread?>

[glakes]

beginning to wonder whether we ought to make this a new thread?

I'll be watching if a new thread starts. I'd certainly like to chime in on Chinese innovation and being disruptors in the global economy. I'd gladly offer an American manufacturer's perspective on China's lack of innovation and desire to instead produce knockoffs that violate the IP rights of others. What business would not want to skip the product design phase, product testing, etc. and quickly bring goods to market by trampling the owner's rights? Disruptors the Chinese most certainly are. However the disruption they cause often depletes the financial resources of those trying to protect their IP rights and diminishes their ability to further innovate.

[heisje]

@RedBar : considering your in-depth experience with India I do not possess, you have the benefit of the doubt. Let us wait & see. Having said that and considering society structures, personally I am not holding my breath. My bets for disruptive innovation in the foreseeable future remain primarily with North America, Israel, the EU, and collaborations thereoff.


.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 2:37 pm (utc) on Sep 2, 2019]
[edit reason] cleanup after splitting & combining threads [/edit]

[iamlost]

Following on from RedBar's comment:

Why does everyone always forget the two biggest markets and where there is so much talent, China and India?

That's from where the disrupter will most probably emanate, someone with no preconceived western ideas / notions, someone who will look at stuff completely differently instead of the "same old, same old" that is taught in the west.

Currently I see two potential areas of web disruption:
1. the EU with it's focus on data and personal privacy (GDPR, ePrivacy) has the potential of undermining the business model of many/most current web platform businesses.

2. China with it's Made in China 2025 strategic plan has the potential to disrupt hardware development as it has, albeit mostly internally to date, in software. Huawei and the current 5-G global hullaballoo is but a precursor.

Beyond privacy I see no indication of a 'western' point of disruption. And, sadly, to date, I see barely ripples being built from/on that. However, the potential remains.

Yes, India has a large population and has educated a significant population of tech competent people and by GDP purchasing power parity per capita measure is more than 3-times that of France... but only 40% that of China.

Most telling, however, is the discrepancy in the sizes of the middle class, from which arise most entrepreneurs and that, in turn, drive most discretionary consumer spending. India's middle class is currently about 5% of population while China's is almost 60%. Combined with the aforementioned strategic plan, size of internal economy, and economic/infrastructure partnerships in Asia and Africa the potential for Chinese led disruption is considerable. The future potential plus for India is that it's low economic class (80% of population) has been and is spending, other than o day to day living, primarily on children's education; how well and how soon this effort will translate into a step up in economic standing is uncertain (over the past two decades India's middle class grew from 1.5% to 5% while China's grew from 3.5% to 60%).

Both India and China do have significant internal conflicts and government/political/philosophical shibboleths that may impact progress unexpectedly. While, in contrast, the EU suffers from general comfort, often a detriment to 'new'.

I do note China currently has a rover on the moon and India is about to land one (hopefully!). Neither should be ignored when looking to disruption potential.

[Milchan]

I would agree that China has very high potential to make much bigger waves in the tech world and that is already showing with the likes of Huawei growing so fast in areas such as mobile phones and being dominant in many areas of network hardware. Lots of areas of discussion regarding that and the potential of places like China, India , Russia etc but it is worth pointing out that intellectual property theft if common in those places so whilst that can facilitate certain kinds of innovation wereby they build on something that has already been invented (eg the folding smart phone - and this is just an example but I have to say I dont know if huewei copied and improved or built from ground upbut it seems good for an example) and make it better or cheaper.

But I see that kind of tech race as less likely to be the thing that will disrupt the big boys like google, facebook etc - I think it could come from a much less obvious place and by that I mean pretty much anywhere. My thinking behind that is born from looking at the the origins of google, facebook, microsoft, amazon etc - every one of them were started by one person that simply had an idea that was new and innovative (or stole one that was and executed on it quickly and well). It doesnt have to be due to large populations, advanced tech programs and an environment of innovation - it will just take an idea that is radically different to the models we are working with that gives people something better than what we have and it can catch on like wildfire and before the disrupted area has time to react they are already in trouble.

[Kshamaster]

Google is been accused of showing politically motivated results, Off lately it's being blamed for updating their algorithm which tends to be politically and economically biased. It is surely having a tough time answering questions and concerns raised by the US senate. If thats true (which seems to be valid keeping in mind algo updates post-Aug 2018) google is surely going to have the toughest time of all time. This is the reason you see many new searchenging coming up nowadays. The days coming forward are going to be very important and interesting for the search industry.

[Milchan]

It is surely having a tough time answering questions and concerns raised by the US senate

Im not so sure it is having a tough time answering. It can simply just lie or "demonstrate" that they are not manipulating things. Either way the people in the senate have shown they havent got a clue about all this anyway

[RedBar]

@iamlost

(over the past two decades India's middle class grew from 1.5% to 5% while China's grew from 3.5% to 60%).

I have to ask where you have found these figure since, as a 40+ year veteran of Indian trade, my understanding is that India's middle class is now 50+% but I'm damned if I can find these actual statistics.

If it's from Wikipedia it's figures are so wide-ranging they're nonsensical, is it 3%, 30 million or 300 million? I can show you reports that claim its middle class has gone from 300 million to 600 million from 2004 to 2012!

Here's an interesting claim:

From 2027 India’s population is set to overtake China’s and the middle class will overtake that of the United States, Europe and China.

We shall see however every Indian posting on these forum boards will tell you how much the average Indian has to pay for their apartments and it ain't cheap!

The Asian market is huge, honestly, just trust me when I say that "official" trade statistics show nothing compared to what is actually happening, the volume of cash and bartering deals is incredible, many producers and dealers have zero interest in western trade since it is all so "complicated" :-)

This is where the disrupter/tion will come from, something they need for their own local/regional needs that will be picked-up and will then explode and most probably changing the way we do things, again.

10 years and 1 day ago, 2nd September 2009, WhatsApp was launched, for business this has been the biggest and most transformative piece of technology I have ever had and I thought the fax machine was pretty cool when it first came out after years of telexing ... I just can't imagine what will come next!

[iamlost]

@RedBar:

I have to ask where you have found these figure since, as a 40+ year veteran of Indian trade, my understanding is that India's middle class is now 50+% but I'm damned if I can find these actual statistics.

If it's from Wikipedia it's figures are so wide-ranging they're nonsensical, is it 3%, 30 million or 300 million? I can show you reports that claim its middle class has gone from 300 million to 600 million from 2004 to 2012!

* I derive my economic comparison figures from public data sets of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), IMF (International Monetary Fund), and World Bank.

* the reason that you have seen that larger (by a factor of 7-8) Indian middle class number (aka almost half of the population) is because of a paper by Sandhya Krishnan and Neeraj Hatekar that uses a much lower bound than normal. Whether one agrees with their rationale their figures are oranges to the rest of world's apples so far as making comparisons.
Note: by conventional metrics India's PPP middle class is ~80 million, China's is ~300 million.

The Asian market is huge, honestly, just trust me when I say that "official" trade statistics show nothing compared to what is actually happening, the volume of cash and bartering deals is incredible, many producers and dealers have zero interest in western trade since it is all so "complicated" :-)

Yes, it's huge.
And very different in surprising ways, both generally from western 'ways' and specifically by individual country/region/ethnic/language group.
Makes web design and marketing interesting.

I've been active in China since 2012 (and am entering Japan aka translating sites to Japanese over next 5-years). My only web experience with India is copyright infringement action. :) As an economic and population power I do keep an eye on India, however I have no plans to enter the market (for my niches not worth translation costs) other than via my English language sites (sites are currently in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and eventually Japanese).

[Milchan]

I have to ask where you have found these figure since, as a 40+ year veteran of Indian trade, my understanding is that India's middle class is now 50+% but I'm damned if I can find these actual statistics.

If it's from Wikipedia it's figures are so wide-ranging they're nonsensical, is it 3%, 30 million or 300 million? I can show you reports that claim its middle class has gone from 300 million to 600 million from 2004 to 2012!

I think anyone that has been to India and traveled round a bit in recent years would have a hard time believing that the middle class is any where close to 50%. I was there about 18 months ago and couldn't tell you what the numbers are but there was no way I saw that half the people were living in that bracket and I would find figures of around 10% , maybe up to 20% max as far more believable.

10 years and 1 day ago, 2nd September 2009, WhatsApp was launched, for business this has been the biggest and most transformative piece of technology I have ever had

One of many disruptive technologies in the last ten years and whatsapp is actual not even one that springs to mind when you think disruptors but it has forced telcoms to rethink how they sell packages & data specially in developing countries where very few people make normal cel phone calls now and most just use whatsapp voice calls instead.

I think it would be interesting and relevant to this thread if we can list out the biggest disruptors of the last ten years that we can think of. I will start off with a few (getting some of the obvious ones in there nice and early. I have left google out as we have in general discussed its effects at length already various times) :

AIrBNB - Hotel Industry (also massively effecting the housing market in a number of cities)
Uber - Taxi industry
AWS - has driven cloud hosting tech and lots of other technologies - effecting bare metal hosting, in house hosting and IT industry as a whole
Amazon - The book industry, Online Ecommerce, high street retail and various manufacturing sectors
Netflix - destroyed the video/dvd/blueray rental industry and made on demand streaming mainstream therefore effecting cable TV and the tv industry as a whole.
Youtube - also causing major problems for cable tv industry