Once upon a time it would've been unthinkable for Google search to become awful and nearly worthless due, in large part, by Google's discretionary choices.
Related - interns these days don't seem to have any particular preference for using Google for finding information...
I think it's a bit inflated to label Gmail a "great tech for consumers". Maps certainly, YouTube mostly, Chrome & Android for loyalists, but Gmail hasn't been "great tech" for well over a decade.
Additionally these are all old products - even the company's more recent products such as Gemini feel stale and on unsteady ground.
Their entire business is predicated on search dominance, which is now on much shakier footing. Agreed that those comments were ridiculous pre-ChatGPT, but now they have a genuine challenger.
This take only makes sense if you don’t know what people use Google search for. If you’re looking for your local Ford dealership, or to book a Carnival cruise, or need a disability lawyer, or to refinance your credit card debt, you’re searching for an ad. You’re not using Chat-GPT for that. You’re asking Chat-GPT about a research project. It’s stealing away all the hard to monetize searches and leaving the incredibly lucrative searches.
Your narrative depressed Google’s stock price for years, and bears finally gave up since they kept coming out with huge earnings beats.
I actually use Claude for finding stuff and recommendations. like "Find me a decent shoe with blah blah conditions" this query now goes to LLM Chat instead of google search. I use google search to find the url of something that i know exists like find the website of a company or finding address of a store.
The issue is Claude is losing money serving you that, and while Google makes money serving you the same result. On top of that, you are paying Claude to get that same result.
Unless Claude adds ads, it isnt going to be sustainable for both Anthropic or you - and congrats, you've invented Google Search.
Google and ChatGPT are both running LLMs on free user queries. If Google is doing it more profitably, it’s because they have a much more mature ad business, and/or they are running a cheaper LLM. There’s no fundamental difference in the business model in that specific product line.
Regarding Claude, it’s true they must be losing money on free users since they promised they won’t put ads there.
Speculatively, I think people are overestimating the cost of inference for the consumer free tier chatbots. I suspect it’s effectively a marketing cost. The primary expenses are compute to train the next model, stock compensation, and heavy-duty enterprise inference (which pays for itself).
> But that’s it. I never use Google outside of that. It’s just ads, and most of the web is just ads or AI slop.
Funnily enough, their core revenue driver (Google Ads) is very broken too. I'm trying to run some ads, but for a week they haven't been showing due to some invisible combination of flags when the campaign was created. There's no way of knowing they're not showing from the dashboard, it only becomes apparent when you try and preview the ads with one of your search terms.
I know everyone is long Google but that experience seriously makes me question how valuable their ad business will stay in the future.
Someone deleted a reply to this comment “And where does ChatGPT get the data for those answers?” they wrote and I think the question is important: LLM chatbots can crawl the web just as well as Google.
Nah, just another startup that’ll get acquired or a similar fate. Building the capability is a superior option imho, if you’re at Anthropic or OpenAI scale. Cut out the middleman.
"google it" has a stain on it. And that's not said in jest. In my social circle, it has grown a boomer-tint. Like it or not; it's just how it is.
I personally like google over asking an AI. Esp. since something like google is a substrate without which an AI would be far more prone to hallucinations.
That’s over half of their business, but they do have some diversification with YouTube, Play Store, and cloud services.
Some of their newer efforts like Waymo and AI hosting for Apple could turn into large businesses to make up for any lost search revenue.
They also have significant costs to maintain their search revenue, such as $20B a year to Apple alone to make Google the default search engine in Safari.
If search becomes less lucrative, they would presumably pay less for such deals.
So yeah, definitely a time of disruption for Google and they need to keep moving fast on many fronts, but they are still well positioned in multiple markets to be successful.
Curious to see how long that lasts - YouTube and Google Maps were fairly mainstay apps for iPhones for a while, and eventually Apple cut the Maps cord to do their own thing. I don’t know if that’s from an existential concern of “we need to eventually move Maps in-house”, but given the Google of it all I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple is already at least planning on how to do the same with AI once the bulk of the usage evens out i.e. let someone else worry about it now while also getting a read on what rolling their own would feasibly require.
A model serves a different purpose from a web crawler.
I'd prefer to be able to find source material over steering a model I have no control over while managing hallucinated outputs without the ability to fact check.
Just because it sourced some materials using RAG doesn't make its outputs valid, accurate, or factual.
Is it though? As far as I can tell they continue to maintain total domination of web search, and LLMs do not replace search engines, they work on top of them.
Not so much hardware these days, about half of IBM's revenue comes from software (Red Hat related stuff alone probably brings in a ton), and about 20% comes from consulting
People have been saying that for over a decade now, and their business is still going.
So is IBM.
There was a pretty interesting article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back about how IBM is flying under the radar, and doing well by not taking the hype bait.
It noted that 70% of all credit card transactions on the planet go through an IBM system.
It ought to be extremely easy now to use LLMs to transpile cobol and do the necessary reverse engineering to migrate off mainframes and aix servers.
I think IBM will lose many customers.
It ought to be extremely easy now to use LLMs to transpile cobol and do the necessary reverse engineering to migrate off mainframes and aix servers. I think IBM will lose many customers.
The problem is that those COBOL systems have to be absolutely provably correct, for both financial and regulatory reasons. LLMs can't do that. They're designed to be variable.
You can't vibe code a bank transaction system. "Close enough" isn't good enough in some fields. A minor glitch in a video game may result in screen artifacts. A minor glitch in a banking system can crash the economy.
IBM had something of a downward blip last quarter, partly because of mainframe cycles. But it's actually done generally well the past few years and pays a pretty good dividend. $10B in net income for 2025 isn't shabby.
I dunno about going strong. $1,000 in Microsoft stock in 1990 would have made you a multi-millionaire today. $1,000 in IBM stock in 1990 would make you a ten-thousandaire today.
For reference, IBM was founded in 1911. At the time "computer" was a profession, not a machine, and the majority of US households had no electricity or telephone service
> Google will be considered "the new IBM" in 20 years.
They have plenty of great tech for consumers right now: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Chrome, Android,..
You can perhaps argue that search might suffer because of AI but they've done a great job scaling horizontally into many verticals.
I don't think Google is going anywhere.
The newest of those are 20 years old.
Let’s be honest. Google was amazing back then, now they’re just an ad-business flailing around in other side quests.
GCP/Vertex, Firebase, Spanner, Waymo, Gemini + Nano Banana, Google Photos, TPUs, Pixel, Assistant, Google Fi, Taara...
Most of those are also at least a decade old, and some of them are acquisitions.
Every single one of these hemorrhages money from their ad business
Gmail is going to be Google's System/390 mainframes.
People used to say the same thing about Microsoft with Windows you know...
Once upon a time it would've been unthinkable for Google search to become awful and nearly worthless due, in large part, by Google's discretionary choices.
Related - interns these days don't seem to have any particular preference for using Google for finding information...
Can you explain this behavior a little bit more. Where do they seek information - is it a consumer chat app, social media app’s search functions?
^FTFY “interns these days don’t seem to have any particular preference for finding information”
I think it's a bit inflated to label Gmail a "great tech for consumers". Maps certainly, YouTube mostly, Chrome & Android for loyalists, but Gmail hasn't been "great tech" for well over a decade.
Additionally these are all old products - even the company's more recent products such as Gemini feel stale and on unsteady ground.
People have been saying that for over a decade now, and their business is still going.
Their entire business is predicated on search dominance, which is now on much shakier footing. Agreed that those comments were ridiculous pre-ChatGPT, but now they have a genuine challenger.
This take only makes sense if you don’t know what people use Google search for. If you’re looking for your local Ford dealership, or to book a Carnival cruise, or need a disability lawyer, or to refinance your credit card debt, you’re searching for an ad. You’re not using Chat-GPT for that. You’re asking Chat-GPT about a research project. It’s stealing away all the hard to monetize searches and leaving the incredibly lucrative searches.
Your narrative depressed Google’s stock price for years, and bears finally gave up since they kept coming out with huge earnings beats.
I actually use Claude for finding stuff and recommendations. like "Find me a decent shoe with blah blah conditions" this query now goes to LLM Chat instead of google search. I use google search to find the url of something that i know exists like find the website of a company or finding address of a store.
The issue is Claude is losing money serving you that, and while Google makes money serving you the same result. On top of that, you are paying Claude to get that same result.
Unless Claude adds ads, it isnt going to be sustainable for both Anthropic or you - and congrats, you've invented Google Search.
Google and ChatGPT are both running LLMs on free user queries. If Google is doing it more profitably, it’s because they have a much more mature ad business, and/or they are running a cheaper LLM. There’s no fundamental difference in the business model in that specific product line.
Regarding Claude, it’s true they must be losing money on free users since they promised they won’t put ads there.
Speculatively, I think people are overestimating the cost of inference for the consumer free tier chatbots. I suspect it’s effectively a marketing cost. The primary expenses are compute to train the next model, stock compensation, and heavy-duty enterprise inference (which pays for itself).
Eventually they will show ads. Ads are like disease, we can stop for sometime, but they will find a way to infect. Eg. Netflix, chatgpt etc..
Now get the other 99.99% of the (tech illiterate) population to do it...
Same I use models for nearly everything. Google only better at:
- fast, even the shitty AI results are nearly instant.
- some results like actors in a movie, or where to stream are useful
- instead of typing a url
But that’s it. I never use Google outside of that. It’s just ads, and most of the web is just ads or AI slop.
> But that’s it. I never use Google outside of that. It’s just ads, and most of the web is just ads or AI slop.
Funnily enough, their core revenue driver (Google Ads) is very broken too. I'm trying to run some ads, but for a week they haven't been showing due to some invisible combination of flags when the campaign was created. There's no way of knowing they're not showing from the dashboard, it only becomes apparent when you try and preview the ads with one of your search terms.
I know everyone is long Google but that experience seriously makes me question how valuable their ad business will stay in the future.
Yeah, but are you getting the perfectly targeted ads that Google serves you?
People 100% are asking ChatGPT for all those things.
Someone deleted a reply to this comment “And where does ChatGPT get the data for those answers?” they wrote and I think the question is important: LLM chatbots can crawl the web just as well as Google.
The answer is Exa
Nah, just another startup that’ll get acquired or a similar fate. Building the capability is a superior option imho, if you’re at Anthropic or OpenAI scale. Cut out the middleman.
They can't do it, which is why they acquire.
Huh? But only if you give it a tool it can use - which brings you back to Google (or Bing)
Anyone can leverage common crawl and/or run their own crawler, to do so isn’t novel.
https://commoncrawl.org/
> You’re not using Chat-GPT for that
And that's where you're dead wrong. Absolutely wrong.
Calling it "Chat-GPT" suggests that you are not familiar with the space.
"google it" has a stain on it. And that's not said in jest. In my social circle, it has grown a boomer-tint. Like it or not; it's just how it is.
I personally like google over asking an AI. Esp. since something like google is a substrate without which an AI would be far more prone to hallucinations.
Search is now only 50% of the revenue. But sure keep the myth going.
Cloud business is making big dollar I suppose
If by "shakier footing" you mean accelerating growth in query volume, ad impressions, revenue and earnings, I'll take it.
That’s over half of their business, but they do have some diversification with YouTube, Play Store, and cloud services.
Some of their newer efforts like Waymo and AI hosting for Apple could turn into large businesses to make up for any lost search revenue.
They also have significant costs to maintain their search revenue, such as $20B a year to Apple alone to make Google the default search engine in Safari.
If search becomes less lucrative, they would presumably pay less for such deals.
So yeah, definitely a time of disruption for Google and they need to keep moving fast on many fronts, but they are still well positioned in multiple markets to be successful.
> AI hosting for Apple
Curious to see how long that lasts - YouTube and Google Maps were fairly mainstay apps for iPhones for a while, and eventually Apple cut the Maps cord to do their own thing. I don’t know if that’s from an existential concern of “we need to eventually move Maps in-house”, but given the Google of it all I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple is already at least planning on how to do the same with AI once the bulk of the usage evens out i.e. let someone else worry about it now while also getting a read on what rolling their own would feasibly require.
That’s tough to say. So far, Apple has been very reluctant to invest in the massive infrastructure you need to run large AI models.
But if they are successful in making on-device models that work well, then you don’t really need as much cloud infrastructure.
I disagree
A model serves a different purpose from a web crawler.
I'd prefer to be able to find source material over steering a model I have no control over while managing hallucinated outputs without the ability to fact check.
Just because it sourced some materials using RAG doesn't make its outputs valid, accurate, or factual.
> which is now on much shakier footing
Is it though? As far as I can tell they continue to maintain total domination of web search, and LLMs do not replace search engines, they work on top of them.
used to be. Cloud, Waymo, and some other bets have been paying off.
And yet, their search engine is enshittified beyond all belief.
IBM is also still going, believe it or not. 260k employees, 200 billion market cap, $67 billion revenue.
I'm not sure what they do these days - it's about 20 years since I used an IBM Thinkpad to connect to an IBM pSeries.
Not so much hardware these days, about half of IBM's revenue comes from software (Red Hat related stuff alone probably brings in a ton), and about 20% comes from consulting
It’s a trustworthy name for enterprises. Many executives are old enough that IBM was the Google of their time when they started their careers.
People have been saying that for over a decade now, and their business is still going.
So is IBM.
There was a pretty interesting article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back about how IBM is flying under the radar, and doing well by not taking the hype bait.
It noted that 70% of all credit card transactions on the planet go through an IBM system.
Yeah, I should have said growing not going. That's what I meant.
It ought to be extremely easy now to use LLMs to transpile cobol and do the necessary reverse engineering to migrate off mainframes and aix servers. I think IBM will lose many customers.
It ought to be extremely easy now to use LLMs to transpile cobol and do the necessary reverse engineering to migrate off mainframes and aix servers. I think IBM will lose many customers.
The problem is that those COBOL systems have to be absolutely provably correct, for both financial and regulatory reasons. LLMs can't do that. They're designed to be variable.
You can't vibe code a bank transaction system. "Close enough" isn't good enough in some fields. A minor glitch in a video game may result in screen artifacts. A minor glitch in a banking system can crash the economy.
It’s also a solved problem combined with a risk averse industry.
COBOL on mainframes has worked reliably for decades. On the scale of what a bank will spend on operations the mainframe doesn’t really cost much.
Banks are sort of the canonical example of “no one ever got fired for buying ibm”.
Yep, if AI could do it so could out-sourcing it to India. AI is great for "almost" but not great at "exact"
So is IBM.
Isn't IBM still going?
IBM had something of a downward blip last quarter, partly because of mainframe cycles. But it's actually done generally well the past few years and pays a pretty good dividend. $10B in net income for 2025 isn't shabby.
I dunno about going strong. $1,000 in Microsoft stock in 1990 would have made you a multi-millionaire today. $1,000 in IBM stock in 1990 would make you a ten-thousandaire today.
apples to oranges comparison. 1990 is early days for MS. 1990 is gorilla days for IBM.
For reference, IBM was founded in 1911. At the time "computer" was a profession, not a machine, and the majority of US households had no electricity or telephone service
IBM's business is still going so I dunno what your point is
Who knows what will happen in 20 years. Right now, it's not the case.