You really think Google -- who has floundered in this space for years -- is going to dominate a market that is already dominated by a company (Amazon) with a 50% larger market cap?
Walmart and Target have been trying to chip away at Amazon's lead, and they're only getting buried deeper in the dust. Google doesn't exactly have a reputation for entering new markets and dominating them, either...
That's wrong. There was a study [1] on this exactly that found that most people (in the US I think) who search products start with Amazon and not Google. In one of the recent Amazon earning reports, they reported $10B advertisement revenue, which is another indication that direct product search on Amazon is huge.
Actually Google is getting shittier and crappier every day. Btw. I usually look for things on Amazon, they search engine has the same issue as Google's. Only spam (they call it ad) in the first N positions. I would seriously pay for a service which has no PII data collection (still can measure the effectiveness of your engine), no ads and relevant results.
Is that still true? For most products Amazon search seems much improved to me, it used to be quite poor. Plus on mobile people may be biased to search via the app.
Most people don't even know what an URL is. They can't tell the difference between an app and a website. They think google is the internet. Hell, even the ones that do know better type the site URL into google to go to the site they want.
Google Maps is very much real life. And it was very easy to mess up. Big usability achievement.
In fact I think it's underrated. It truly changed my world. Earlier I was always nervous when driving and frequently speeding. It's so liberating to be able to call a friend and say "uh I'll be 8 minutes late, sorry".
Gmail was internal. Maps was mostly built by a couple acquisitions, but it wasn't anything like Youtube, where the acquired companies were big established players in the space.
> already dominated by a company (Amazon) with a 50% larger market cap?
I wouldn't if Amazon was doing a good job. Between the astroturf reviews, fake products and fictional shipping times Amazon leaves a lot to be desired.
But I do agree Google won't be the solution. Google is too hidebound and suspect now to solve this one.
I think the future is in independent online retailers. The good ones will thrive and the rest will vanish, and they aren't going to suffer the FAANGs any more than necessary.
Walmart and Target have been trying to chip away at Amazon's lead, and they're only getting buried deeper in the dust. Google doesn't exactly have a reputation for entering new markets and dominating them, either...