Google isn't saying the video did something bad by being popular. Rather, they said that it was getting lots of traffic from robots, in addition to (or instead of) the actual human traffic.
From Google's point of view, robots watching videos is fraud of the worst kind. They make money off ads, and some of that is "impressions" (views). If robots are viewing things, then they're charging advertisers for human eyeballs that were never really there. In addition to the obvious problems (Google is now overcharging the advertisers), this messes up their ranking/auction system, which can actually cost them money as well (by tricking them into showing poor-quality or mistargeted ads).
Part of the reason Google is so tight-lipped about this is that there are people out there trying to trick them with fake views, for a variety of reasons. If Google says, "we've banned you for robot traffic, which we detected because of X, Y, and Z", then they're telling the world "we detect robot traffic by looking for X, Y, and Z". So then the bad guys know not to do that. But if Google just says, "we've banned you", then the bad guys don't get any information. They might not even know that X, Y, and Z exist.
I hope there is enough of an outcry to cause Google to reconsider.
I wouldn't hold your breath.
Look, Google doesn't "owe" you anything. I know you didn't say that, and I'm sort of putting words in your mouth, but that's the impression I get whenever someone says "If only I yell about this loudly enough, surely I'll get my way!".
Google is a business. They are kind of quirky, and they sometimes do things "for the users" instead of "for the money", but at the end of the day they're a business. And they make mostly rational decisions, just like everyone else. So if they cancel a product, it means (1) it's not making a profit, (2) it's not going to make a profit, and (3) these are still true if you count "goodwill" on the balance sheet.
Look, Google didn't kill Reader because they hate you, or they hate RSS, or whatever. They did it because they don't want to spend 3-5 full time employees on a product that has a tiny (if dedicated) userbase and zero revenue.
Now there probably weren't 3-5 people working full-time on Reader, by the end. But you add up all the background services they use, the guys working on BigTable and GFS and so on, the hardware teams, the administration... It adds up.
Google-scale products have staggering complexity; you don't keep them running on a whim.
It's so weird how many people stop using [arbitrary internet service] between December 24th and January 1st. Almost like there's a national holiday or something.
As usual, lots of nerds are missing the point. Think of the average user - your parents, say. Would this change create more work for them to access their email? Remember, to do this right you need to make sure Google can't read the messages. (If they can, you're just one super-secret-national-security court order away from having your mail read.)
If you want to encrypt your emails, you can do that now. But if you do that, you probably aren't using Gmail in the first place. People use Gmail because it's dead simple and so easy your grandma can do it. And you want to complicated that with local private keys, that the user has to manage herself? I don't think so.
I don't think Google makes enough money from Gmail ads to even keep the servers on. And before you cry "but then why would they provide a mail service at all", let me remind you of the dozen other services they offer that don't even have ads.
Wouldn't it be better if companies were forced to come up with new and potentially better ways of creating a product rather then simply copying the guys who came before?
I suspect you haven't thought this through. Sure, second-movers could "simply copy" the guys who came before, but how does that help them? In order to capture market share, they need to not only copy the previous design, but undercut prices by being more efficient with production. That's a "better way of creating a product" right there!
Now imagine you're the first company. You were doing great for a while, you had a new and exciting product, you could set your own prices, then some jerks come in and start competing with you. What is your best strategy? More innovation. Come up with another new product. Create a brand new market where you can make tons of money. Sure, the other guys will eventually copy your design, but you'll have a few years before they figure it out.
If copying is illegal, a company only needs to innovate once and can ride that idea forever. Profits will never decrease because no one is allowed to compete.
If copying is legal, the only way to be profitable is to create something. The copying firm needs to discover cheaper ways to make the same product, and the inventive firm needs to keep creating new products to stay ahead of the copycats. Any company that stops being creative, that stops producing economic value to society, also stops making money. Isn't that how it should be?
You seem to be very upset about the "misuse" of the word median, and I cannot figure out why. Simply stating the definition does not constitute an argument, unless it clearly contradicts a previous definition, implied or otherwise. No one appears to have implied any particular definition; they merely claimed a value (which is roughly correct for "median US income") and observed that $1 billion is about 21,000 times that median value.
The only thing I can think of is that you somehow object to the validity of the phrase "median US income". In common usage, that phrase refers to income value of the middle US individual (or household, sometimes) if ordered by income. To use your emphatically stated definition, it is the middle number in the sequential counting of all incomes in the US.
Perhaps if you take a moment to point out a specific mistake in a previous comment we could have a more meaningful conversation. For example, the number $45,016 was given; since you clearly dispute that this is a "median", what is the correct name for this value?
Google has tons of products they're trying to get out the door, but someone bricked it over with intellectual property injunctions. A little dynamite seems in order, don't you think?
I'm not sure who actually has standing to sue for perjury. I'm pretty sure Henry can't sue UM though - but he might be able to sue Google, and Google can probably sue UM if it wanted to. Of course that's not going to happen, since Google wants to set up their online store to compete with iTunes, which is kind of hard if you sue a big music company over a "misunderstanding".
I don't think that's "censoring" so much as "defining". And as a company, they can decide to exclude whatever goods they like. Are you equally upset over their refusal to list sex toys? Do you really feel that Google has a duty to treat all goods equally, or are you just mad because they took down something you like?
Re: Average people
Arsik, the average person can't even spell "causal chain".
Re: Harmful business practices
To be fair to Warner Bros, Netflix's business model of "provide a useful product at a reasonable price" is incredibly harmful to their profits.
Re: There must be a monopoly
Do you even read this site? Mike posts all the time about creators making income without using their monopoly rights.
Re: What happened
Google isn't saying the video did something bad by being popular. Rather, they said that it was getting lots of traffic from robots, in addition to (or instead of) the actual human traffic.
From Google's point of view, robots watching videos is fraud of the worst kind. They make money off ads, and some of that is "impressions" (views). If robots are viewing things, then they're charging advertisers for human eyeballs that were never really there. In addition to the obvious problems (Google is now overcharging the advertisers), this messes up their ranking/auction system, which can actually cost them money as well (by tricking them into showing poor-quality or mistargeted ads).
Part of the reason Google is so tight-lipped about this is that there are people out there trying to trick them with fake views, for a variety of reasons. If Google says, "we've banned you for robot traffic, which we detected because of X, Y, and Z", then they're telling the world "we detect robot traffic by looking for X, Y, and Z". So then the bad guys know not to do that. But if Google just says, "we've banned you", then the bad guys don't get any information. They might not even know that X, Y, and Z exist.
Re: Arbitrage
It's disturbing that you need to explain what 'arbitrage' is. Seems like something that should be taught in your first Econ class, no?
Re: Just about in a panic
I wouldn't hold your breath.
Look, Google doesn't "owe" you anything. I know you didn't say that, and I'm sort of putting words in your mouth, but that's the impression I get whenever someone says "If only I yell about this loudly enough, surely I'll get my way!".
Google is a business. They are kind of quirky, and they sometimes do things "for the users" instead of "for the money", but at the end of the day they're a business. And they make mostly rational decisions, just like everyone else. So if they cancel a product, it means (1) it's not making a profit, (2) it's not going to make a profit, and (3) these are still true if you count "goodwill" on the balance sheet.
Re: Maintenance
THIS. This guy knows what's going on.
Look, Google didn't kill Reader because they hate you, or they hate RSS, or whatever. They did it because they don't want to spend 3-5 full time employees on a product that has a tiny (if dedicated) userbase and zero revenue.
Now there probably weren't 3-5 people working full-time on Reader, by the end. But you add up all the background services they use, the guys working on BigTable and GFS and so on, the hardware teams, the administration... It adds up.
Google-scale products have staggering complexity; you don't keep them running on a whim.
Re: Re: Spying
Argh I accidentally a word. I really hate the no-edit mode here. That should read "Google doesn't sell data."
Re: Spying
Google doesn't data. They sell ads based on your data.
Now you might not like that either, but it's very different from "selling information about me".
http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/#nosharing
Daily Active Users
It's so weird how many people stop using [arbitrary internet service] between December 24th and January 1st. Almost like there's a national holiday or something.
Think of the user
As usual, lots of nerds are missing the point. Think of the average user - your parents, say. Would this change create more work for them to access their email? Remember, to do this right you need to make sure Google can't read the messages. (If they can, you're just one super-secret-national-security court order away from having your mail read.)
If you want to encrypt your emails, you can do that now. But if you do that, you probably aren't using Gmail in the first place. People use Gmail because it's dead simple and so easy your grandma can do it. And you want to complicated that with local private keys, that the user has to manage herself? I don't think so.
Re: Gmail ads
I don't think Google makes enough money from Gmail ads to even keep the servers on. And before you cry "but then why would they provide a mail service at all", let me remind you of the dozen other services they offer that don't even have ads.
Limited number of copies
If pressed, they can say that all clips are limited to (2^63-1) copies. That should hold them for a while.
Re: Problem
Problem: Google only allows ContentID claims from "trusted partners".
Solution: ???
Re: Copying
I suspect you haven't thought this through. Sure, second-movers could "simply copy" the guys who came before, but how does that help them? In order to capture market share, they need to not only copy the previous design, but undercut prices by being more efficient with production. That's a "better way of creating a product" right there!
Now imagine you're the first company. You were doing great for a while, you had a new and exciting product, you could set your own prices, then some jerks come in and start competing with you. What is your best strategy? More innovation. Come up with another new product. Create a brand new market where you can make tons of money. Sure, the other guys will eventually copy your design, but you'll have a few years before they figure it out.
If copying is illegal, a company only needs to innovate once and can ride that idea forever. Profits will never decrease because no one is allowed to compete.
If copying is legal, the only way to be profitable is to create something. The copying firm needs to discover cheaper ways to make the same product, and the inventive firm needs to keep creating new products to stay ahead of the copycats. Any company that stops being creative, that stops producing economic value to society, also stops making money. Isn't that how it should be?
Re: Median
You seem to be very upset about the "misuse" of the word median, and I cannot figure out why. Simply stating the definition does not constitute an argument, unless it clearly contradicts a previous definition, implied or otherwise. No one appears to have implied any particular definition; they merely claimed a value (which is roughly correct for "median US income") and observed that $1 billion is about 21,000 times that median value.
The only thing I can think of is that you somehow object to the validity of the phrase "median US income". In common usage, that phrase refers to income value of the middle US individual (or household, sometimes) if ordered by income. To use your emphatically stated definition, it is the middle number in the sequential counting of all incomes in the US.
Perhaps if you take a moment to point out a specific mistake in a previous comment we could have a more meaningful conversation. For example, the number $45,016 was given; since you clearly dispute that this is a "median", what is the correct name for this value?
Helping Innovation
Google has tons of products they're trying to get out the door, but someone bricked it over with intellectual property injunctions. A little dynamite seems in order, don't you think?
Re: Can a third party bring charges of perjury?
I'm not sure who actually has standing to sue for perjury. I'm pretty sure Henry can't sue UM though - but he might be able to sue Google, and Google can probably sue UM if it wanted to. Of course that's not going to happen, since Google wants to set up their online store to compete with iTunes, which is kind of hard if you sue a big music company over a "misunderstanding".
Re: Perjury
And how many people have gone to jail because they perjured themselves on a faulty DMCA notice?
Re: Firearms
I don't think that's "censoring" so much as "defining". And as a company, they can decide to exclude whatever goods they like. Are you equally upset over their refusal to list sex toys? Do you really feel that Google has a duty to treat all goods equally, or are you just mad because they took down something you like?