I read Nick Carr's (whose book "The Big Switch" I highly recommend) post "The cost of First Click Free". In it, Nick writes about Googles First Click Free:
"First Click Free allows publishers that restrict access to their sites (to paying or registered customers) to give privileged access to visitors who arrive via a Google search. In essence, if you click on a Google search result you'll see the entire page of content (your first click is free) and you will only come up against the pay wall or registration screen if you try to look at a second page on the site."
Basically, this means that all those pages of content that we cannot access because of subscriptions we don't want to pay for, will now be partly (just a sneak peek) available, thanks to Google...
Nick argues, this is a a subtle form of lock-in:
"At the very least, First Click Free provides another boost to the web's centripetal force, as Google further strengthens the advantage that its dominance of search provides. Google doesn't like to think of itself as locking in users to its search engine, but if you get a privileged view of the web when you go through Google, isn't that, as Lenssen suggests, a subtle form of lock-in?"
What I fail to understand is this: how is this WORSE for me as a user? Stuff I COULD NOT have access to (cause there was no way I would ever pay up for) will now be partly accessible!
Its great for me as a user, as I have more information available...
Its great for the participating publishers, as they might generate more - subscription - sales through it...
...and NO-ONE FORCES me to either use Google or actually read all this new material...
So how is Google "locking me in"? Through a better user experience?
If the answer is "YES", then YEAH, I WANNA BE...
Posts
very disagreed (especially on the dead money argument)
what's to be afraid? at this point, goog will never ever go down below 300, not with the rate at which they rack in cash. so the downside is completely protected.
& look at the positive side for potential mega upside:
1. recessionary environment is bad for grownup businesses but is even worse for startups, which can potentially delay google killer for another couple years due to this. (and make no mistake, search business requires massive amount of IT spendings which makes it even harder to enter)
2. maturing product cycle (or the business model itself) only means even higher FCF margin from here.
3. goog apps racks in almost 500M last 3Qs and it's obviously ready to eat msft's lunch (potential market ~10B). isn't this trend very obvious to everyone already?
4. android will bring in new type of targeted ad gradually accepted by most users. chrome will be new internet platform a few years from now (rest assure this one is strategically important, not just another goog fad that Eric will let go).
so the bottom line: we see a clear bottom at $300ish but numerous potentials for huge upside for years to come... so which way are you placing your bet & what other stocks at current environment can give you even more assurance?
and finally, one big problem w/ "No new products ready to pick up growth slack" argument. we are not talking about aapl/msft/hpq here... internet search is itself a trend (& necessity) not a choice. so in fact, as long as goog keeps staying on top of their own game, they will just grow & racking in piles of cashes for a very very long time --- no newer & flasher products needed to drive growth, which is like what aapl has been struggling to do lately.