Pavlov's Stepson

Why is Google FUBAR, then? Because it is biting the hand that feeds it. Indexed search might have peaked, but it’s still huge, and still propelled Google to over $10 billion in revenue this past quarter. To become Facebook, Google must forsake almost everything that brought it success in the first place. It must irreparably alter its fleet of successful web properties to become more Facebooky. It must alienate users with weird, ungooglesque features. It must force Chrome and Google down the throats of users who are simply looking for a brilliant search engine. The path towards Facebookness is fraught with strife. Facebook, as the incumbent with almost a billion active users, has a huge head start. Facebook can push onwards, continue to reap the truly monumental power of its network effect, and innovate without user backlash. Google on the other hand now has to spend the next year or two maneuvering its gribbly juggernaut between anti-trust, fair trade, and privacy allegations — all while trying to keep the users happy with a search engine that’s no better than Bing. Google is FUBAR.