Thread by @mario_gabriele_

Google's core business is being unbundled.

Search, browsing, email, and collaboration are all seeing increasing pressure from A+ founders and investors.

/thread

thegeneralist.substack.com/p/googles-empi…

1. Bundling or unbundling

As the saying goes, "every industry is either in a state of bundling or unbundling."

In its 22 years, @Google has been one of the most aggressive bundlers, using their primacy in search to gobble up email, calendaring, collaboration, and lots more.

2. Effective monopoly on Search

They'd hate to admit it, but Google's bundling has been so effective that they've built an effective monopoly in Search. Without Chrome, that might not have been possible.

As it stands, they have 91.75% of that market.

3. Strong grip on Browsing

Google has a strong hold on browsing, too. Chrome has a huge lead over Safari, let alone IE, Firefox, Opera, et al.

4. Slim lead in Email

The power of defaults is particularly clear here. Gmail and Apple are the dominant providers, with Gmail just edging out Apple on the iPhone. (Differentiated by device for some reason). Outlook and Yahoo fill out the top 5.

5. Insurgents

A wave of fascinating companies are challenging this monopoly power, building new primitives for the web.

Search: @RamaswmySridhar's @neevaco

Browser: @joshm's @browsercompany

Email: @rahulvohra's @Superhuman, @dhh + @jasonfried's Hey

Collaboration: ♾

5. Why is there opportunity for upstarts?

Google's products have degraded, as the company has gotten lazy and greedy.

For example, Google Search makes it increasingly hard for consumers to differentiate between sponsored and organic content.

techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/squ…

6. Opportunity, cont'?

Chrome has similarly suffered. In building out the extension store, Google has hamstrung itself. We can do more...slower. Once the fastest browser, Chrome is now laggy, and getting lapped by Safari.

businessinsider.com/google-chrome-…

7. Opportunity, cont'

Anxiety over user privacy is mounting. While the 'techlash' has yet to claim any real victims (@facebook is doing just fine), there is some movement.

Shifting to subscription assuages concerns that "we are the product."

@neevaco and Hey are examples.

8. What does this mean?

Expect many more to join the fold, and take a shot at the champ. In particular, alternatives to Google Sheets and GCal are relatively scarce.

- Docs: @NotionHQ @coda_hq @RoamResearch @sliteHQ + ♾
- Sheets: @CausalHQ...
- Cal: @Cron, @getclockwise...

9. Heftier competition?

Beyond this class of insurgents, Google does have larger companies that challenge the G-Suite.

@SlackHQ takes share from Chat (which has never taken off). @zoom_us dunks on Hangouts.

10. Time to...bundle?

Is it time for these larger players to begin their own bundling journey?

@zoom_us won't trade at an EV/EBITDA of +1800x forever.

Isn't now a savvy time to start building the narrative of Zoom as a "collaboration" company versus a video-conferencer?

10. What could a new productivity titan look like?

W/ Zoom, Slack, Notion, Superhuman (maybe even DuckDuckGo), you'd get a premium, fullstack product to rival G-Suite.

The complexity of such a deal rules it out in the s/t, but it would be an intriguing option for consumers.

11. Net/net

Some incredibly sharp product ppl are arming themselves with smart money. They're driving straight at the exhaust port of the Google Death Star.

In the process, they're building new, thoughtful primitives for the web.

12. Stay tuned

I'm v interested to see what @joshm builds, + am an avid user of @rahulvohra's work.

I haven't tried their products, but am keen to see @dhh + @jasonfried's email re-imagination, + @RamaswmySridhar's take on search.

Watch this space.

thegeneralist.substack.com/p/googles-empi…