Oct
29th
Thu
29th
We could also be seeing the power of something less benign: cross-subsidization
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Albert at Union Square Ventures tweeted this out yesterday in response to Google’s turn by turn directions announcement. He also did a much better and detailed post about this subject then the one I did below.
I believe that Google’s cross-subsidization of things like voice, maps, etc., is going to be their long term down fall. The best business book (I say that jokingly as it is a children’s book) exampling this would be The Giving Tree. In the end when Google kills every last drop of paid services with their subsidized-from-the-search-marketing free stuff, what then?
