I have great difficulty seeing GOOG losing its importance in next 5-10 years. Google and Youtube are more likely to become still more ubiquitous, rather than less, not least because their industry (content &/ information &/ digitization) continues to grow.
A quite avid Googler/Youtuber myself, I only use the services more and more. What's more, I've begun to use Google much more in my job, just as away of finding information quickly (and correctly). To find facts, instead of asking colleagues and getting contrary answers, or even consulting the company's webpage, I just ask Google and it directs me to the answer – in a second or two.
Also, as the web becomes more and more sophisticated, the SEO business, the social media managers, the content managers, affiliates etc. etc. becomes more and more important, and more and more reliant on Google. So companies themselves rely more and more on Google for strategy, branding, reaching out, suttle and direct forms of marketing – etc. (There's a lot of middle-men who profit greatly from this growth, and from the massive demand for these kinds of services – and this middle-men industry will keep growing too, like those in the financial industry when it's expanding.)
I feel like people (myself included) still use Google – and digital tools more generally – in a very primitive way. And don't get me started on the software (and hardware too) that companies use. Sure, many people still use Windows for their personal use, but among companies, the amount of Windows computers and Microsoft services is frightening (to me).
And this goes for other, non-Microsoft software too: even amazing businesses have key systems which look like they're from Windows 98... The functionality (or lack thereof) is reminiscent of the same.
It just amazes me how otherwise longterm oriented companies don't use Macs, e.g. Each day I would save probably half an hour of time waste. (Which goes into just sitting there staring at the screen, waiting for the computer to start, systems to load, re-booting, crashing, re-starting, etc.) The investment into a Mac computer would have paid for itself in just a three months time or thereabouts.
I figure it may be because of accounting standards – when you write it off "linearly", a Mac looks horrible – twice or thrice the price, same life length. So when you look at a company's financial statements, it would look like a horrible investment. However, in reality its value is immeasurably higher.
Personally, I would actually lower my pay quite a few dollars to not have to work in Windows.
There's still such a massive under-supply of programmers, coders and computer-savvy people generally. The digital infrastructure, in many places in society, is extremely poorly developed. This makes me quite bullish on IT consultants and the like. I can't see the demand for their services going down the next 20 years. It's like being able to read, write and print books in the 1600's – almost like a superpower. However, sooner or later, this will change. In 50 years, not being able to code may well be the equivalent of being illiterate. |
