Why Google Is Swimming in Cash

Reviewing the evolution of the subscription model [Gilder's Daily Prophecy] August 05, 2021 [UNSUBSCRIBE]( | [ARCHIVES]( If you missed out on bitcoin — WATCH THIS NOW [Bitcoin]( you’re still kicking yourself for missing the boat on bitcoin, America’s top futurist has good news… He claims that tech insiders are already moving beyond bitcoin and into an even more lucrative technology. One that could soon send a shockwave through the tech world… ruin many major Silicon Valley companies… and propel a new class of stocks towards trillion-dollar status. [Hit this link now for more.]( [Warning] Do you enjoy receiving Gilder's Daily Prophecy? Please [Click Here Now]( so we know to continue sending you Gilder's Daily Prophecy for free! Why Google Is Swimming in Cash [Jeffrey Tucker]Dear Daily Prophecy Reader, Talk about beating expectations. Google’s quarterly profits just bested its best year! It pulled in $18.5 billion, or $27.26 a share. The best forecast was for the parent company, Alphabet, to bring in $24.00. But as with most everything for the last year and a half, people have dramatically underestimated the economic impact of lockdowns. The company’s revenue just rose 62% year over year, absolutely smashing any previous record. Does that make you happy or just slightly bitter? After all, more than 100,000 small businesses have been utterly smashed in the last 18 months, and people’s lives wrecked. The titans meanwhile have gotten rich: and it is no wonder this has generated political tumult. When you kick people out of their offices and lock them into their homes for a year, it turns out that they make greater use of the tools they have. Google tops the list. But Facebook, Microsoft, and all the usual suspects also did extremely well in a locked-down economy. It’s advertising revenue that drives it. Americans were flush with cash and ready to spend. Google got a windfall. That profit comes at a time of rising censorship on all of the company’s platforms, including and especially YouTube. It turns out that doing the state’s bidding isn’t a barrier to success; it is often the pathway toward it. Yep, that’s a sad truth, isn’t it? Joseph Schumpeter — a man very familiar with the corruption of capitalism under European fascism of the 1930s — warned us in the 1940s. Capitalists don’t win from capitalism as such; they win from control. Unprincipled people running unprincipled institutions can thrive in any environment, even one that massively attacks human rights. [New digital infrastructure to replace our entire global financial system?]( Money Flows to the Clicks We’ve traveled a very long way from those early days of 1995 — when no one could really figure out how to turn this amazing technology of the web into a real business model. It’s glorious to have eyeballs on a platform, but turning that into a revenue model is another model. Google was originally just a search engine, one made available for free to anyone. When its advantages became obvious to users, it came to dominate. What to do with it then? It was not entirely obvious at the time that the key would turn out to be selling and distributing ads. The web method proved itself dramatically superior to other forms because it could place ads in front of those who had the most interest in seeing them, and then generate real-time data for those paying the bills on precisely how they were reaching an audience. This served as a model of others, showing how something that was pretty cool and fun could also turn into a revenue windfall. It took fits and starts — and a dramatic crash in 2000 in which wild exuberance was tempered by realism — but by 2005, the model was in place. As usual with markets, the advertising space became very crowded, even as venture capitalist money poured into any venue with traffic. A classic case of this is Buzzfeed. The company was able to demonstrate a talent for producing viral content seen by hundreds of thousands, and then millions of people. They built a network and mastered SEO. The more content they produced, the more likely it was that one of the pieces would be the hit they needed to impress investors. At some point, this seemingly infallible model became preposterous in practice. I’ve consulted and worked with several companies that were seeking to ride this wave. One venue had a small staff of writers, but they would push to create dozens of new pieces of content per day. There was no such thing as too many times up to bat. Out of 50 articles, one stood the chance of going viral but there was no way to know in advance which one it would be. So they just kept cranking it out. The pay was low and the work demands were beyond belief. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time it was futile. Quality always bowed to quantity, based on the belief that more tries yielded better results. At some point, all this began to feel futile. Surely there is more to creating a sustainable business model than gaming people’s surfing habits to land on your property, look around, and go, again and again? Billionaire Leaves Crowd In Shock [sky]( audience of a few hundred (including myself) quietly gathered in Washington D.C. a few months back. That’s when the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, took the stage… and shocked the entire room. It all has to do with this image you see on your screen… showing a surprising new discovery he’s made. Not only will this blow you away… it could also transform the American economy forever. [Click here for Elon’s shocking reveal (plus see what it means for you)…]( The Emerging Barbell Finally, this emerging model — this seemingly infallible method for profitability — has faltered. Buzzfeed is now trying to mollify its investor impatience and frustration through a public offering, hoping that a rising stock valuation will make up for what it is losing in advertising revenue. Trouble is that the model had a flaw. If companies like Google, YouTube, and Facebook are so crafty as targeting ads, what precisely is the point of advertisers to put resources into advertising in venues with less traffic to begin with? In the year of lockdowns, it became obvious that only a handful of companies would come to dominate the space, and do very well, while others would start to languish. Another model for profitability that took a very long time to catch on was more than obvious: the subscription model. Early on in the days of the web, companies that tried this completely flopped. Not having public eyeballs looking at content demoralizes writers and workers, and consumers were extremely reluctant to defy the prevailing ethos that everything on the web should be for free. Then came the Wall Street Journal, now with 3.4 million subscribers. By offering financial analytics in a form that was not easily replicated on free venues, it managed to do well with a subscription model. Others followed, and eventually the ethos of the web changed. One key was a technical innovation that enabled websites to offer the first 5 or 10 pieces of content for free, and then nudge users toward subscribing. It no longer had to be all or nothing: now content was free to try before the ask presented itself. There are two types of venues that thrive today: the big players like the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, and the smaller niche publications that offer hyper specialized information on a specific industry otherwise available and thereby inspire a dedicated and loyal audience. The rest in between are experiencing squeeze. [New Federal Rule could change America forever.]( The Tokenization of Content With blockchain, a third path came into view. It is the most humane and most advanced of all — but also the path that raises alarm bells among regulators. The idea is to reward users with company-created ownership tokens — best to think of them as digital poker chips — representing a stake in the venue, and permitting those users to spend those tokens on user privileges and reach. This makes far more sense than the Facebook model of tricking users into providing content and data, and merely selling that information to advertisers. Just as this market was getting going, regulators started asking questions about how these tokens fit into old categories: stocks, securities, monies? The truth is that tokenization represented something entirely new. It is coming despite the suspicions and attacks. The internet needed some way to package information in ways that replicate property ownership in a different form, and for that ownership to be valued by markets and traded as property. We are far from reaching an end state with models of online profitability. It will not always be about advertising sales and subscriptions. The digital world will increasingly come to replicate features of the physical world, with the gradual commoditization of everything valuable. The most valuable commodity in the world is information. The ability to package that up into inviolable units that can themselves be traded is what blockchain represents. We can see now where this is going in the operations of companies like [Rumble]( and [Odysee](. They are capitalizing on disgruntlement with censorship and inspiring deep user loyalty, along with the deployment of new models of helping people hold a stake in what they are building. It’s a huge step toward decentralization and individualization of technological advances. We can look forward to the tokenized economy eventually competing with nationalized currencies to provide media of exchange. As with all technology, as George Gilder has shown, they can slow it down but they can’t stop it. Regards, [Jeffrey Tucker] Jeffrey Tucker Check. Check. Check. Passed all tests. [Prototype]( is a blueprint of a prototype designed by a group of engineers at Washington. The prototype was recently put to test and it “Passed all Tests”. The engineers say it can deliver speeds never seen before in a gadget of its size More importantly, it can help deliver a small fortune to early investors. The prototype is just one small part of [a massive project]( will disrupt a $2 trillion industry. As the project is spearheaded by the world’s second-richest man... billions of dollars are being pumped into it. To see how this project could help turn your nest egg into a small fortune [Click here.]( [Three founders Publishing]( To end your Gilder's Daily Prophecy e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from Gilder's Daily Prophecy, feel free to [click here](. If you are having trouble receiving your Gilder's Daily Prophecy subscription, you can ensure its arrival in your mailbox by [whitelisting Gilder's Daily Prophecy](. Gilder's Daily Prophecy is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Please read [our Privacy Statement.]( For any further comments or concerns please email us at GildersDailyProphecy@threefounderspublishing.com. Nothing in this e-mail should be considered personalized financial advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized financial advice. We expressly forbid our writers from having a financial interest in any security recommended to our readers. All of our employees and agents must wait 24 hours after online publication or 72 hours after the mailing of a printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended in this letter should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company. © 2021 Three Founders Publishing, LLC., 808 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore MD 21202. All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. This newsletter may only be used pursuant to the subscription agreement and any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Three Founders Publishing, LLC. EMAIL REFERENCE ID: 401GDPED01