Google at 25: could things have been different?

It seems a growing number of people are looking for alternatives to some of Google’s most popular products, such as search and email. For someone who has been following the company’s strategy since 1998, what strikes me is that despite its huge initial competitive advantage, Google’s products have turned out not to be the best of the best, and what’s more, in many cases, their performance has deteriorated.

Cast your mind back to the heady days of the turn of the millennium: Google search engine results were, without any doubt, much better than now. The company’s strategy, particularly personalization and financing its business model through advertising, have become prevented impartial search results, while its mail service is marred by ads from deceitful advertisers who pay for impressions that nobody ever clicks on.

Could things have been better? From today’s standpoint, it’s clear that while Google’s decision in 2003 to create a business model based on advertising has made its shareholders very rich, it’s has been a failure for us. Were there alternatives? What would have happened, for example, if Google had chosen a subscription model? It was way ahead of the competition, but would we have paid for Google without ads? I think we would, or at least I would have. Google’s initial popularity was because its results were so good. That…