The Information is a fantastic source, and I subscribed to support the excellent original reporting that comes out of it. Most of the news will get disseminated by other blogs and news journals in the next day or so, but The Information is pretty good if you want tech news first.
A big nugget from behind the paywall: "This person said the group’s leaders didn’t explicitly state what would happen to the cloud division if it didn’t reach a top two position by 2023. A commonly held view inside the group was that Google wouldn’t continue investing money if it failed to it meet its goal, the person said."
The article also claims Google Cloud isn't profitable under their current business plan: "The group’s leaders told staffers that if Google couldn’t reach a certain size with its computing and storage business—two of the most commonly used cloud services—the cloud unit might never become profitable, the person said. To reach such scale, they said, Google would need to be in a top two position in the market."
Curious about what others think of the price. $399/year is pretty steep. Compared to, say Ben Thompson who I do subscribe to for $120/year. For younger (<=30) folks, there's a $199/year discounted price.
It's super steep. I think that their target market is businesses and people who can afford it. But I jumped on it when they offered the young professionals plan. Really just to support them over the exclusive access side of things.
I signed up to the information for the same reason. Plus they actually have their paywall well designed. I get most of my news from them via email and I can read it right in my phone's gmail, versus everything else that has me sign up somewhere and then re-login every time. I wouldn't mind paying if the experience was at least seamless post payment.
A big nugget from behind the paywall: "This person said the group’s leaders didn’t explicitly state what would happen to the cloud division if it didn’t reach a top two position by 2023. A commonly held view inside the group was that Google wouldn’t continue investing money if it failed to it meet its goal, the person said."
The article also claims Google Cloud isn't profitable under their current business plan: "The group’s leaders told staffers that if Google couldn’t reach a certain size with its computing and storage business—two of the most commonly used cloud services—the cloud unit might never become profitable, the person said. To reach such scale, they said, Google would need to be in a top two position in the market."