Google Search has been declining for a very long time. It's not LLM's driving people away from Google Search, it's the experience itself. People have been lamenting long before AI about how much less useful Google Search has become over the years. First it was because of companies using SEO to gamify the whole thing and get their commercial interests listed over actual helpful info. Then it was Google pushing more into advertising so you had to search inside the search to find the relevant results that were not being promoted. Then add to this the (relatively) recent privacy concerns about data-mining, tracking, and general creepiness from large technology companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon that is turning people off from using their products because of how the information is sold and used to stalk them other places.

I do agree with this point. Stopping API or screen-scraping shenanigans that are resulting in LLMs using Google's services while stopping revenue is a concern they should address... much like Google abusing access to news outlets and presenting information in a way that prevents the actual authors from gaining compensation for their content.

That "future revenue" is a pretty big "if". Meanwhile the resources for this are not really practical from an environmental standpoint, at least as long as the AI makers keep thinking making deals with existing fossil-fuel utilities are the solution and not building their own solar/wind plants to power their datacenters. But their C-suites aren't concerned with that.

Any actor popular enough that Gen Z wants to pretend to be them doesn't die. Their physical body might cease but their estate will continue for at least two more generations as their progeny fight for more money they didn't earn.

Gen Z is only a small portion of the internet-using population. Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials haven't hung up their keyboards and are on other platforms Gen Z considers "dead". Plus Gen Z prefers user-generated content to traditional streaming services so they are also using YouTube along with their older peers that may not "get" the short-runtime Tiktok vid. So YouTube as higher viewership overall.

You're still deflecting from the actual question. Is the AI business, when measured alone regarding its costs and revenue, profitable? Whether it's considered a "Search Business" or not is inconsequential. Saying we have to look at it combined with other Google search entities is literally the issue I'm warning about.

The AI business is not succeeding if it needs to be amalgamated on a balance sheet with other ventures

Google can grow their "search business" revenue without having to steam-shoveling resources into an AI furnace at an exponential rate.

Yup, just like most companies today face meaningful punishments when they have security bre-- BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Sorry, I couldn't continue that with a straight face.

"Using Windows AI may cause data theft and malware risks, so don't come to us when it happens, you were warned (not that you had the choice to disable the AI...)"

If we do this we can get ahead of the Machines before they develop enough smarts to realize humans can be used as biological batteries to power their AI collective.

Maybe you guys should just add price tags to all bug reports so users know how much they need to pay for you to care. Lots of goalpost moving here. First you give the ol' cliche "if you want it fixed, get coding" to now bringing how much one has contributed financially into it. You're making commercial software sound preferable. At least then we know the relationship is transactional up front.

It's not lying about it. There's no requirement a company line-item every single product on earnings. Apple has been doing it for years in their reporting, that's why none of the rumors sites can give hard numbers on how badly the iPhone Mini flopped (or the iPhone Air is flopping now) -- Apple has them reported mixed with the more successful models. Their "services" category in earnings includes AppleCare, iCloud, Apple Music subscriptions, App Store fees, and even the Google Search licensing payment. Here is one of their 10Q filings if you want to see for yourself. There is no breakdown of those individual services listed.

I'm going to assume you're misunderstanding my question. I'm only referring to the AI business.
The AI business is not succeeding if it needs to be amalgamated on a balance sheet with other ventures to hide that it's bleeding money.

Reporting bugs is literally a way people who are not software developers can contribute to open source software.

Are you saying only issues reported by coders deserve any attention? Because that sounds a bit antithetical if you're marketing your product to everyday people, as Mozilla does.

Great to hear, maybe now they can look at some of the other 15+ year old bugs they have been ignoring (except when they want to close a new report as a dupe, of course).

It's doesn't sound like a successful business venture if you're having to increase operation expenses at this rate and not be raking in the revenue.

Devices like that normally advertise (or at least mention it) on the product page. It's supposed to be a security feature.

I don't have any personal experience owning a Windows S device, but I feel like I've looked at it before and simply trying to open a command prompt triggers a message about it and steers you to a setting to disable the S mode, with lots of scary language added about how if you do there is no way to put it back.

--
I forget what 8 was for.

It was supposed to make Windows universal on personal computers, tablets, and smartphones. One interface for all three. Apps that ran on all three. Normalize an app store that set guardrails up on what you did on your computer, and brought Microsoft revenue just like the iOS App Store does Apple.