Google’s outage: Aftermath
Just when we thought 2020 couldn't get any worse and is going to end for good, Google servers went down for 45 minutes on December 14th. Major services such as YouTube and services of GSuite were majorly hit.
This has kept many of us wondering what could be the result of this outage? What's it for Google? And what's it for services depending on Google? This article tries to make a comprehensive analysis of the aftermath of this outage.
YouTube
It is estimated that 500 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube every hour (source) and 42 million hours of video content is streamed every hour (source). The average length of videos on youtube is 11.7 minutes (source). And for every 1,000 views, YouTube makes $18 (source). As one might know, each video is preceded and/or succeded with ads. The number of ads that could have been viewed in that outage time is non-recoverable. Seeing the numbers and given the fact that not all videos streamed are monetised and some videos are extensively monetised by having ads at the beginning, end and in the middle as well, it could be estimated that $1.93 billion is lost (not to account the merchandise which could be viewed or redirected in that time). Just on YouTube.
AdSense
You might have observed the label “Ads by Google” on the advertisement cards you see on: the websites you visit, while on a Google search, the ads on android applications you download from Play Store, or perhaps while you try to search for a place on Google Maps. These ads are handled by AdSense. It is Google’s advertisement cash-cow. Google earns most of its revenue from ads. This also handles ads on YouTube. The revenue is calculated on a parameter called RPM (read more here). RPM is calculated as follows:
Formula:RPM = (Estimated earnings / Number of page views) * 1000
The parameter “Number of page views” along with “Estimated earnings” are brutally affected during this outage resulting in loss of billions of dollars.
Google Maps
The places you visit is by default recorded by Google Maps so as to formulate an accurate counter-part of yourself virtually. This is done to trace your activity so as to show relevant ads to you based on your visits. The data which could be generated during the downtime is lost forever. That will in turn affect the ads being displayed and hence advertisement impact and turnout.
There are many consumers of Google Maps such as Ola, Uber, redBus etc., whose businesses are affected as well. This affects the goodwill of Google. If the 3rd party applications decide to outsource their map needs for another company such as Here, Google experiences a considerable amount of loss in this domain.
Play Store
Google play store is another product which generates direct cash flow to the company. Many apps are hosted which could be directly bought or freely downloaded in which ads would be present and not to mention the ad banners at the home screen of the play store which generate revenue. It is estimated that 10 million app downloads happen every hour (source). The revenue which could be generated during the downtime is lost.
GSuite
GSuite is a set of paid services offered by Google. It includes tools for communicating (Gmail, Hangouts aka Meet, Calender), Store (Drive), Collaborate (Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, Sites), Manage (Admin, Vault). As the intended customers are companies with businesses who demand reliable and uninterrupted service, the outage would have caused serious damage to the goodwill of Google.
Needless to say, to err is human and programmers and the most humane beings alive, downtime and outages are an integral part of a system and the focus should be on minimisation of the same. At a broader perspective, it is just astonishing at a stellar level how depended we are on Google.
