The Real Reason Eric Schmidt Isn’t Google’s CEO anymore

Straight talk from Steve Jobs:

 

The Nexus One is a TOTAL Flop.

See what you get for hurting Steve’s feelings, Eric Schmidt? Do you see what happens to you? That’s right: you lose.

Suck it, asshole.

Eric Schmidt is ripping you off!

According to Gizmodo and iSuppli, the hardware that goes into the new Nexus One only costs $174.15. So that means Google could sell you the phone unsubsidized for $174.16 and still make a profit.

Why Google Should be selling the Nexus One for $99.

[tweetmeme]I’m going to say this as plainly as I possibly can: If Google doesn’t sell the Nexus One unsubsidized for $99 to every country in the world, right now, it wants the Nexus One to fail.

An extreme statement, you say? No it isn’t, shut up.

For all of those of you who’ll say I’m missing the point, or that I’m saying the phone sucks, or something, let me be clear: the phone is perfectly nice. It’s worth the money you pay to buy it. All of what I’m saying here is predicated on the idea that Google’s trying to change something, that this phone is meant to be A Goddamn Big Deal. Got it?

Right now, customers are screwed.

Right now, you can get the phone for $529 or $179. $179 for a subsidized phone is okay, except that most people aren’t on the single carrier currently selling the Nexus One for a subsidy, which means that in order to enjoy the phone, most people will need to cancel their current account to get the subsidized pricing, and those early termination fees don’t exactly make the thing cheaper. In those cases, most people will say screw it and buy the phone on subsidy, because they just had to already pay a couple hundred goddamn dollars for the privilege of being a free agent.

How Google can fix it.

Google needs to subsidize the phone themselves in order for it to succeed. It’s that simple. The question, once that immutable fact has been established by me — I’m the goddamn kingmaker! — is how much subsidy should Google provide, and why?

The price needs to be more than free. Free is great, and everything — I love me some free sex — but if you give someone something for free, they’ll tend to think of it like it’s disposable. Much like Microsoft Works, People respect call girls, not sluts. But why should Google subsidize the cost of the phone? They themselves have said that the phone is an entry point to getting more people online more during the day, because once people get online, Google’s got you like a case of herpes (you may respect call girls, but that doesn’t make them clean). So more users of Nexus One means more money for Google, which means they can afford to sell the thing at a discount. How much of a discount? As much as they can without being unable to make the money back.

I’m just going to take a wild guess and say that $99 would work for them.

That’s a pretty steep drop from $529, but Google makes a lot of money off its users, and it’s not like they wouldn’t be able to get HTC to sell them the phones at a goddamn discount, or something. This is Google, after all. A bonus to a $99 price point would be that they’d actually be competing with the iPhone. I mean, how can you have an iPhone killer that costs more than the iPhone? It’s ridiculous.

Now, sure, lots of tech industry wankers will say that the phone competes in features, and that’s true, but so what? You can buy an iPhone for $99. Can you buy this phone for $99? No? Then you’re going to lose average consumers who aren’t aware of the different product versions, who have no goddamn idea what a magnetometer is, and don’t care to. Average consumers are idiots, and when they see two shiny phones, one of which is more expensive than the other and has fewer apps, which are they going to choose? Exactly.

Hey Google, you know who the average consumer is, right? They’re the most of the world who aren’t technically savvy, who don’t want to be, who actually leave the house voluntarily, have normal human relationships, and get laid sometimes. I’m sure none of that sounds familiar, but they exist, and they outnumber you.

Is $99 too much of a subsidy for you, Google?

Let’s pretend for a moment that Google wants to get everybody on their phone, but they won’t be able to make back enough money per-user to justify a $99 price tag. I doubt that’s the case, but let’s pretend. In that case you could still offer an unsubsidized phone for, say, $199, and let your precious mobile carrier partners knock the extra $100 off on contract. Bam. You’re welcome, Google.

Haven’t you ever heard of razor blades?

Since Google is looking more and more like Microsoft, with their greasy Redmond-based tentacles slithering over every pure, helpless industry they see, using the phone as a loss-leader makes perfect sense. This is about as old a sales technique as you can get, after all; you drop the price on the front-end, and take a loss on the initial purchase, and charge more for the recurring purchases on the back-end. Microsoft did this with the XBox 360, because they made money on their video games and the accessories, and because even more importantly, it got them a set-top box in 5 million living rooms, and they can make money serving up movie rentals, and all sorts of other crazy shit.

Go and do likewise, Schmidt. Go and do likewise.

Don’t mess this up, Google.

You have an opportunity here, Eric Schmidt. You have a great phone, and you have the deep pockets to get it out to a large number of people for a low price, and best of all, you have an infrastructure to recoup all of that money — and more — once these brand-new customers start using it. You are shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t do this.

Shut up.

Why the Google Phone won’t change anything.

A lot of people are talking about the Google Phone, which is funny considering the stupid thing doesn’t exist, but for sake of argument, let’s pretend it does: Will it actually change the way cell phone carriers operators run their business? Will it change anything at all?

That wasn’t a hypothetical question, I was just being polite. I’m Walt Goddamn Mosspuppet, I tell you things. That’s how it works. So buckle up, cupcake, I’m about to smack you in the face with some knowledge. Things are about to get goopy.

My answer is no. The Google Phone won’t change anything.

Google’s got its phone, the Nexus One. I know, I know; take as much time as you need to vomit while thinking of how horrific the name is, this amazing post will still be here. Back? Okay, good. The rumor is that it’s going to be sold without a provider, a move which will, coming from Google, set the world ablaze. There are two parts to this crapdazzle of a story, and I’m going to break it down for you like Woody Guthrie. Ready?

The Phone

The first part of this trifecta of idiocy is the phone itself. As near as anyone can tell, it’s a rebranded HTC Passion. Why is this significant? Some people are saying it’s because the current HTC Passion is running Windows Mobile currently, so Android would be new and fantastical, but a simple web search for “HTC Passion” seems to show that the Passion is coming to Verizon at the very end of this year with Android already installed. Aside from the fact that this renders Google’s great internal unveiling of a brand new phone as potentially no more than a company giving out a Christmas gift, this means the phone isn’t anything more than one of a number of neat looking phones coming out in the near future running Android 2.1. (TechCrunch reports that Google’s had a lot of input into the customization of their own version of the HTC Passion, but TechCrunch should shut up)

What’s that, you say? The Droid runs 2.0, so Android 2.1 must be the super special sauce? That could very well be, but from where I’m sitting the super sauce looks is coming from a great many flaccid blogger cocks. HTC Bukkake, anyone?

The HTC Passion is a cool looking phone, but it’s essentially off-the-shelf, as is Android. Now, some people are saying that this will be some super-version of Android, one unburdened by the greedy, evil cell carriers, one finally allowed to run free and frollick in the fields of “I’m hallucinating because I ate too many Cheetos I’m choking on one oh god oh god I’m about to die alone in my parent’s basement,” but that’s just conjecture at this point. Where’s the Beef, as they used to say? I’ll tell you where the beef is, bucko; it’s in the goddamn cow that hasn’t even been born yet!

The Service

A big part of the hype here is that the phone will come unlocked. For those of you who don’t know (which is almost everyone), “unlocked” means that a phone isn’t tied to a specific carrier, and this matters to about 15 people in the world. Why does it matter? Options. If you’re not tied to a carrier you’re free to jump back and forth between carriers as you please. This is a principled stand, which is both admirable and pointess; you’d have to be on a month-to-month contract in order to take advantage of your phone being unlocked without suffering enormous early cancellation fees, and you get better deals when you’re on a longer contract, and most people pick longer contracts because they like better deals and, hey, you’re not going to stop using your phone next month, so why deprive yourself of savings?

Yes, it’s nice that you can get this phone no matter what carrier you’re on, but so what? If you’ve already got a phone, are you going to go out and by another one just because it’s unlocked, or because the feature-set is better in ways that are hard for you to understand? No you’re not. Shut up.

Here’s the thing: people outside the tech bubble don’t buy a phone every six days. They just don’t, and if you think they do then you’re a delusional nitwit. Most people buy one damned phone every year or two then they just use the things like the tools they’re supposed to be. They fire and forget blindly in the darkness, like I do after my Viagra’s kicked in. For many people the phone and service may as well be the same thing. And since Google will be selling the phones directly (on their site and possibly through retail channels), they’re going to confuse the hell out of their customers.

The Hell?

Saying Nexus One will change phones forever is like saying that a shiny new collar on a single Chihuahua will change dogs forever: it’s stupid. Normal people don’t understand technology. It’s why they need people like me to explain it to them. Do you really think they’ll get the appeal of the Google Phone? Do you really think people understand cellphones? It took most people more than a decade to figure out how to set their goddamn VCR clock, and now we’re supposed to believe they’ve somehow gone from not even realizing they have legs to being marathon runners capable of understanding why this phone is better than all the others? Please.

Imagine you’re an average person who hears about the Nexus One, and thinks it’s cool enough to buy. Does it make sense that after you buy the phone you still have to set up a plan for it as a separate transaction? That’s hobbyist crap, and most people aren’t hobbyists. Most people want to walk into a store, buy something that works, and go home. If Nexus One isn’t connected to a carrier, then they won’t get that experience. People will think some part of this chain is broken and complain about it. The phone will get a bad reputation with the broader public because it doesn’t fit with the way cellphone purchases have always worked. This may help feed an elitist view that the phone is just two r0x0rs for the commoners to understand, but it won’t do a damn thing to help with any landscape changing.

The confusion over the Nexus One — you know what? Screw it, I’m not calling it that anymore. It’s just too stupid. I’m going to call it the Google Phone, because while that sounds stupid, too, it sounds a lot less stupid than “Nexus One.” Every time I say it I need to wash my face out with whiskey.

The confusion over the Google Phone won’t just extend to activation; it’ll extend to pricing, as well. Cell phones are cheaper when you get a contract because the phone company is subsidizing the price of the phone. No carrier means no subsidizing, so unless Google sells this at a loss because they’re going to throw ads at you like a drunken Thai prostitute throwing around offers of cheap handjobs, the phone’s going to be a lot more expensive than ones that aren’t unlocked.

The more I think about it, the more “unlocked” sounds like “Organic,” except with even less obvious benefits.

I’m sure that some of you craphats are yelling at your monitors right now, while tightly clutching your saliva-stained binkies, saying “But Mosspuppet, Android 2.1 is so much better than 2.0!” To that I say: screw you. This phone will be compared to two things:

1. The iPhone — Compared to the iPhone, this may indeed be nicer, but it will likely be more expensive, plus have fewer farting apps on it. So the iPhone wins.
2. Other Android phones — Jesus, this’ll be such a non-starter. I mean, hell, a good chunk of the population have spent the past eight years running goddamn Windows XP and can’t tell you the difference between it and Windows 7. These idiots are going to understand a point release? No they’re not. Their computers and their phones are tools, and not tools like you are, either. Their computers and their phones do things, and they don’t pay more attention to them than that. So people are going to like the menu of this one Android phone, and the Best Buy clerk or their friend or some other douchebag is going to say “get the Google Phone, it’s running Android 2.1 and it’s unlocked!” and the people are going to look at two identical phones, see one that costs more, and go with the phone from the carrier. So the other Android phones win.

People won’t understand the Google Phone. It will confuse them, and when people get confused, they go with what they know, and they already know how to walk into a store and ask the nice idiot from Verizon or T-Mobile or Rogers to please give them that shiny new phone there, because I just got a call that my upgrade price eligibility has kicked in, and what the Hell.

The Google Phone won’t revolutionize anything; it’ll be an orgy for a handful of tech journalists, and a non-starter for everyone else.

Shut up.

The Google Phone Does Not Exist.

Despite what everybody’s been saying, the Google Phone doesn’t exist. It just doesn’t. All other tech journalists but me get it wrong. Again.

How do I know that the Google Phone doesn’t exist? Simple: because I have not seen it. Was that simple enough for you? Alright, fiiiine, I’ll try it again, with smaller words:

If the Google Phone were real, Eric Schmidt would have personally delivered one to me months ago, on bended-knee, for my approval. This is the power I wield in the industry, you simpering meatbags; if I don’t bless a product, it doesn’t sell. So since Eric didn’t give me a phone, it can’t logically exist.

You’re welcome.

Also, just as a brief comment about the CrunchGear article I linked to at the top: John Biggs describes the non-existent phone as being an HTC model, but then ends with this stupefying nugget:

This is “a big deal” on the level of Neo learning Kung Fu in The Matrix. This means Google is making hardware.

John, are you actually conscious when you write these articles? Were you too busy climaxing at the thought of Sergey and Larry literally penetrating you to notice that earlier in your single-paragraph article you specifically referred to it as being:

an HTC Phone

How in Skullfuck Island does Google buying a bunch of phones from someone else and installing software on them mean that they’re making hardware? That’s just idiotic. Am I car manufacturer because there’s a Volkswagen sitting in my driveway?

To recap: There is no Google Phone, because I don’t already know about it.

Shut up.

Walt Mosspuppet’s Guide to Using Google Wave

Don’t.

That’s my advice to you if you’re considering using Google Wave, or if you’ve just gotten an invite to the thing, my advice to you is to walk away.

Seriously.

Wave is supposed to be a revolution in personal communication. It’s what e-mail would be like if it were created now, or some stupid thing. You can do stuff like e-mail, or instant messaging, or picture sharing, or a whole hell of a lot of other useless stuff that’ll appear interesting to .com idiots and teenagers who’re baked out of their minds, but what about the rest of us? Well, the rest of us say that Google Wave should go away. If I want to e-mail someone I’ll send them an e-mail. If I want to chat with someone in real time I’ll use a carrier pigeon. If I want to do something that would appeal to wasted teenagers, I’ll bash my head in with a baseball bat first, because that’s just stupid.

Google’s known for its minimalist interfaces, so how did Wave get through the censors? It’s so busy and blinky and flashy, it’s going to give people seizures. It makes me scared, and I’m Walt Goddamn Mosspuppet. And let me tell you a little something about Walt Mossberg:

Walt Mosspuppet doesn’t get scared by new things. New things get scared of Walt Mosspuppet and put themselves in the Dead Pool.

This is the Google Wave interface:

Seriously, what the hell’s going on here? How is anybody over the age of 35 supposed to understand what’s going on? Am I typing in the left column? The right column? Why do I have to take a poll?

Give me one text field and one button, or get the Hell out of my way. Anything above the most stripped-down text editor imaginable and a submit button the size of my goiter is stupid.

I’ll end with a personal note to Eric Schmidt: Stop it. Just stop it, Eric. Shut Google Wave down, and let me have my stripped down interface; anything else will make me wet my pants, and not in the way I like to.

Eric Schmidt is on Twitter.

Well, hurrah, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, is on Twitter. I’m so excited by this news that I need a new pair of Depends.

What was Eric’s first Tweet?

CNN GPS with Fareed Zakaria on Nov 29th, starts around minute 17; Fareed is a very good interviewer http://bit.ly/6GwGjn

What greater heights can we as a species ascend to?