That's right, Google will have effectively shut down Google Shopping's giant pipeline to the vast Web ocean, and replaced it with a bendy-straw to a bucket of only those sellers who pay expressly to get in that bucket and then continue paying to stay in. Google tried to pass it off as the concept known as "paid-inclusion" -- this excellent article by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land discusses the technical details, and this one by Ina Steiner of eCommerce Bytes gives the seller's perspective. But from the shopper's perspective which I think needs attention, the most critical point is that paid-inclusion implies exactly nothing about free-inclusion. I have no problem with paid-inclusion. What Google is actually implementing is "free-exclusion". And free-exclusion, without sufficient moral justification, is...well...certainly not "good".
I struggle to see the ways in which abandoning Google Shopping for "Google Middleman"™ could ultimately make sense...for anyone. On the most fundamental level of course, it's all about the Benjamins, right? I mean, it's business, after all. So, some power-majority within the Google Corporate Colossus must have concluded that the necessarily-not-world's-largest exclusive-country-club model of marketplace is significantly more likely to make them a significant amount of profit which is significantly greater than the necessarily-world's-largest open-air bazaar model of marketplace.
I find not one of those conclusions likely, much less the combination of all three, because it requires significant unreasonable presumptions. It presumes that enough sellers get enough profit from Google Shopping business to make them both willing and able to pay. Highly unlikely, Captain. It also presumes that enough shoppers find a necessarily-not-world's-largest exclusive-country-club marketplace to be of sufficient (and sufficiently greater) utility than all the present "open source" alternatives on which to expend their limited and precious time and energy. I don't think so, Tim.
What it sounds like is exactly what would happen if some critical mass of persuasive Google stakeholders couldn't see past the cartoon dollar-signs on their eyeballs. Perhaps by throwing around shiny (but wholly unrealistic) terms like "The App Store of Cybershopping". Which, by the way, wasn't a possibility even back in 2002 at Froogle's debut thanks to the then already existing multitude of free-inclusion alternatives such as BizRate.
On another level, Google supposedly values (valued?) Not Being Evil. So, some power-majority within the Google Corporate Colossus must have rationalized that the necessarily-not-world's-largest exclusive-country-club marketplace is of sufficiently greater benefit to a sufficiently greater number of shoppers than the necessarily-world's-largest open-air bazaar marketplace. I.e., that having a middleman does more Good for more people than not having a middleman.
Again, neither of those conclusions seems likely, much less both together. For it to be true, a significant portion of shoppers would have to prefer less knowledge, fewer choices, higher prices, supporting bigger & richer sellers at the expense of smaller or poorer ones, and entire shopping failures. That dog won't hunt, Monsignor. If enough shoppers didn't prefer more choice, malls wouldn't be more popular than Main Street. If enough shoppers didn't get more satisfaction from the hunt than from the time and energy spent, there wouldn't be so much driving around looking for and waiting in line at the 1-penny-less gas pump. If so many shoppers didn't want something unavailable from, or priced lower than, the bigger & richer sellers, the thousands upon thousands of smaller or poorer sellers wouldn't have the online business case they obviously do.
If there was a market demand for more middlemen, there would be more middlemen. But middlemen thrive because of market inefficiency. Certainly, middlemen can do a lot of good to make a sufficiently inefficient market more efficient. But the Web is not sufficiently inefficient, so inserting a middleman results in a net market efficiency loss, with the only possible (and arguable) beneficiary being Google. That's "Not Being Evil"?
If Google really concluded that free-exclusion is fundamentally financially and morally superior to free-inclusion, then they would have tested their conclusion by offering both. They would have left the historical Google Shopping alone, put up their new free-exclusion service side-by-side, and let the market vindicate them. They could have called it Google Club™, or Google Concierge™, or Google Platinum™, or Google Elite™, or Google Tower™, or Goobai™. (Google Middleman probably wouldn't do so well...).
Or if Google really wanted just to implement paid-inclusion in Google Shopping, then they would have simply...implemented paid-inclusion in Google Shopping. The way Amazon bubbles "Featured Merchants" up to the top of the "More Buying Choices" pages. I have no problem with that.
The completeness of Google Shopping's source data was the very thing that created the confidence I had found the absolute best example I could of thing for my requirements and then had found the absolute best price-trustworthiness compromise I could for my tastes. But the New Google Shopping, by design, guarantees incompleteness. There is nothing a Web shopping middleman can do for me that I want done, only things a Web shopping middleman can do to me that I don't want done. Google, in one fell swoop, transmogrified Google Shopping from from the most valuable thing to the least valuable thing...from gold, to...well...something not quite as valuable as lead. So I vote the observation by taking my eyeballs elsewhere. I think everybody should.
Now I must "progress" to 2002, re-evaluate multiple shopping engines, and figure out the new smallest set which will yield a satisfying completeness-effort compromise. Before Froogle I had mostly settled on a combination of BizRate, Yahoo! Shopping (for its huge index of little-guy Yahoo! Stores), and individual seller sites. Now I have to see who else, by virtue of free-inclusion, might be trusted to meta-index the limited indices like Amazon Marketplace, eBay, Etsy, and eCrater, and the little guys like those in Hong Kong, Singapore, etc., the way I used to trust Google Shopping to do (as permitted). Google (Web) returns plenty of shopping-engine lists like Search Engine Watch, ListOfSearchEngines.Info, SmartMoney, and CPC Strategy...it's gonna be a slog. Got any ideas? Please share in the comments.
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