Google is, at its heart, an advertising company. They have their hands in many, many different projects, products, and services, but fundamentally they're all different ways to serve up ads to users.
That's not a bad or nefarious thing, either; it allows Google to craft up some remarkable products and let the whole world use them at no cost.
But sometimes we get a stark reminder that yes, these highly polished, integral products are just the long way around trying to get us to buy something.
The latest is coming from Google Photos, where Google is now apparently testing a new advertisement in the side menu for the “Photo book store” where users can purchase full-fledged photo books made out of their photos backed up to Google's cloud storage. The feature debuted at Google I/O a couple years ago, and still seems like a really cool and heartfelt thing, but it's sort of been hiding in the background since that initial launch.
Now some users are reporting seeing this ad, as seen in the screenshot from 9to5Google. That entry for photo books is present for all users, but the new entry is much more eye-catching with a full picture and tagline.
- Google nixes the ability to sync photos between Photos and Drive
- Here's how to use Google Lens
Selling physical products isn't Google's bread and butter, but I get it. Photos doesn't really bring in any revenue directly from Google, but these Photo Books could potentially turn it into a profitable venture, aside from just using the treasure trove of photos as a machine learning paradise.
What are your thoughts on changes like this in existing Google products?
source: 9to5Google
