No. of Recommendations: 12
The fundamental bear case is that the Company's competitive moat has diminished significantly. This will lead to ongoing declines in revenues/profits -- as the days of 20%+ growth in revenues are behind us. Depending on how you look at the company, somewhere between 50% and 80% of revenues/profits are linked to search/ads -- and if one goes, they'll both go.
While Google has an "ecosystem" (and imo, chrome/gmail/youtube are very sticky), that ecosystem can rapidly diminish once alternatives are presented. I remember how quickly we all dropped Yahoo! search when Google was deemed better (or Yahoo! email when gmail offered more storage). The LLMs have already digested the internet so the war will be over "interpretation of old" or "access to new" -- competitors have significantly reduced costs (Deepseek) and real time new info (X, Meta). Google's deal with reddit fails (for example).
Further, there is an argument that Google has become highly politicized internally and this will be a complex subject that plays out negatively for the company.
The combination of these factors could support a longer term flatline in revenue, decrease in profit (as costs increase and management throws capex in an effort to defend the moat against competition) and we'd see a flat to negative stock return.
I'm still trying to decide if I'm a buyer here fyi -- I'm getting flash backs to BABA.
