I lived in San Francisco from 2013 to 2021. When I first got there, like many others, I was super excited to visit the Google campuses, eat some free catered lunches, and try out their bathrooms! My first time at one of the campuses, I remember gorging on the free snacks and visiting the spotless bathrooms. It felt cool. I felt cool. Google felt cool.

A couple of years later, I remember meeting someone who worked at Google at a hacker party. He proudly introduced himself as “Jake who works at Google,” like Google employees get to, and we started chatting. As we continued to chat, I realized I was very bored with the conversation, and he felt very different from the genius hipster you went to college with who could drink a case of beer and still rock a final the next day. He felt...corporate. Just a one-off.

Then, while working at Galvanize, I was able to work with Google for Startups/Entrepreneurs on a Google Mentor program. I got two mentors appointed to me, and they helped in many facets of my company—marketing, how to grow it faster, and how to make it more profitable. They were great—and cool. Ah, I was worried for a second! Through them, I was invited to some other events at Google, and through the Google for Startups program, I got to attend 1-day workshops at Google.

But something weird happened during these workshops. When I went to sign in for the workshop, things didn’t feel as cool at the Google campus as on my previous visits. All of the small talk was very surface-level, and no one felt real. We then sat through a presentation of slides on how we could make our websites perform better.

The people talking lacked any real emotion or any tactical advice—you could tell they were just good with people and did not know how to help a startup. And then, when we got into breakout groups, everyone felt like Jake. As I looked around, it hit me all at once—Google is not cool anymore, and further than that—it’s super corporate.

After this was on my radar, I found that all of my friends who used to work at Google had left, as did my mentors. My one last friend to work there left after 2 months because it felt “too PC,” which to be fair, he is very not PC. But to translate for him, maybe it felt too corporate.

Anyone that I met who worked at Google after that seemed to have this “I work at the city” feeling of not really knowing what they are talking about and not really caring. I then realized that Google was dying. It wasn’t going to happen instantly, but slowly.

Flash forward to now. I use ChatGPT for 50% of my searches and am thoroughly not impressed with Google’s AI recommendations. I believe it’s only a matter of time before Google becomes the secondary search engine.

From ChatGPT “As of mid-2024, OpenAI's ChatGPT is seeing a substantial amount of activity, with around 1.8 billion website visits in April 2024 and about 100 million active users. This marks a significant increase from previous months, showcasing the growing popularity and utility of the platform​ (ToolTester)​​ (Mailbutler)​.

In comparison, Google Search remains a dominant force on the internet. While specific numbers for 2024 aren't readily available, it is known that Google processes around 8.5 billion searches per day globally. This dwarfs the search volume on ChatGPT, emphasizing Google's continued prevalence as the primary search engine for most users.”

So, while we are nowhere close to ChatGPT taking over anytime soon. I do believe this is slowly happening and give Google about 2.5 years before being the second largest website used for searches. So, what does this mean for Google if this is true?

They need to be cool again, learn how to recruit all of the people that now proudly put on their LinkedIn profiles “x-Google,” and improve their AI. What did they decide to do instead?

Hello advertiser,

We are reaching out to provide you with an important update to your account(s): the billing options for your Google Ads account(s) are changing. Your account(s) have specific payment options and will only be allowed to use bank-based payment methods, which does not include credit or debit cards.

Accepted forms of payment include check or wire transfer via the Monthly Invoicing billing method (recommended), or via Direct Debit for those choosing to remain on the Automatic Payments billing method (if available in your region). Because you currently pay via a form of payment no longer accepted, the payment method on your Google Ads account listed below will need to change:

Account Name: Noson

Customer ID: 714-423-8522

You will need to complete this billing change by July 31, 2024 or your Ads account will be subject to suspension. There are no exceptions to this requirement for impacted advertisers. All impacted advertisers will be similarly notified throughout the coming months.

Next steps The Monthly Invoicing billing method is best suited for your account(s) given the flexibility it provides high-growth customers (e.g. access to a credit line, monthly invoices with 30 days to pay, greater control over spend, more reliable). We recommend your account(s) transition to monthly invoicing to comply with this change. Please note, you are receiving this email as the administrator of this account; however, if this account is linked to a manager account (MCC), the switch to invoicing will need to be completed by the MCC administrator.

Our records indicate that you already have a credit line established with Google or that we are able to create one for you given your existing billing information, which makes this transition seamless. The designated billing contact will be sent a Master Service Agreement (MSA) for the credit line during the first week of July, if you have not accepted this agreement already. After that agreement is accepted, you will receive instructions detailing how to switch your account to invoicing. No need to take any action until that point.

Your specific Google Sales team is aware that you are impacted by this change and is prepared to help you navigate the transition. You can also reach out to Google's billing specialist team here for questions about monthly invoicing. We thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

Thank you,

The Google Ads Team

Google is now going to high-touch customers like us (who spend around $1m in advertising annually) and telling us we can no longer use Credit Cards as a payment method for Google Ads.

Not cool.

This is a significant amount of income and points generated for our company.. and my family damn it lol..

We will start to phase out using Google for advertising and use Bing and Social Media as our main channels-- I’ll give Google a chance to rectify this, but I don’t anticipate any changes.