The internet is a key part of life for millions of Dutch people and for the businesses they work for. Because it is often provided free of charge, it is easy to underestimate the value created by better access to information. Sometimes we speak of the Internet as if it just a way that we distract ourselves when are bored - but in reality, the internet is today how we get the information that helps us learn a new subject, improve the skills in our job, research how to vote on a critical issue or just figure out how to do that bit of housework we’ve been putting off for too long.
Google’s mission is to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” As the gateway to the internet for many people, Google’s products like Search, YouTube, or Android are how they gain access to the largest collection of knowledge ever created.
In this report, Google commissioned us to seek to both better understand and where possible to quantify the different types of value their products are creating and how they help people, businesses and society:
- for people, we looked at the amount of time saved by Google products, how they help us learn, keep us entertained and stay in touch with each other.
- for businesses, we looked at how Google’s products boost productivity, enable a range of industries and help better connect businesses with their customers and workers with jobs
- for society,we look at how Google’s products support democratic debate, increase access to information for underprivileged groups and support greater environmental efficiency and sustainability
In order to better understand this value, we combined a range of quantitative and qualitative research techniques. We ran a new nationally representative poll of 1,000 Dutch people across the country, exploring how they used Google products in their ordinary life and how much value it was creating for them. At the same time we spoke to 500 senior business leaders across different types of industry and size of business, trying to assess the difference these products were making to their workforce. Finally, we constructed multiple economic models which could help us quantify the total size of the benefits created by Google for the Dutch economy or standard of living.
We discovered many ways in which Google products are making life easier.
At home, for example, the average Dutch person is more likely to use Google Search in a given week than to use a dishwasher. 80% of Android users use their smartphone or computer to keep in touch with extended family at least once a week. 43% of Dutch people say they use Google Maps to find new places to try.
At work, 39% of businesses say that their company could operate at most for a few days without access to a search engine, and overall businesses in the Netherlands estimated that search advertising was second only in importance to word of mouth as a means for customers to find them. 50% of small businesses say that the costs of starting a business have reduced substantially or dramatically because of internet tools such as Search. Online tools are already significantly boosting productivity, and in the future we estimate that AI has the potential to boost the economy in the Netherlands by 11 % by 2030.
For society as a whole, 44% of people have used Search to find out about a local political candidate in a recent election, and 30% used it to find where they need to vote. Unlike other forms of knowledge and education, Search is used by everyone: there is no difference in Search usage between the wealthiest and least wealthy in our poll. Google is the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world, and in the Netherlands has committed investment in 130 MW of wind and solar energy.
In total, we estimated that Google products are supporting €8 billion in economic activity. As important as this traditional economic value, however, is the value created and time saved in everyday life. Other economists have calculated that if you included the value provided by free internet services in GDP, it would boost the growth rate by 0.7 percentage points a year. Our own work found that the total consumer surplus of Google’s products in the Netherlands is €43 billion a year or €74 per month for the median person.
How we quantified Google’s impact in the Netherlands
Traditional traditional economic statistics often do not take full account of the full benefits of the digital economy, such as saved time or the increased opportunities that seamless, rapid access to information can bring. This would also have been true of the printing press or TV. But just because something is hard to measure, does not mean that is unimportant.
In this paper, we sought to use a range of different methods to quantify the economic impact and help provided by Google Search, YouTube, Android and other Google products:
- To start, building on the precedent of previous Google impact reports 1, we used traditional economic modelling built upon third-party estimates of Google’s Dutch people market size, potential returns on investment (ROI) and productivity enhancements to measure the economic activity driven by Google Search, Google Ads, AdSense, YouTube, Android and Google Cloud.
- In order to build a broader picture of the benefits, we conducted extensive public polling to ask individuals and businesses how they made use of Google products, and what difference they made to their leisure, work and society. Working with the panel provider Dynata, we polled a nationally-representative sample of 1,000 adults and 200 senior business managers in small, medium and large businesses across the Netherlands, asking them 50 and 23 questions respectively about their experience using Google and other online products. Public First is a member of the British Polling Council, and full tables for all the data used in this report is available to download from our website. [LINK TO BE INSERTED]
- Finally, we explored X in-depth case studies of how businesses and individuals across the different regions and industries of the Netherlands are using Google to power their business.
We go into greater depth on our methodology in the last chapter, which explores how it compares and contributes to the wider debate on measuring the value created by the Internet. The full technical details are given in an appendix at the end of the report.
While Google commissioned this report from Public First, it did not supply any additional information and all estimates are derived from official, third party and proprietary information.
10 ways in which Dutch people and businesses are being helped by Google
1. In total, Google products are supporting €8 billion in economic activity for businesses in the Netherlands. Over the last five years, the economic activity driven by Google Search and Ads has grown by 70% in nominal terms.
2. Google products help people and businesses reduce their CO2 emissions. 33% of people have used Search to research their own environmental impact in the last year. By helping people get where they need to go faster, making it easier to work from home or walk or ride a bike rather than drive, Google products have saved 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 emissions - the equivalent of a passenger flying around the world 600,000 times.
3. Google Search is helping workers find jobs and build skills. Every year 54% of Dutch people use Search to learn a new skill, and three-quarters (75%) of 18-24 year olds use Search to look for a new job.
4. Google’s data centre in Eemshaven is entirely powered by renewable energy. Google is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world, enabling €1.2 billion of investment on Europe - and has been entirely CO2 neutral since 2017. Google’s data centres use 50% less energy than a typical data centre, and thanks to the application of AI deliver seven times more computing power than they did five years ago.
5. You would have to pay the average Dutch person €74 per month to compensate them for the value they’d lose if they lost access to Google products. The total consumer surplus provided by Google’s products is equal to €43 bn, or 5.6% of GDP.
6. On the average day, young adults in the Netherlands (18-24 year olds) are twice as likely to watch YouTube as traditional TV. 27% of Dutch adults say they use YouTube regularly to help with DIY, 24% to help with cooking, 22% to watch commentary on the news or politics, and 21% to learn about fitness.
7. Every day Google answers the equivalent of over 250,000 thousand questions from Dutch children seeking to learn. 43% of parents say their children regularly use Search to get help with homework, and 36% that they regularly use YouTube.
8. Workers were more likely to use Google Search in the average day for work than a laptop, desktop computer, Microsoft Office or car.The average worker said that they used Google Search for over half an hour per day.
9. Businesses in the Netherlands estimated that online search was second only in importance to word of mouth as a means for customers to find them. 62% of the businesses we spoke to agreed that thanks to search engines, it was far easier for global customers and clients to find them. 75% of businesses think it is harder to get away with poor goods, food or service because of the internet. 10. Small businesses and start-ups rely on free and low cost products from Google and competitors. 50% say that the costs of starting a business have reduced substantially or dramatically because of internet tools such as Search. 51% of businesses with under 50 employees say that online tools are important to them being able to compete with bigger players and 49% that it is now easier to grow and scale their business.
10. Small businesses and start-ups rely on free and low cost products from Google and competitors. 50% say that the costs of starting a business have reduced substantially or dramatically because of internet tools such as Search. 51% of businesses with under 50 employees say that online tools are important to them being able to compete with bigger players and 49% that it is now easier to grow and scale their business.
Google supports the economic growth of Finland
Introduction - the use of Google products in the Netherlands
In a given week, the average Dutch person is more likely to use Google Search than use a car or public transport. Across the population, people are more likely to use Google Search on a particular day than use a dishwasher.
Weekly usage of different products
Like the television, refrigerator or telephone before, many of Google’s products have become essential household technologies:
- The average Dutch user of Google Search is likely to have used it in the last year to research a topic, get help with a technical issue, find a local business, research a political issue, get help with housework and DIY and research a medical issue.
- YouTube has created an important complement to traditional TV. While many use it to watch traditional TV shows, even more important has been the completely new forms of video it enables, from vloggers to streamers to quick instructional videos
- Thanks to Google Maps, it is far easier to travel to or around a new location - or just avoid congestion on our daily commute. Over half of Dutch people say they regularly use Google Maps to avoid getting lost, try a new route to travel or look for something new to try.
The average Dutch person would rather lose access to their car than their smartphone, with Android the leading smartphone OS in the country.
How often Swedes use Google products
In order to calculate the value created by Google’s products, we looked at three key ways in which Google’s products help Dutch people in their everyday life:
- Making it easier to get things done. By making it easier to access the world’s information, Google products have freed up significant amounts of leisure time and made it much easier to remain productive while on the go;
- Supporting family life and relationships. It has never been easier to stay in contact with distant friends or family, or to find the information to support your family’s health, education and safety;
- Pursuing interests or finding entertainment. The rise of search engines and platforms such as YouTube have enabled an unprecedented increase in choice and a long tail of new hobbies, interests and communities. Whether you are in your lounge or waiting for a train, it takes seconds to find something new to inform or entertain you.
Getting things done
Over the course of the twentieth-century, average working hours in the workplace in the Netherlands fell by nearly a half, from 60 to 34.2
As important as the decline in working hours in the office, however, was the decrease in time spent in doing work inside the house. In 1900, data from America shows that average household would spend 58 a week preparing meals, cleaning and doing laundry. The arrival of new domestic technologies such as the clothes washer, vacuum cleaner and refrigerator helped significantly reduce the time needed for housework. By 2015, the average time spent on those same chores was less than eight hours.
Unlike the increase in productivity in the workplace, this increase in leisure time does not directly show up in official GDP statistics. Nevertheless, by significantly freeing up time, these new technologies increased leisure time, allowing households to spend more time catching up, relaxing or pursuing their other projects.
Today, it is increasingly digital technologies that are freeing up
time in the household. In this section, we look at the value of the time saved
by Google products such as Search, Maps, and Assistant. In total, we estimate
that Google products are saving at least 24 hours a year, the equivalent of over an extra day in free
time.
Saving precious time
Finding information easier
We asked Dutch people why they used Google Search:
Speed
it saves them time
Coverage
it provides information not available in other ways
Convenience
it is easier or as easy as alternatives
How much time do you save with Search?
Making information easier to access is making a significant difference to people’s lives. The average user saves at least 23 hours a year from Search compared with other methods of finding information because it is faster and easier to access.
This number is likely to be a lower bound on the time saved by Google Search. If you included the time saved by applying the new information from Google – trying out a new recipe, or learning a new skill – the time saved would be even greater.
While not every use of Search will be serious - over a quarter (27%) say they use Google Search at least daily to find a piece of trivia - the majority of Dutch people say that they use Search to help with everyday activities, from researching a big purchase to finding travel times.
For the most part, they find Search is useful: 55% agree that the Search helps solve their problem the majority of the time, compared to 5% who thought that it was usually a waste of time or 7% as a way to procrastinate.
Increasingly, however, Search is not the only way we obtain information. For those who find a video easier to learn from, we found significant numbers of Dutch people were also turning to YouTube for help around the home. Just under half of people use YouTube to help with cooking (47%) and under a third use it for home maintenance (27%). At the same time, 24% of Dutch people had tried using an AI personal assistant (such as Siri, Google Assistant, or Cortana) and 5% now used them on a daily basis.
Google Assistant
***TEMP HOLDING ICON BOX***
MedApp: MedApp is a Dutch start-up that is focused on improving medicine discipline by giving people proactive advice and notifications on what medication to take. They are using the Google Assistant and Google Home as a way to move to a more proactive model of reminding their users on what medications they should take, thereby helping improve medicine discipline and quality of life of over 225.00 patients.
***TEMP HOLDING ICON BOX***
Albert Heijn: how a grocery store became a front runner in the voice space with a top rated and used Action on Google
***TEMP HOLDING ICON BOX***
Signify (Philips Hue): how a Dutch company became the #1 smart home partner globally for Google Assistant & Home
Getting where you need to go
Until recently, we relied on atlases and paper maps to find new places. We may also have got into arguments about directions while driving, or been worried about going to unknown locations on our own.
Today, we find that Google Maps and other location apps have made it easier for people to find restaurants and businesses, get around in new cities, and get to places more quickly and easily. 71% of Dutch internet users turn to Google Maps at least once a month and 14% use it daily.
When we asked a series of questions about why people used Google Maps, we saw that saving time - through avoiding traffic, avoiding getting lost or to get better directions - was very common. In total, we estimate that the use of Google Maps save the average Dutch person just under two hours a year.
Percentage using Google Maps to...
Anywhere, anytime
The average person in the Netherlands spends around 350 hours a year travelling. Until recently, much of that time would have been wasted. There is significant evidence that a longer commute is linked with reduced happiness - with one recent study suggesting an additional 20 minutes of commuting per day is as bad for your job satisfaction as a 19% pay cut.3
From
podcasts to apps, streaming video to game, the rise of the smartphone has
helped make travelling far more entertaining for many people - and often more
productive too. Rather than wait to get back to your desk to look up a crucial
piece of information or respond to an urgent message, we are now able to act
much more in the moment.
We identified three ways in which Dutch people
regularly use Google’ products while on the go.
Dutch people now get things done while they travel
First, smartphones and Android have changed our experience as we travel. Increasingly, we spend that time:
- Looking up information. 48% of Dutch people have answered a question they had using Search while on the go.
- Enjoying themselves. 39% have entertained themselves with a game on their smartphone while travelling
- Managing work About half of Dutch people use Google Search to answer a question or deal with work while travelling or out of home or the office or used Maps or a calendar to make sure they get where they need to be on time.
In total, half of Dutch people (47%) say that they use their phones to reduce their boredom while waiting for something else at least once a day, and just under a third do so at least once a month (64%).
| While travelling or running errands during day to day life, how likely are you to… at least once a month | |
| Answered your work email or done other work | 51% |
| Checked your calendar | 42% |
| Use Maps or a calendar reminder to avoid being late to a meeting | 54% |
Real-time information helps increase consumer transparency as Dutch people shop
Second, we found that people are using their ability to ask questions online to support better decisions offline. 82% of people say they use their phone to research a potential purchase in a shop in the last year. This allows them to avoid products which get poor reviews, and make sure they are paying a good price.
Google Pay
Dutch people now decide what to do while on the go - and get there as fast as possible
Third, it is changing how Dutch peoples find new experiences at home. Restaurants and businesses once relied on word of mouth. Tourists would often stick to places that were near major sights, rather than go to higher quality places elsewhere. Now Google Maps gives accurate, real time information and can make us aware of restaurants and other businesses in the area.
| How often do you use Google Maps to... | |
| Find a local business | 44% |
| Find a nearby restaurant or cafe | 41% |
| Get directions while travelling | 58% |
| Avoid traffic congestion or public transport delays | 27% |
Search is also used for this purpose. 73% use Google Search to help them find a restaurant and 40% have used Search to find a local class or activity.
Supporting family life and relationships
Across the world, there is a clear relationship between the amount of time you spend with your friends and your self-reported happiness. One of the clearest findings of the 80 year Harvard Study of Adult Development - one of the longest running studies in social science - is that “those who kept warm relationships got to live longer and happier.”4
One of the most important benefits of the digital revolution has been its impact on relationships. It has never been easy to find a group of friends who share your interests, no matter how obscure, or to keep in contact with distant family. Two-thirds (66%) of Dutch people agree that the Internet has made it easier to more regularly keep in contact with their relatives.
As well as helping keep them in touch, many families also regularly
use Google products to help with their children’s education, or to learn how
best to keep their children safe and healthy.
Keeping in touch with friends and family
One hundred years ago, the cost of making a six minute phone long distance phone call could easily equal the average worker’s salary.5 While some form of postal service has existed since the ancient world, in practice trying to keep in contact with distant relatives has historically been expensive, slow and unreliable.
Today, the internet has made seamless, instant, free communication possible. People can email, message each other, or talk to each other on video for as long as they like, often for free.
We found
that the internet is increasingly becoming a way that people forge and maintain
relationships - and much of this is taking place through Android phone or
Gmail. From our polling:
have met a current or former friend online
current or former romantic partner online.
In total, that conservatively implies an additional 1.3 million relationships and 1.6 million friendships that started online.
At the same time, we use digital communications to say in touch both with our extended family and close family through the day
Improving health and wellbeing
We all worry about our own health and those of the people we love. One of the advantages of the internet is that it gives people information about medical issues that - previously - they would have had to make demands on medical services for. Every year in the Netherlands, 70% of people use Search to research medical and health issues.
They also use it to look after themselves. 40% have used Search to look up fitness or local activities.
Promoting safety and security online
Google Safety Engineering Center: Building safety products in Munich
Your data in Search
Google has made it easier for users to make decisions about their data directly within its services. For example, without leaving Search, users can review and delete recent search activity, get quick access to relevant privacy controls from their Google Account, and learn more about how Search works with their data.
Auto-delete settings lets users choose a time limit for how long they want to keep their activity data. Data older than the chosen limit will be continuously and automatically deleted from a user’s account. This makes it easy for users to set it and forget it, but with an option to go back and update these settings at any time.
How parents keep their children safe online
Google has a number of features designed to give parents control over their childrens’ screen time. Activity reports show how much time they’re spending on particular apps. Notifications also allow responsible adults to block apps and manage any purchases.
Google’s feature Family Link also allows parents and carers to set limits on screen time; bed times; and to lock devices.
If parents are ever worried about their child’s whereabouts you can use Family Link to locate their device.
Family Link
Supporting learning and development
Google Search and YouTube are used by millions of students to support their study. They have the ability to find any piece of information within seconds, from a wide range of reputable sources: worldwide, there are over 500 million views of learning-related content on YouTube every day.
In the Netherlands, Google Search is also used to support learning: 43% of parents online say that their children used Google Search to help with their homework. 25% of parents have used Google Search to get advice on their children (for example good activities, or their development).
It is not just children who use Search to learn. We found that the majority of Dutch people, whatever age, are using Search to find new information, helping create a culture of lifelong learning. 84% say they are more likely to look something up when they are unsure about it than when before search engines existed. 53% of people use Search to learn something at least once a month.
Google Scholar: access to the world’s best research
From science and history to economics, Google Scholar helps people access research and knowledge. It is a simple way to search for academic literature across sectors and disciplines: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Some studies have found Google Scholar to have both better sources and to be more usable than other methods of finding academic papers.6
Google’s Education Programmes
Computer Science First (CS First) provides free, easy-to-use computer science enrichment materials that engage a diverse student population in grades 4-8 (ages 9-14). Facilitators use the video content to teach kids coding basics with Scratch, a block-based coding tool. CS First is available online and can be used by anyone, in any setting.
Pursuing interests and entertainment
Finding and developing new passions
Television was one of the most important inventions of the twentieth century. Across advanced economies, it reshaped entertainment, marketing and culture. Even today, the median person we spoke to estimates that they spend 2-3 hours a day watching TV.
While it is only 14 years old, YouTube is increasingly looking like an important complement to traditional TV.
The way people watch YouTube, however, is very different to traditional TV and movies or even streaming platforms such as Netflix. Very few people watch YouTube for extended periods of time. Instead, it is a platform people dip in and out of:the most common usage is less than fifteen minutes.
How often do you spend watching YouTube on an typical day?
What they watch is also very different. Unlike Netflix and other streaming services, YouTube is not only providing a new platform for traditional TV shows but enabling wholly new types of content. Three quarters of people (74%) use it to watch music videos, and 40% now use it for fitness or health. 30% of people overall - but 66% of 18-24 year olds - watch vloggers on YouTube. It has become a core part of how people seek ways to improve their lives, get advice, and learn new things.
YouTube initiatives in the Netherlands
Dutch people use Google products to experience better holidays
The internet has transformed the way in which we travel to new places. Online rating sites, real time information on flights and costs, and the ability to navigate around strange places have helped us have holidays that live up to our expectations.
In our polling we wanted to understand whether Dutch people who are online use Google’s services while on holiday or on a business trip. We found that many of them did:
Google Maps
Google Search
Google Translate
There are also signs that people are increasingly adventurous. 43% of Dutch people say they have been more likely to try a new place because they know they have online directions and would never get lost.
The value of Google products in daily life
In this chapter, we have explored some of the ways in which Google products help people in their daily lives: saving time, making it easier to find information, hosting new kinds of entertainment and helping people better keep in touch.
Traditional economic impact studies have tended to focus on the impact of a company or product on GDP. GDP itself, however, has never included everything we value or every type of work we do.
Taken literally, GDP takes no account of changes in our leisure time or the amount of work we do in non-market roles, such as housework or looking after family. The majority of the kinds of help we have explored in this study do not increase GDP in the way we normally measure it.
How can we better understand the value created by Google in daily life?
One way to do this is to look at changes in the consumer surplus. The consumer surplus is defined by economists as the difference between the amount a consumer would be to willing to pay and the amount they actually do pay.
This is particularly relevant for products such as Google’s, which are largely provided to the end user free at the point of use. Just because their price is zero however, does not mean that they are worthless.
In order to better understand the value of Google, we used two types of methodology to create new estimates for the consumer surplus of its core products:
- Where possible, we produced estimates of the value of the time saved from using Google products such as Search, Maps and YouTube
- We used our consumer polling data to explore what the minimum amount you would have to compensate them for losing access to each product, building on the methodology previously established by other leading economists7
We found that the total consumer surplus of Google’s products in the Netherlands is €14 billion a year or €74 per month for the median person.
Google Search
For Google Search,, the total consumer surplus is equivalent to €18 bn, or €38 a month for the median person
YouTube
For YouTube,, the total consumer surplus is €7 bn a year, or €15 per month for the median person.
Google Maps
For google Maps,, the total consumer surplus is €2 billion a year or €4 per month for the median person.
Gmail
For Gmail,, the total consumer surplus is over €14 billion a year or €16 per month for the median person.
Google Docs
For Google Docs,, the total consumer surplus is over €3 billion a year.
The total consumer surplus is equivalent to over 5% of GDP.
In addition, we estimate that the total consumer surplus from Android smartphones in the Netherlands is worth over €14 billion a year or €249 per month for the median household.8
Crucially, our estimates found that this consumer surplus is significantly higher than for other consumer products. Indeed, when we asked people to choose from a range of things they would least like to give up, we found that Dutch people were more reluctant to give up Search than public transport and would rather lose access to a car than give up their smartphone.
Together, this evidence suggests that traditional statistics like GDP are doing a poor job of measuring the value created by the Internet. Other studies have found that if the value of free internet services are included within GDP, it would increase the recent rate of GDP by the equivalent of 0.7 percentage points a year.9 We explore more how our findings fit into the literature in the last chapter.
Consumer surplus (bn)
Google creates products that are helpful and valued by everyone
Introduction
As important as Google products are now for Dutch home life, they also increasingly are becoming a crucial tool for business too. 46% of Dutch people regularly use Google Search at their workplace or for study, and over a third of businesses (39%) say that their company could operate at most for a few days without access to a search engine.
Technology has always been one of the most important drivers of growth and productivity. In recent decades, ICT has been responsible for around 30% of productivity growth in the Netherlands.10
In the last five years, Dutch companies report significant increased adoption of the use of email, smartphones, and online maps - and they expect this adoption to only increase in the next five years. the Netherlands currently scores around average on the EU’s Digital Economy and Society Index, suggesting there is still significant room to catch up with leaders such as Finland, the Netherlands and the UK.11
Google products are already significant
contributor to worker and business productivity in the Netherlands:
Google search
Google Ads
Google Cloud Provider
G Suite
business uses G Suite;
Google Hangouts
As industry adapts to the next wave of technologies - big data, AI, and advanced robotics - there is likely to be significantly more opportunity to further enhance economic productivity. A third of Dutch businesses expect data science and machine learning to be used by a majority of their workers within the next five years.
In order to calculate the value created by Google’s products, we looked at three key ways in which Google’s products support Dutch businesses, workers and economic growth:
- Helping connect businesses with customers and workers with jobs. Google helps connect bring together businesses, workers and customers in the economy.
- Improving productivity and skills. Search, G Suite and Android are already essential tools for a significant number of workers, letting them learn new skills, work more flexibly and better coordinate. Looking forward, AI and machine learning are likely to significantly increase business productivity and free up worker time to focus on where they can best add value.
- Enabling eco systems and new types of company. Google products act as a platform and enabler for many types of business that did not exist before, from YouTube Creators to Android developers to micro businesses now able to sell to new customers across the globe.
Finding jobs and boosting skills
Helping people find jobs and grow in their career
For over a hundred years, an important goal of public policy has been to help match workers with the right jobs, and once in work, train and improve their skills.
By making it easier to research different options, search engines such as Google Search help improve consumer choice, transparency and competition.
One of the most important markets in which this is true is the labour market. Google Search is increasingly the leading gateway through which workers look for a new position and, once there, seek to improve their skills.
Every year:
This is particularly true of younger workers. 75% of 18-24 year olds and 60% of 25-34 year olds say they use Google Search at least once a year to look for a new job, and 46% and 39% respectively to get advice on their CV.
Google Jobs
Helping managers learn more at work
As much as their workforce, business owners and managers are also increasingly turning to Google products to stay on top of trends and opportunities, be aware of what their competitors are doing, and constantly improve their own practices and management.
In our business poll, we found that at least once a month:
New skill
learn a new skill;
Industry Trends
up to date with industry trends;
New business opportunity
Legal obligations
Marketing opportunities
new marketing opportunities;
Improve efficiency
Preparing people for the jobs of the future
Improving productivity
Improving daily productivity at work
Like the PC and the spreadsheet a generation before, arguably the most important personal productivity tools of the last generation have been the smartphone and the search engine.
In our polling, we found that Search was widely being used for work or study across ages, incomes and regions, and in the businesses of nearly all sizes or industries:
- Workers were more likely to use Google Search in the average day for work than a laptop, desktop computer, Microsoft Office or car
- 57% of workers use Google every day
- A quarter of workers said that without a search engine their work would be more difficult and take longer to do.
It is not just Search. 22% of individuals say that their jobs would be harder without access to a smartphone, while 21% of business leaders say that online maps are essential to the running of their business and 28% an online office suite. A previous Forrester Consulting study estimated that the deployment of G Suite had the potential to save employees 15 minutes to 2 hours per week in more efficient collaboration.12
Increasing company productivity
Across the Dutch people economy, businesses are already using an increasing number of internet tools - and the business leaders we spoke to expect this rise to continue. The chart below shows the percentage of business leaders who report most or all their employees using different technologies five years ago, today, and what they predict in five years time.
Usage of internet technologies over time
Why do employers predict such a rise? Because increasingly these tools are important to their businesses.
The employers we spoke to agreed that the internet has increased productivity and enabled new styles of working:
- 65% of the business leaders we polled agreed with the statement “Having access to the Internet makes the employees of my company significantly more productive”;
- 75% agreed “It is easier for employees to work remotely”; and
- 66% agreed “It is now easier for workers and different teams to collaborate than before online apps and cloud services”
Many of these tools have now become essential. Over a third of businesses said that they could only operate a day or two without a search engine, and less than a quarter could operate more than a couple of days without email.
How long could your business operate without
The Netherlands has one of the highest adoption rates for cloud computing in the UK. According to Eurostat data, 48% of Dutch enterprises use cloud computing services, compared to an EU average of 26%.
We found that a quarter of internet connected business leaders said that their company had used Google Cloud Platform, while other third party estimates have found that Google Cloud has increased productivity in the Netherlands by €150 mn.
Google Cloud
You can find some customer quotes in this blog post about Dutch datacenter. Bol.com has been on stage with us, also Messagebird and Blendle (successful startups). If thats on the right track, the sales & marketing teams can help find articles and customer quotes.]
Helping SMBs compete and grow
Internet tools have been particularly important for the productivity of small businesses. Anyone who wanted to start a large export business twenty years ago, would probably have to invest in an international advertising campaign, in-house IT servers and expensive software licences.
Today, free online tools, cloud computing, and the ability to communicate to customers across the globe have dramatically reduced the barriers to entry for start-ups.
- 50% say that the costs of starting a business have reduced substantially or dramatically because of internet tools such as Search;
- 51% of businesses under 50 people say free search and free office tools are important to them being able to compete with bigger players.
Google products aren’t just helping big businesses, they are helping smaller companies as well:
- 75% of businesses with under 50 employees believe that they could not run their business without search engines;
- 62% of businesses with under 50 employees believe that they could not run their business without smartphones.
Google for Startups
Google for Startups supports startups around the world by providing products, contacts, and Google's expertise to help founders move through key stages of their development. It also helps to promote and network startup communities. Google for Startups has 50 partners in more than 140 countries, reaching more than 250,000 founders worldwide in 2018 alone.
In 2018 25+ Googlers invested a whopping 100+ hours to advise & help TQ startups to grow.
Digital Workshop
Digitale Werkplaats - Taste of Code in collaboration with Codaisseur
A Digital Workshop (pilot) programme in collaboration with a local tech education partner Codaisseur. Expanding our current content (online marketing) offering with coding to train job seekers without prior technical experience/education to become developers. So that we equip current job seekers with the right skills to get matched and employed to an increasing demand for IT jobs in NL.
Job seekers start by attending the Taste of Code events where they will be trained for 4 hours in an introduction to coding. Upon completion of the training they will be given an assignment to complete before being admitted to the coding bootcamp of 10-weeks (delivered by Codaisseur). Job seekers who finish the bootcamp are fully equipped to start working as a (software) developer.
Solving problems and putting the customer first has been at the forefront of Ivan’s previous experience as the owner of his own restaurant business. After more than 10 years of experience in his family restaurant and a degree in business economics it was expected of him to take over the business when he was 25 years old.
“I’ve always had a knack for analytical projects whether it’s creating database systems for bookkeeping or inventory management. Because of increased efficiencies I managed to raise the yearly revenue with over 10%”. Still Ivan didn’t feel fulfilled, that’s when he came across the Google Digitale Werkplaats Taste of Code (via Codaisseur). Ivan got inspired to dive deeper into what he found truly interesting; programming. “After learning about the 10-week coding bootcamp from Codaisseur where they’ll train you to become a full stack developer I knew I had to do this”. Within a month upon completion of the bootcamp Ivan was able to find a job as a front end developer at an IT consultancy. “I never thought I could still turn my career around later in life. I’m happy I can keep on learning and developing myself and able to do something that I truly find interesting.”
The future of productivity
In its first twenty years, the majority of value created by Google services came from improved access to information and communication. In the next twenty years, as important is likely to be the value created by the application of AI and machine learning to automate routine tasks. Google CEO has argued that the company is set to move from “a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done.”13
While it is hard to predict the future reach of a specific company, we can more confidently predict the potential of AI and the digital industry for the economy as a whole.
In total, our estimates suggest that AI has the potential to boost the economy in the Netherlands by 11% by 2030, boosting average growth rates by an average 1.4 percentage points a year. That is the equivalent of an additional €11 bn in GDP, or an additional €660 per Dutch person, each and every year.
As well as boosting living standards, AI is also likely to make work itself more pleasant - freeing up time for employees to spend on more creative or meaningful tasks.
As one example of this, the average employee in the Netherlands today spends over an hour a day in administrative tasks, such as filling out paperwork, submitting expenses or booking a meeting room.
Through products such as Assistant and Duplex, Google has already demonstrated technology that can suggest standard email replies, find a suitable slot for a meeting or book an appointment.
If we could use AI to take over just 10% of
the average worker’s administrative tasks, it would save them the equivalent of
13 hours in work time a year – and by itself boost productivity by 0.9%.
Businesses reaching customers across the world
Google products have transformed how many customers businesses can reach
In the history of advertising, the first ads were signposts in the road: this way to food, or this way to firewood.) Advertising itself is information. Over time, people worked out that it is a better use of time and resources to place signs closer to the destination. Advertising was always about reaching people at the best possible moment: when they were most interested in buying the thing.
With the 20th century came mass media. Mass media meant an expansion and infusion of new voices in media. Genre entertainment (such as Westerns, situation comedies, and news shows) was largely premised on the ability to define audience segments as well as generate scale, and sell advertising on that basis. Then radio joined newspapers, TV joined radio and mass-market magazines, and along came the internet. Today, websites, blogs, video content — nearly all of that is funded by ads.
Google’s key innovation was using data to:
- Help advertisers reach people at the best possible moment;
- Help them ensure that their pounds were well spent;
- Enabling niche businesses to target those with very specific interests.
That means fewer, better ads – and an improved user experience for the consumer.
For businesses however, it has been even more transformative: enabling a new long tail of ultra-specialised small businesses, serving customers worldwide.
In our polling, businesses in the Netherlands estimated that search advertising was second only in importance to word of mouth as a means for customers to find them. 62% of the businesses we spoke to agreed that thanks to search engines, it was far easier for global customers and clients to find them. Around half of the businesses (35%) thought that Search was so important their business would not exist without Search or online advertising.
How important would you say each of the following are as ways customers/clients find your business?
The majority of the value created by Google advertising is captured by businesses and their customers. In total, we estimate that Google earns around €0.9 billion in revenues from Google Ads in the Netherlands. However, our estimates suggest that Google Ads is driving € 7.5 bn in total in economic activity in the Netherlands.
On average, Google calculates that for every euro businesses spend on Google Ads, they receive back €8 back in profit. To start, each business receives on average back €2 for every €1 they spend. This in turn is further boosted by traffic that comes through organic search, with other estimates suggesting that businesses receive around five clicks on their search results for every one click on their ads.14
Businesses of any size can find new markets
One of the biggest transformations of the internet is that businesses can reach anywhere across the globe. At the same time, it has made it easier for small businesses to compete with larger enterprises – meaning that organisations no longer have to commission expensive TV or print advertising campaigns, but can target customers much more clearly. Tools like Google Ads, Analytics and Market Finder have made it much it much easier for businesses of any size to reach new customers wherever they are based. Globally, business who use Market Finder grow their international presence by 10% one year after using the tool.
62% of the businesses we spoke to agree that compared to the time before search engines, it was now far easier for global customers or clients to find their business, and 36% agreed that their business would have significantly fewer international clients without Search and online advertising.
It is not just global customers. Tools like Google Maps and Google My Business have made it easier for people locally, regionally, nationally and internationally to find new businesses like restaurants. This can be particularly important to those in out of the way locations. 21% of those we polled said that online maps are “so important that we could not run our business without [them].”
Google My Business Case Study
Koffieblom gets found with Google My Business
Hans and his wife Margo have owned and run coffee shop Koffieblom for the past 19 years. With their passion for and wide knowledge of coffee, starting the shop was the perfect move for them. As well as coffee they now sell different kinds of nuts, tropical fruits, teas and gifts, and they knew that with their product line growing, their digital strategy needed to as well.
That’s when the couple discovered Google My Business. It offers Koffieblom the opportunity to easily promote their products by uploading updates on new products, along with images. They say that because it’s simple and free, it’s been a great way for them to inform existing and potential new customers about what’s new. Koffieblom also say that they get found more easily by customers since using Google My Business.
Hans and Margo are passionate about their customers and care about making sure they have a great experience every time they visit. They’ve particularly found that the option to reply to reviews through Google My Business has helped them build loyalty with customers, and say, “Google My Business encourages more customers to visit our shop.”
Google My Business encourages more customers to visit our shop.
Businesses have become increasingly customer-centric
In the first section of this report we described how the Netherlands used the internet to find businesses, restaurants, and make better shopping decisions. This, in turn, has an impact on businesses who cannot hide from poor quality or service. The people and companies we polled agree: 78% of shoppers think they make better purchasing decisions because of online information, and 75% of businesses think that maintaining higher levels of customer satisfaction has become more important due to the internet.
By increasing transparency and choice, Search and other online tools have increased effective competition - leading to more productive companies and a better quality service for the end customer.
Protecting businesses online with leading security
Security features are built into all of Google’s products, services, and infrastructure to keep data protected, and Google has dedicated teams and technology to continually improve that security.
Defense in depth
The security of Google’s infrastructure was designed in layers that build upon one another, from the physical security of data centers to the security protections of hardware and software to the processes used to support operational security. This layered protection creates a strong security foundation for everything Google does.
- Physical security to protect data integrity: Google distributes data across multiple data centers, so that in the event of a fire or disaster, it can be automatically shifted to stable and protected locations. Each of those data centers is monitored and protected 24/7, and access is tightly controlled with measures like biometric identification and laser-based surveillance. View data centre locations.
- Custom hardware with security at its core: Security starts in hardware. Google created processes to help ensure the security of its hardware, including vetting the vendors they work with, designing custom chips, and taking measures to identify and authenticate legitimate Google devices. This foundation allows the delivery of security at every level.
- Encryption to keep data private and protected: Encryption brings an even higher level of security and privacy to Google’s services. As the data created moves your device, Google services, and data centers, it is protected by security technology like HTTPS and Transport Layer Security. Google also encrypts email at rest and in transit by default, and encrypt identity cookies by default.
- Processes for secure operations: Google uses security monitoring to protect users from malware. Applications are constantly monitored and patches are deployed through automated network analysis and proprietary technology. This allows Google to detect and respond to threats to protect products from spam, malware, viruses, and other forms of malicious code.
- Google actively scans to find vulnerabilities: Google scans for software vulnerabilities, using a combination of commercially available and purpose-built in-house tools, intensive automated and manual penetration testing, quality assurance processes, software security reviews, and external audits.
- Google designs with security in mind: Google’s security and privacy experts work with development teams, reviewing code and ensuring products utilize strong security protections.
- Strong controls to limit access to trusted personnel: Google limits access to users’ business’ data to Google personnel who need it to do their jobs; for example, when a customer service agent assists a user in managing their data. Strong access controls are enforced by organizational and technical safeguards. And Google works with third parties, like customer support vendors, to provide Google services, an assessment is conducted to ensure they provide the appropriate level of security and privacy needed to receive access to data.
- Incident management to resolve threats quickly: Google’s security team works 24/7 to quickly detect, resolve, and notify the appropriate individuals of security incidents. The security incident management program is structured around industry best practices and tailored into the "Incident Management at Google (IMAG)" program, which is built around the unique aspects of Google and its infrastructure. Incident response plans are regularly tested, so Google always remain prepared.
Supporting ecosystems
While the internet has magnified the reach of traditional businesses, it has also created entirely new markets too. In this section, we focus on three of them: developers, small publishers and YouTube creators.
Developers
Android is the world’s most popular app platform, helping ensure that it is never been easier for app or games developers to deploy and market to customers worldwide.
Globally, over 5.9 million developers target Android first.15 In total, the Google Play store offers around 2.7 million apps to download,16 with over 75 billion apps downloaded globally from the Google Play store in 2018.17 The average consumer in the Netherlands say that they have downloaded between 10 and 20 apps onto their smartphone.18
Mobile App Launchpad and Google Developer Training
United Nations World Food Programme - 5 days startup bootcamp with one impactful mission: zero hunger.
We identified the unique opportunity to mentor entrepreneurs focussing on social impact, zero hunger, and sustainability of energy, by applying Launchpad’s methodologies to the WFP’s bootcamp program. We provided 135 mentoring sessions, 180+ mentoring hours, from 40 mentors covering 13 countries (43% female mentors, 8 Experts) and supported 10 amazing teams
Leading landline telephone manufacturer transforms its business with Android
Publishers
AdSense allows publishers - whether multinational news organisations or individual bloggers - to monetise their content through the sale of advertising space on their sites and apps. It allows anyone, no matter their size, to earn revenue for the content they create.
Our modelling finds that in total Adsense generated €25 million in 2018 for Dutch websites and publishers.
Google News Initiative
The Google News Initiative, launched in March 2018 following the success of the Digital News Initiative (started in 2015) in Europe.
It signifies a major milestone in Google’s 15-year commitment to the news industry representing our largest company-wide effort to help journalism thrive in the digital age and bring together everything we’re doing with the news industry along three key pillars:
- Elevate and strengthen quality journalism,
- Evolve business models to drive sustainable growth
- Empower news organizations through technological innovation.
YouTube Creators
For decades publishers, record labels, and TV producers have been besieged by requests from individuals wanting their work to be made more widely available. YouTube has provided many with an alternative - giving them a platform to communicate directly to people all over the world. While children used to dream of becoming a film or sports star when they grew up, an increasing number now say their dream is to become a YouTube vlogger.19.
Worldwide, YouTube has a total audience of over 1 billion users, with over 500 hours of content uploaded every minute and one billion hours of content watched every day. This immense audience supports thousands of independent creators. The number of channels with more than one million subscribers has grown by more than 75% year on year, and the number of channels earning five figures per year more than 50% year on year.20
In total, we estimate that YouTube advertising generated €50
million in 2018 for Dutch content creators.
NikkieTutorals (12M subs) - Nikkie de Jager is from Uden, a small town in Brabant. From there she has built up a global fanbase of more than 12 million make up enthousiasts that she nicknames her glowbabies. She started uploading make up tutorials in 2008. She did this in English, because that’s what everybody was doing. In 2015, she had her first breakthrough video titled - The Power of Make Up. More than 40 million viewers have been captured by the positive message of that video. Nikkie is all about positivity, your inner glow, believing in yourself, not taking yourself too seriously and having fun with make up. She is also one of the Creative Directors at Marc Jacobs Beauty and climbed the Alpe Duzes this year to raise money for Kika.
Music_by_blanks - Simon is the new generation of multi-hyphenate talent: singer, songwriter, composer, performer and YouTuber. Some of his most successfull videos are styleswaps - where he recreates a popular song in a different style. Being a selfproclaimed lover of 80s music, it was no surprise his 80s remake of Drake’s hit in my feelings ranked up millions of views. When he is not recreating a Beatles version of an Armin van Buuren song, he mobilizes his fanbase via social media to help him create new material. Fans get their say in which base drum should go in his new summer hit. He films the process, and then creates a music video. The end result is always banging. His YT channel has been on a rocket ship this year. He has been invited to talk shows in the US, and he performed at the Global Entrepeneurship Summit at the closing reception hosted by the US ambassador.
Dylan Haegens is a regular guy from Venray, who just wanted to make people laugh with his sketch comedy. He started uploading his videos to YouTube in 2010 and has since transformed his company to a lighthouse example of the next generation of media companies. Together with his team of 12+ people, he runs 4 YouTube channels. He launched a feature film in 2018. Together with his girlfriend Marit, they are one of power couples of YouTube. Dylan and Marit launched a foundation to address mental health issues among schoolchildren - Stichting Durf Te Vragen.
Jelle’s Marble runs (500k subs) knikkeren op het schoolplein is for amateurs, what Jelle does is next level and beyond. His content is incredibly popular around the world, especially among people who are on the spectrum.
Saskia’s Dansschool (5M subs). Saskia runs two dance schools in Woerden. She started filming her classes to share with kids who could not join in person, and uploaded these to YouTube. Before she knew it, not only her students but dance enthusiasts everywhere were tuning in to learn the latest moves. Her channel has grown to more than 5 million subscribers. She launched her own merchandise line, and XXXX
Netherlands Bach Society (53k subs) - the online archive All of Bach—as the NYT puts it “a gorgeous compendium of videos curated by the Netherlands Bach Society, eventually to encompass Bach’s entire output”. Their goal is to produce the entire catalogue of Bach’s work with a top notch orchestra and the best directors and share this with the world to enjoy.
Morphle TV (5M subs) - Animation has always been very time consuming and labor intensive craft. Until animator Arthur van Merwijk came around and developed a very innovative way of creating animations in a more time efficient manner without losing sight of quality. He founded Morphle TV in 2016. Morphle TV is home to flagship series My Magic Pet Morphle, a 2D animation that follows a girl named Mila and her magical pet, Morphle — who can morph into anything she wants him to — as they embark on various adventures to spread compassion.Morphle’s success did not remain unnoticed. Moonbug, one of the largest global player in kids content, acquired Morphle earlier this year.
Davina Michelle’s career was launched through what you may call an inception of YouTube videos. Davina had done a cover of Pink’s song XXX. Pink then watched this YouTube and was truly blown away. On her turn, Davina watched Pink watching her cover, which in turn blew her mind and blew up her career. This is the power of a global social platform - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbncx0B0spk
AFC Ajax (550k subs)
Martin Garrix (12M subs) - It’s easy to get lost in the numbers behind Martin Garrix’s meteoric rise. From his adolescent years to the onset of young adulthood, the Dutch superstar has already set precedents and scored landmarks at every corner of the music industry. Picked up by Spinnin’ Records and subsequently backed by Scooter Braun, Martin has become one of electronic dance music’s youngest superstars, amassing a chart-topping, high-streaming musical legacy along the way.
Ons Oranje (160k subs) the official YT channel of the Dutch national football teams.
Nienke Plas started her comedy career by uploading vlogs with her hilarious, unique and self deprecating sense of humour. Her funny brain is an endless source of joy and laughter. She is also a presenter, she writes columns and XXX
The value of Google products in the economy
In this chapter, we have explored some of the ways in which Google products help people at work and in business: connecting businesses and customers, increasing productivity and skills, and enabling entirely new markets and eco-systems.
In total, we estimate that Google products support €8 bn of economic activity, with the bulk of the value we have quantified coming from Search and Google Ads.
Over the last five years, the economic activity driven by Google Search and Ads has grown by 70% in nominal terms, and building upon PWC forecasts, we expect it has the potential to continue to grow by around 20% over the next three years.
This is likely to be an underestimate of the true economic impact of Google in the Netherlands, and we have not tried to fully quantify the value of the productivity driven by Google Search, Google Maps, G Suite and other products.
Given the significant number of workers and business who in our
polling said they now used and relied on Google products, this is likely to be
substantial. As a rough estimate, using
conservative assumptions building upon the data from our polling the
productivity benefits from Google Search and G Suite alone could be worth €6 billion or over a
year for the Dutch economy.21
Moving forward, as AI and machine learning become increasingly integrated into
Google’s products, this value could substantially increase.
Google helps businesses grow and innovate
Introduction
The invention of the printing press has been described as one of the most “revolutionary innovations in human history”22 - in Mark Twain’s phrase, “what is today, good or bad, it owes to Gutenberg.” In the hundred years following its invention, the number of books published increased by a factor of ten.23 By democratising access to information, the printing press helped bring about entirely new forms such as the novel, and catalyse much of the changes that were eventually to bring about the modern world, including the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment and the Reformation.
Information is the ultimate public good: no matter how much you use, it still remains available for the rest of us to use. Many of the benefits of greater access to information do not go to any particular individual or business, but to the rest of the society as a whole.
Just as it would be next to impossible to quantify the impact of the printing press on the modern world, many of the impacts on society of the Internet and Google products more specifically are hard to measure. The full impacts of a digitally literate society are likely only to be be obvious decades, if not centuries, from now. Nevertheless, there is substantial evidence that Google products are already having a positive impact on society.
In order to better understand the value created by Google’s products for society, we looked at three key ways in which Google’s products support democracy, inclusion and sustainability:
- Helping individuals and businesses reduce their carbon footprint. Google is helping increase environmental efficiency and sustainability - both directly as a company, and through supporting others to lower their carbon footprint.
- Supporting a well-informed, democratic society. Using Google’s tools helps voters read a more diverse range of news sources and learn more about the background behind the issues;
- Giving under-represented groups equal access to the world’s knowledge. Unlike many other forms of knowledge, Google’s products are used by nearly everyone, no matter their age, income or background.
Becoming more sustainable
While we often think of efficiency in purely economic terms, it is as or more important in increasing our society’s environmental sustainability. By spreading the digital revolution to the physical world, and making greater use of AI, smart technologies and better data sources we have significant potential to improve the resource efficiency of our society.
This is already happening. By applying AI to the design of its data centres, Google has helped significantly increase their energy efficiency - while other work has shown the potential to increase the value of wind energy by 20% by improving its predictability.
More broadly, the digital revolution as a whole is helping create the dematerialisation of economy - decoupling the link between growth and use of resources. Instead of each of us creating and owning 20 different tools, we have increasingly replaced them with multifunctional devices like the smartphone - while our library of DVDs or CDs has been replaced by streaming media. Looking forward, new technology can increasingly help substitute for physical travel or other resource intensive goods.
Google products help people and businesses reduce CO2 emissions
As a company, Google has been entirely CO2 neutral for more than a decade, and offset its entire energy consumption with renewable energy since 2017. From its beginning, Google’s data centre in Eemshaven has been powered by Dutch renewable energy sources, such as the nearby 63-Megawatt Delfzijl wind farm.
But even more significant are the ways in which Google products help other people and companies increase their sustainability:
Google Search and YouTube help people understand the environment and their impact on it. From our polling we know people use Google Search to be responsible, environmentally friendly citizens. 33% of online Dutch peoples have researched their own environmental impact in the last year.
Gmail, Google Apps and Hangouts tools make it easier for people to work from home, reducing commuting time and environmental impact. According to our polling, 20% of employees now work from home at least once a month, an increase of a third in just five years.
Google Maps reduces the amount of time people spend in a car because users change travel patterns:
- 37% of Dutch people say that using it allows them at least once a month to switch from a car to walking or cycling
- 48% of Dutch people say that that use Google Maps for directions at least once a month, and 27% to help them avoid traffic congestion and delays
When you add together the avoided emissions from reduced driving with the emissions saved by Dutch people using Google products to work at home, we estimate that Google products are preventing 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year - the equivalent of flying around the world more than 600,000 times.
Google Cloud helps companies reduce both the financial and environmental costs of their server needs. Google data centres use 50% less energy than the average data centre, with centralised cloud services estimated to be 85% more efficient than using on-premises servers.
TEMP***** Percent using Google Search to research their environment
Google Earth/Global warming
Supporting the democratic process
It’s vital that people choose to vote, and that they are active, informed citizens who understand what is happening locally, nationally, and across the world.
We found from our polling that Search has become one of the most important ways people achieve this. 44% of people have used Search to find out about a local political candidate in a recent election, and 30% used it to find where they need to vote.
People also use Search to become more informed about the world. The majority of Dutch people in every age group use Google Search to find news articles.
Search is now ranked as among the most trusted source of news, helping point Dutch people to other sources of news. 52% of those we polled say they can now read or watch from a wider variety of sources than before the internet.
TEMP***** Use Google Search to keep up with the news
One of the other benefits of Search is that it allows consumers to find news from more than a few days ago – something that was next to impossible before the internet. 54% of people agree that the internet makes it easier to find news stories or features that are more than a few days old.
***TEMP***Because of access to internet I agree that...
Promoting diversity and inclusion.
Google products are used by people of all incomes, ages, and gender
Many social goods are used more by people from wealthier backgrounds, or show gender gaps. That does not seem to be true of Google products. One of the interesting findings from our polling is that Search is used by everyone: there is no difference in Search usage between the wealthiest and least wealthy in our poll. We also see very similar patterns across Google products between men and women.
***TEMP***Google products usage by gender (at least monthly)
We also see people of all ages use Google products. While it is true that young people are particularly likely to use YouTube, for example, even people of retirement age are very heavy users of Google products.
***TEMP***Google product usage by age (at least monthly)
Inspiring the next generation of women to follow a career in computer programming
Google’s work for good
Google.org has a global, five-year goal to award $1 billion in grants and contribute 1 million employee volunteer hours. It works across education, economic opportunity, and inclusion and finds partners and programmes in different countries that will help people and businesses. Throughout this document some of the relevant programmes supported by Google have been highlighted.
Over the years Google Ad Grants have allocated X worth of free online advertising through in-kind Google Ads including X to nonprofits.
Google.org
GIC general overview:
The Google.org Impact Challenge asks local nonprofit innovators and social entrepreneurs how they would make their community—and beyond—an even better place. The public and a panel of local judges vote for the ideas with the most potential, and Google.org pairs each winner with a strategic package of support including funding and Google volunteers.
Safety Impact Challenge:
When it comes to keeping people safe, it takes a village. For us, that means doing all we can to make our products safer and giving people the tools—through our products or training—to have great experiences online. It also means thinking beyond just our corner of the internet and supporting the work of others in Europe.That is why we’ve launched the Google.org Impact Challenge on Safety, a €10m fund to support nonprofits and social enterprises across Europe that are working to counter hate and extremism and are helping young people to thrive online and offline.
AI Impact Challenge - Skillab
Dutch company Skilllab BV was one of the winners of Google’s global AI Impact Challenge, Google.org’s open call to organisations around the world to submit their ideas for how they could use AI to help address societal challenges As one of the 20 global winners, Skillab will receive financial support, advice and coaching for their work in helping refugees to translate their skills into the European labor market and to design an appropriate career path for them.
Helping refugees find jobs is a key priority for European cities, but translating refugees' skill sets to the European labor market is not always straightforward. Skilllab helps municipal employment services integrate refugees into local job placements. Using an app powered by AI, refugees can document their skills quickly and in their native languages, and receive recommendations of relevant career pathways to explore.
Europe Code Week - Stichting VHTO & Bibliotheek Eemland
Google’s Educator Grants and Europe Code Week Grants support the development of new training programmes for teachers and efforts to increase access to quality computer science education, so that all students can build the skills they’ll need for the future, including coding, problem solving, creativity, and teamwork.
In 2019, two Dutch organisations were awarded a grant; Stichting VHTO and Bibliotheek Eemland. Stichting VHTO organises multiple DigiVita-Code events throughout the Netherlands, in collaboration with libraries, coderdojos, universities and the start-up community of the Netherlands. Bibliotheek Eemland will receive support for their Science Weekend, creating Music machines - workshop which teaches librarians to help children take their first steps into the world of computer sciences using BBC's micro:bit.
Google’s philanthropy projects
Google helps workers be more productive, learn new skills and develop their careers
Introduction
The invention of the printing press has been described as one of the most “revolutionary innovations in human history”24 - in Mark Twain’s phrase, “what is today, good or bad, it owes to Gutenberg.” In the hundred years following its invention, the number of books published increased by a factor of ten.25 By democratising access to information, the printing press helped bring about entirely new forms such as the novel, and catalyse much of the changes that were eventually to bring about the modern world, including the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment and the Reformation.
Information is the ultimate public good: no matter how much you use, it still remains available for the rest of us to use. Many of the benefits of greater access to information do not go to any particular individual or business, but to the rest of the society as a whole.
Just as it would be next to impossible to quantify the impact of the printing press on the modern world, many of the impacts on society of the Internet and Google products more specifically are hard to measure. The full impacts of a digitally literate society are likely only to be be obvious decades, if not centuries, from now. Nevertheless, there is substantial evidence that Google products are already having a positive impact on society.
In order to better understand the value created by Google’s products for society, we looked at three key ways in which Google’s products support democracy, inclusion and sustainability:
- Helping individuals and businesses reduce their carbon footprint. Google is helping increase environmental efficiency and sustainability - both directly as a company, and through supporting others to lower their carbon footprint.
- Supporting a well-informed, democratic society. Using Google’s tools helps voters read a more diverse range of news sources and learn more about the background behind the issues;
- Giving under-represented groups equal access to the world’s knowledge. Unlike many other forms of knowledge, Google’s products are used by nearly everyone, no matter their age, income or background.
Becoming more sustainable
While we often think of efficiency in purely economic terms, it is as or more important in increasing our society’s environmental sustainability. By spreading the digital revolution to the physical world, and making greater use of AI, smart technologies and better data sources we have significant potential to improve the resource efficiency of our society.
This is already happening. By applying AI to the design of its data centres, Google has helped significantly increase their energy efficiency - while other work has shown the potential to increase the value of wind energy by 20% by improving its predictability.
More broadly, the digital revolution as a whole is helping create the dematerialisation of economy - decoupling the link between growth and use of resources. Instead of each of us creating and owning 20 different tools, we have increasingly replaced them with multifunctional devices like the smartphone - while our library of DVDs or CDs has been replaced by streaming media. Looking forward, new technology can increasingly help substitute for physical travel or other resource intensive goods.
Google products help people and businesses reduce CO2 emissions
As a company, Google has been entirely CO2 neutral for more than a decade, and offset its entire energy consumption with renewable energy since 2017. From its beginning, Google’s data centre in Eemshaven has been powered by Dutch renewable energy sources, such as the nearby 63-Megawatt Delfzijl wind farm.
But even more significant are the ways in which Google products help other people and companies increase their sustainability:
Google Search and YouTube help people understand the environment and their impact on it. From our polling we know people use Google Search to be responsible, environmentally friendly citizens. 33% of online Dutch peoples have researched their own environmental impact in the last year.
Gmail, Google Apps and Hangouts tools make it easier for people to work from home, reducing commuting time and environmental impact. According to our polling, 20% of employees now work from home at least once a month, an increase of a third in just five years.
Google Maps reduces the amount of time people spend in a car because users change travel patterns:
- 37% of Dutch people say that using it allows them at least once a month to switch from a car to walking or cycling
- 48% of Dutch people say that that use Google Maps for directions at least once a month, and 27% to help them avoid traffic congestion and delays
When you add together the avoided emissions from reduced driving with the emissions saved by Dutch people using Google products to work at home, we estimate that Google products are preventing 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year - the equivalent of flying around the world more than 600,000 times.
Google Cloud helps companies reduce both the financial and environmental costs of their server needs. Google data centres use 50% less energy than the average data centre, with centralised cloud services estimated to be 85% more efficient than using on-premises servers.
TEMP***** Percent using Google Search to research their environment
Google Earth/Global warming
Supporting the democratic process
It’s vital that people choose to vote, and that they are active, informed citizens who understand what is happening locally, nationally, and across the world.
We found from our polling that Search has become one of the most important ways people achieve this. 44% of people have used Search to find out about a local political candidate in a recent election, and 30% used it to find where they need to vote.
People also use Search to become more informed about the world. The majority of Dutch people in every age group use Google Search to find news articles.
Search is now ranked as among the most trusted source of news, helping point Dutch people to other sources of news. 52% of those we polled say they can now read or watch from a wider variety of sources than before the internet.
TEMP***** Use Google Search to keep up with the news
One of the other benefits of Search is that it allows consumers to find news from more than a few days ago – something that was next to impossible before the internet. 54% of people agree that the internet makes it easier to find news stories or features that are more than a few days old.
***TEMP***Because of access to internet I agree that...
Promoting diversity and inclusion.
Google products are used by people of all incomes, ages, and gender
Many social goods are used more by people from wealthier backgrounds, or show gender gaps. That does not seem to be true of Google products. One of the interesting findings from our polling is that Search is used by everyone: there is no difference in Search usage between the wealthiest and least wealthy in our poll. We also see very similar patterns across Google products between men and women.
***TEMP***Google products usage by gender (at least monthly)
We also see people of all ages use Google products. While it is true that young people are particularly likely to use YouTube, for example, even people of retirement age are very heavy users of Google products.
***TEMP***Google product usage by age (at least monthly)
Inspiring the next generation of women to follow a career in computer programming
Google’s work for good
Google.org has a global, five-year goal to award $1 billion in grants and contribute 1 million employee volunteer hours. It works across education, economic opportunity, and inclusion and finds partners and programmes in different countries that will help people and businesses. Throughout this document some of the relevant programmes supported by Google have been highlighted.
Over the years Google Ad Grants have allocated X worth of free online advertising through in-kind Google Ads including X to nonprofits.
Google.org
GIC general overview:
The Google.org Impact Challenge asks local nonprofit innovators and social entrepreneurs how they would make their community—and beyond—an even better place. The public and a panel of local judges vote for the ideas with the most potential, and Google.org pairs each winner with a strategic package of support including funding and Google volunteers.
Safety Impact Challenge:
When it comes to keeping people safe, it takes a village. For us, that means doing all we can to make our products safer and giving people the tools—through our products or training—to have great experiences online. It also means thinking beyond just our corner of the internet and supporting the work of others in Europe.That is why we’ve launched the Google.org Impact Challenge on Safety, a €10m fund to support nonprofits and social enterprises across Europe that are working to counter hate and extremism and are helping young people to thrive online and offline.
AI Impact Challenge - Skillab
Dutch company Skilllab BV was one of the winners of Google’s global AI Impact Challenge, Google.org’s open call to organisations around the world to submit their ideas for how they could use AI to help address societal challenges As one of the 20 global winners, Skillab will receive financial support, advice and coaching for their work in helping refugees to translate their skills into the European labor market and to design an appropriate career path for them.
Helping refugees find jobs is a key priority for European cities, but translating refugees' skill sets to the European labor market is not always straightforward. Skilllab helps municipal employment services integrate refugees into local job placements. Using an app powered by AI, refugees can document their skills quickly and in their native languages, and receive recommendations of relevant career pathways to explore.
Europe Code Week - Stichting VHTO & Bibliotheek Eemland
Google’s Educator Grants and Europe Code Week Grants support the development of new training programmes for teachers and efforts to increase access to quality computer science education, so that all students can build the skills they’ll need for the future, including coding, problem solving, creativity, and teamwork.
In 2019, two Dutch organisations were awarded a grant; Stichting VHTO and Bibliotheek Eemland. Stichting VHTO organises multiple DigiVita-Code events throughout the Netherlands, in collaboration with libraries, coderdojos, universities and the start-up community of the Netherlands. Bibliotheek Eemland will receive support for their Science Weekend, creating Music machines - workshop which teaches librarians to help children take their first steps into the world of computer sciences using BBC's micro:bit.
Google’s philanthropy projects
Google is committed to sustainable economic growth, and is helping others to do the same
Introduction
The invention of the printing press has been described as one of the most “revolutionary innovations in human history”26 - in Mark Twain’s phrase, “what is today, good or bad, it owes to Gutenberg.” In the hundred years following its invention, the number of books published increased by a factor of ten.27 By democratising access to information, the printing press helped bring about entirely new forms such as the novel, and catalyse much of the changes that were eventually to bring about the modern world, including the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment and the Reformation.
Information is the ultimate public good: no matter how much you use, it still remains available for the rest of us to use. Many of the benefits of greater access to information do not go to any particular individual or business, but to the rest of the society as a whole.
Just as it would be next to impossible to quantify the impact of the printing press on the modern world, many of the impacts on society of the Internet and Google products more specifically are hard to measure. The full impacts of a digitally literate society are likely only to be be obvious decades, if not centuries, from now. Nevertheless, there is substantial evidence that Google products are already having a positive impact on society.
In order to better understand the value created by Google’s products for society, we looked at three key ways in which Google’s products support democracy, inclusion and sustainability:
- Helping individuals and businesses reduce their carbon footprint. Google is helping increase environmental efficiency and sustainability - both directly as a company, and through supporting others to lower their carbon footprint.
- Supporting a well-informed, democratic society. Using Google’s tools helps voters read a more diverse range of news sources and learn more about the background behind the issues;
- Giving under-represented groups equal access to the world’s knowledge. Unlike many other forms of knowledge, Google’s products are used by nearly everyone, no matter their age, income or background.
Becoming more sustainable
While we often think of efficiency in purely economic terms, it is as or more important in increasing our society’s environmental sustainability. By spreading the digital revolution to the physical world, and making greater use of AI, smart technologies and better data sources we have significant potential to improve the resource efficiency of our society.
This is already happening. By applying AI to the design of its data centres, Google has helped significantly increase their energy efficiency - while other work has shown the potential to increase the value of wind energy by 20% by improving its predictability.
More broadly, the digital revolution as a whole is helping create the dematerialisation of economy - decoupling the link between growth and use of resources. Instead of each of us creating and owning 20 different tools, we have increasingly replaced them with multifunctional devices like the smartphone - while our library of DVDs or CDs has been replaced by streaming media. Looking forward, new technology can increasingly help substitute for physical travel or other resource intensive goods.
Google products help people and businesses reduce CO2 emissions
As a company, Google has been entirely CO2 neutral for more than a decade, and offset its entire energy consumption with renewable energy since 2017. From its beginning, Google’s data centre in Eemshaven has been powered by Dutch renewable energy sources, such as the nearby 63-Megawatt Delfzijl wind farm.
But even more significant are the ways in which Google products help other people and companies increase their sustainability:
Google Search and YouTube help people understand the environment and their impact on it. From our polling we know people use Google Search to be responsible, environmentally friendly citizens. 33% of online Dutch peoples have researched their own environmental impact in the last year.
Gmail, Google Apps and Hangouts tools make it easier for people to work from home, reducing commuting time and environmental impact. According to our polling, 20% of employees now work from home at least once a month, an increase of a third in just five years.
Google Maps reduces the amount of time people spend in a car because users change travel patterns:
- 37% of Dutch people say that using it allows them at least once a month to switch from a car to walking or cycling
- 48% of Dutch people say that that use Google Maps for directions at least once a month, and 27% to help them avoid traffic congestion and delays
When you add together the avoided emissions from reduced driving with the emissions saved by Dutch people using Google products to work at home, we estimate that Google products are preventing 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year - the equivalent of flying around the world more than 600,000 times.
Google Cloud helps companies reduce both the financial and environmental costs of their server needs. Google data centres use 50% less energy than the average data centre, with centralised cloud services estimated to be 85% more efficient than using on-premises servers.
TEMP***** Percent using Google Search to research their environment
Google Earth/Global warming
Supporting the democratic process
It’s vital that people choose to vote, and that they are active, informed citizens who understand what is happening locally, nationally, and across the world.
We found from our polling that Search has become one of the most important ways people achieve this. 44% of people have used Search to find out about a local political candidate in a recent election, and 30% used it to find where they need to vote.
People also use Search to become more informed about the world. The majority of Dutch people in every age group use Google Search to find news articles.
Search is now ranked as among the most trusted source of news, helping point Dutch people to other sources of news. 52% of those we polled say they can now read or watch from a wider variety of sources than before the internet.
TEMP***** Use Google Search to keep up with the news
One of the other benefits of Search is that it allows consumers to find news from more than a few days ago – something that was next to impossible before the internet. 54% of people agree that the internet makes it easier to find news stories or features that are more than a few days old.
***TEMP***Because of access to internet I agree that...
Promoting diversity and inclusion.
Google products are used by people of all incomes, ages, and gender
Many social goods are used more by people from wealthier backgrounds, or show gender gaps. That does not seem to be true of Google products. One of the interesting findings from our polling is that Search is used by everyone: there is no difference in Search usage between the wealthiest and least wealthy in our poll. We also see very similar patterns across Google products between men and women.
***TEMP***Google products usage by gender (at least monthly)
We also see people of all ages use Google products. While it is true that young people are particularly likely to use YouTube, for example, even people of retirement age are very heavy users of Google products.
***TEMP***Google product usage by age (at least monthly)
Inspiring the next generation of women to follow a career in computer programming
Google’s work for good
Google.org has a global, five-year goal to award $1 billion in grants and contribute 1 million employee volunteer hours. It works across education, economic opportunity, and inclusion and finds partners and programmes in different countries that will help people and businesses. Throughout this document some of the relevant programmes supported by Google have been highlighted.
Over the years Google Ad Grants have allocated X worth of free online advertising through in-kind Google Ads including X to nonprofits.
Google.org
GIC general overview:
The Google.org Impact Challenge asks local nonprofit innovators and social entrepreneurs how they would make their community—and beyond—an even better place. The public and a panel of local judges vote for the ideas with the most potential, and Google.org pairs each winner with a strategic package of support including funding and Google volunteers.
Safety Impact Challenge:
When it comes to keeping people safe, it takes a village. For us, that means doing all we can to make our products safer and giving people the tools—through our products or training—to have great experiences online. It also means thinking beyond just our corner of the internet and supporting the work of others in Europe.That is why we’ve launched the Google.org Impact Challenge on Safety, a €10m fund to support nonprofits and social enterprises across Europe that are working to counter hate and extremism and are helping young people to thrive online and offline.
AI Impact Challenge - Skillab
Dutch company Skilllab BV was one of the winners of Google’s global AI Impact Challenge, Google.org’s open call to organisations around the world to submit their ideas for how they could use AI to help address societal challenges As one of the 20 global winners, Skillab will receive financial support, advice and coaching for their work in helping refugees to translate their skills into the European labor market and to design an appropriate career path for them.
Helping refugees find jobs is a key priority for European cities, but translating refugees' skill sets to the European labor market is not always straightforward. Skilllab helps municipal employment services integrate refugees into local job placements. Using an app powered by AI, refugees can document their skills quickly and in their native languages, and receive recommendations of relevant career pathways to explore.
Europe Code Week - Stichting VHTO & Bibliotheek Eemland
Google’s Educator Grants and Europe Code Week Grants support the development of new training programmes for teachers and efforts to increase access to quality computer science education, so that all students can build the skills they’ll need for the future, including coding, problem solving, creativity, and teamwork.
In 2019, two Dutch organisations were awarded a grant; Stichting VHTO and Bibliotheek Eemland. Stichting VHTO organises multiple DigiVita-Code events throughout the Netherlands, in collaboration with libraries, coderdojos, universities and the start-up community of the Netherlands. Bibliotheek Eemland will receive support for their Science Weekend, creating Music machines - workshop which teaches librarians to help children take their first steps into the world of computer sciences using BBC's micro:bit.
Google’s philanthropy projects
Calculating the overall impact of Google
How can we estimate the total impact created by digital products and services like Google on the Dutch economy, society and standard of living?
Traditional economic impact studies have tended to focus on the impact of a company or product on GDP. GDP itself, however, has never included everything we value or every type of work we do. Taken literally, GDP takes no account of changes in our leisure time or the amount of work we do in non-market roles, such as housework or family care.
For the most part, this hasn’t mattered too much - there is reasonable evidence that GDP is highly correlated with the other things that we care about, such as a clean environment or overall happiness. GDP might not measure all that mattered, but it made a reasonable stand-in.
If there is one thing that is striking about the digital economy to an economist, however, it is how much of it is free. The world’s seven most popular websites - Google, YouTube, Facebook, Baidu, Wikipedia, Reddit and Yahoo! 28– are all offered without charge. As many estimates have calculated, the modern smartphone replaces what once would could have been dozens of separate devices costing thousands of pounds, including phone, camera, video camera, games console, alarm clock, map, satnav, book, television, DVD player, Walkman, stopwatch, torch, debit card, compact mirror, step tracker, portable speaker and compass.
At the same time, as we
have explored throughout this paper, digital services are increasingly both
saving us time in our non-market work - making it easier to do housework or DIY
- and substituting for jobs that once we might have paid someone to do for us,
such as booking a flight or holiday, and enabling completing new types of
career.
The combination of a
lack of prices and the fact that many digital services are a completely new
type of good - there is no real non digital equivalent to a search engine -
makes it much more challenging for economists and statisticians to estimate how
much they matter to consumers.
Nevertheless, economists have developed multiple methods that allow us to estimate how much value – or consumer surplus – is created by unpriced goods, which in this paper we have applied in turn to Google’s products, including:
- Using time or attention as a proxy for the cost we are prepared to pay for digital goods. Money is not the only cost we have to pay to use a good or service – our time is valuable too. According to our poll, the average online Dutch people estimates that they spend just under an hour a day on their smartphone. This time carries a significant opportunity cost of everything else we could be doing either for leisure or our job – suggesting that we must find the digital service at least as valuable as the alternative.
- Asking individuals to estimate the amount they would be hypothetically willing to pay for a free service – or alternatively, what they would be willing to accept to give it up. For decades, economists and social scientists have experimented with the best way to ask individuals about their preferences over unpriced goods, such as a natural park or clean air. When designed right, these surveys can deliver surprisingly results. In the future, the arrival of new mass online polling solutions such as Google Consumer Surveys and big data enabled by the internet could potentially allow us to significantly improve the accuracy, speed and reliability of our economic statistics – allowing us to better measure what as individuals we really care about.
- Comparing preferences for a free good against another good which has a price attached. Finally, rather than try and construct a hypothetical price – something we rarely do in real life – we often find it easier to compare between different items: would people rather give up their washing machine or dishwasher? By comparing items with prices to those that are unpriced, we can produce a ranking, and bracket how valuable the free good must be.
While we have tried to directly estimate the time saved by Google services whenever possible, on other occasions we have had to rely on stated preferences, as has long been common practice in other areas where valuation is challenging, such as environmental economics. These estimates work by asking individuals whether they would be prepared to lose access to a particular product for varying amounts of money - and assuming that if they reject this deal, the service must be worth at least that amount. Other research has found that these kind of estimates give a reasonably reliable estimate of the value created by digital services (see Box) - with survey respondents providing similar responses even when there is a real, non-hypothetical risk of losing access if they did not provide an accurate estimate.
As a sense check, we also asked our polling recipients to rank Search, YouTube and their smartphone against other consumer goods by which they would most want to avoiding giving up - finding that, on average, internet connected Dutch people would rather lose access to public transport than their smartphone or a search engine.
Another question might be what we are measuring against: if Google didn’t exist, how would the world look different? Presumably another search engine would be the market leader - but how would its quality differ? Given the scale of the consumer surplus we found, an alternative only 10% worse would lead to significant reductions in consumer welfare. For the most part, in our polling we always asked those we surveyed the value of a specific Google product rather than a generic category - leaving them the hypothetical option to switch to a competitor even if they lost access to Google’s product. This makes our study different from many of the other studies that have been done on the value of digital products, and given the high values we found, suggest that many people significantly value Google’s services.
In total, our estimates suggest that a conservative estimate of the total consumer surplus created by Google services in the Netherlands is €14 billion a year or €880 per year for the median person. We believe this work supports the growing evidence in the literature that digital services are creating significant unmeasured value for ordinary findings. While our estimate is already a large number, other studies have found that the value of online search by itself could be as high as €15,600 per person a year.29
Other estimates of the consumer value created by the digital economy
Depending on their methodology and assumptions, the estimates of the value produced by the online economy can vary by many orders of magnitude. In general, however, even the more modest estimates find that online services are creating significant surplus value beyond what their users directly pay.
Goolsbee and Klenow’s paper Valuing Consumer Products by the Time Spent Using Them: An Application to the Internet (2006) uses the opportunity cost of the leisure time spent on the Internet to estimate a total consumer surplus equivalent to $3,000 on average in the US.
McKinsey’s report The Web’s €100 billion surplus (2011)30 used stated preference methods to calculate the total consumer surplus created by online services, netting off consumers preference to avoid advertising or sharing their data. Their estimates found that search created a monthly consumer surplus equivalent to €3.1, for email €3.2, maps €1.1 and video €0.9.
Brynjolfsson and Oh’s paper The
Attention Economy: Measuring the Value of Free Digital Services on the Internet
(2012)31
updated the methodology of Goolsbee and Klenow (2006) to account for that the
Internet might simply be substituting for watching TV, finding that free online
sites create the equivalent of around $500 per person in consumer surplus.
Brynjolfsson, Eggers and Gannameni’s paper Using Massive Online Choice Experiments to
Measure Changes in Well-Being (2017) used online surveys to test both
willingness to accept compensation in place of digital goods and to create a
ranking of different goods. They find significantly higher numbers, with a
consumer surplus for search the equivalent of $17,500 a year, for email $8,400,
maps $3,600 and video $1,170. In order to test the reliability of these
hypothetical numbers, they run a smaller scale experiment where they actually
make some people go through with giving up the online service – and find this
creates little change in valuation. In addition, they run a ranking experiment,
and find that giving up search engines, email and smartphones are all ranked
somewhere between the equivalent of losing $500 to $1000 a year.
Methodology
As described in the main report, accurately estimating the value created by digital products is extremely challenging – and this is particularly true for products that are free at the point of use, are used widely across the economy, and contain elements of both consumption and production, as is true for many Google products.
While we believe our estimates are based on conservative assumptions, it is worth being aware of their limitations:
- Many of our estimates are based on the gross impact of Google’s products, as it is hard to accurately quantify what a counterfactual world without Google would look like.
- Conversely, in some cases we have not been able to fully quantify all the impacts created by Google products, suggesting that our estimates should be viewed as a lower bound.
- Many of our estimates make use of new polling carried out for this report – but as in any poll, consumers may underestimate or overestimate their use of products. (Full polling tables for data used in this report are available in an online appendix.)
- Best practice in many of these areas, such as valuing an hour of leisure time or using stated preferences to calculate consumer surplus, remains an area of active academic debate.
- Google did not provide any new or internal data to generate these estimates. All our modelling is based on third-party or public data, alongside our own internal estimates.
Consumer Benefits
Google Search
Our headline estimate of the total consumer surplus of Google Search is calculated as the geometric average of:
- Time saved. Following the methodology of Varian (2011), we assume that using Google saves 15 minutes per question, with the average person asking 1 answerable question every 2 days. Time saved is valued at the self-reported polling data of average incomes, and we scale the overall estimate by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on Google Search usage. (More information of this overall approach can be found in the Economic Value of Google, a presentation by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian.)
- Stated preference (Willingness to Accept). As part of our polling, we asked participants a single discrete binary choice question of “Would you prefer to keep access to Google Search or go without access to Google Search for one month and get paid [Price]” with the price offered randomised between €1.25, €2.5, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500. We linearly regressed the results of this poll to derive a demand curve and used this to calculate total consumer surplus per user. Finally, we scaled this estimate by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on Google Search usage.
Following Brynjolfsson et al (2017), we chose a Willingness to Accept (WTA) rather than Willingness to Pay format for our Stated Preference question as we believed this best matched the status quo, given that the majority of Google Services are free to the end user and required no up-front investment.
As with many other products, the mean consumer surplus is significantly higher than the median – or, in other words, a few dedicated users use it disproportionately more than the average.
In order to ensure that our household level figures were not misleading, we based them not on the mean household value for WTA compensation, but instead a separate estimate of the median WTA. We derived this by regressing our polling data again, using an exponential method which we judged was more likely to accurately represent the bottom of the distribution.
Google Maps
Our headline estimate of the total consumer surplus of Google Maps is calculated as the geometric average of:
- Time saved. We calculate time saved by Google Maps, using estimates of time saved by advanced traveler information systems from Levinson (2003) and total time spent travelling by mode from our polling, calibrated by Dutch CBS data on the total time spent commuting. Time saved is valued at 37.5% of the estimated hourly income of Google Maps users, following standard practice for calculating the value of travel time savings.
- Stated preference. As with Google Search, we asked the participants of our poll a single discrete binary choice question of “Would you prefer to keep access to Google Maps or go without access to Google Maps for one month and get paid [Price]” with the price offered randomised between €1.25, €2.5, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500. We linearly regressed the results of this poll to derive a demand curve and used this to calculate total consumer surplus per user. Finally, we scaled this estimate by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on Google Maps usage. In addition, we constructed a separate estimate of the median WTA compensation for losing Google Maps which we used for our per person and household estimates.
YouTube
Our headline estimate of the total consumer surplus of Google Search is calculated as the geometric average of:
- Time saved. Extrapolating from the methodology Varian (2011), we assume that using YouTube saves 11 minutes per question, using self-reporting polling data to calibrate the number of questions asked. Time saved is valued at the self-reported polling data of average incomes, and we scale the overall estimate by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on YouTube usage.
- Stated preference (Willingness to Accept). As part of our polling, we asked participants a single discrete binary choice question of “Would you prefer to keep access to YouTube or go without access to Google Search for one month and get paid [Price]” with the price offered randomised between €1.25, €2.5, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500. We linearly regressed the results of this poll to derive a demand curve and used this to calculate total consumer surplus per user. Finally, we scaled this estimate by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on Google Search usage.
Gmail and Google Docs
Given that we had no time saving estimates for these products, we instead relied on estimates drawn again from stated preferences, following again the same procedure. We asked the participants of our poll a single discrete binary choice question of “Would you prefer to keep access to [Gmail / Google Docs] or go without access to [Gmail / Google Docs] for one month and get paid [Price]” with the price offered randomised between €1.25, €2.5, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500. We linearly regressed the results of this poll to derive a demand curve and used this to calculate total consumer surplus per user. Finally, we scaled these estimates by third party estimates of Internet prevalence and polling information on each product’s usage. In addition, we constructed a separate estimate of the median WTA compensation for each product which we used for quoted per person and household estimates.
Android
In addition to measuring the consumer surplus individuals received for individual Google services, we also investigated the overall consumer surplus Dutch people receive from their smartphone.
We asked the participants of our poll a single discrete binary choice question of “Would you prefer to keep access to your smartphone or go without access to your smartphone for one month and get paid [Price]” with the price offered randomised between €1.25, €2.5, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500.
We then scaled this number by Android’s market share in the Netherlands and Lee (2016)’s estimate of the proportion of net smartphone consumer surplus, excluding substitution value.
Given the overlap with individual services - one reason we value our phone is because it allows us to access Search, Maps, Gmail or YouTube - and the challenges in decomposing the value attributable to software and hardware, we did not include this estimate in our number for the overall value created by Google in the Netherlands.
Business Benefits
Google Ads
Following the precedent of past Google impact reports, we use third-party data to estimate the total size of the Dutch people Google Ads market, combining PWC Global Entertainment & Media Outlook data on the total Dutch paid search market with other estimates of Google’s market share.
Following the methodology of the US Google Economic Impact Report, we then scale this revenue by an assumed Return on Investment (ROI) factor of 8, from:
- Varian (2009) estimates that businesses make on average $2 for every $1 they spend of AdWords.
- Jansen and Spink (2009) estimate that businesses receive 5 clicks on their search results for every 1 click on their ads.
- Google estimates that search clicks are about 70% as valuable as ad clicks.
- Total ROI is then 2 * spend + 70% * 5 * 2 * spend – spend = 8 (spend).
More information on this methodology is available at https://economicimpact.google.com/methodology/
AdSense
In order to estimate total Dutch Adsense revenues, we scale Google’s 2018 global Traffic Acquisition Costs to network members by the Netherlands’s share of global display spending, derived from PWC Global Entertainment & Media Outlook data. In addition, we also include the estimated returns to advertisers, drawing on the estimated ROI of display advertising from Kireyev et al (2013).
YouTube
In order to estimate total Dutch revenues to Dutch creators, we scale PWC Global Entertainment & Media Outlook data on Dutch video advertising revenue by Google’s 2018 global Traffic Acquisition Costs to network members by Sandvine data on YouTube’s 2017 EMEA share of video bandwidth. We then further scale this by an assumed conservative ROI factor.
Android
We scale App Annie (2019) 2018 data on worldwide app store consumer spend and Android revenue share by Caribou Digital (2016)’s estimate of the Dutch share of total app store value captured.
AI
We draw on McKinsey Global Institute (2017) estimates of the proportion of automatable jobs in the Netherlands, and conservatively assume that combined software and hardware costs for automated task converge to 10% of the cost of human labour. Next, we assume that automation takes place over 50 years, following a logistic S-curve, with Dutch state of adoption proxied by its current lag in internet adoption with the US.
In order to estimate the potential impact on administrative tasks, we draw on polling data on average time spent on administrative work.
- Including Google Economic Impact (US, 2019, Google), Google’s Impact in the UK: At Home, At School At Work (UK, 2018, Public First), Google’s Economic Impact (Canada, 2018, Deloitte),Google Economic and Social Impact (New Zealand, 2017, AlphaBeta), Google Economic and Social Impact (Australia, 2015, AlphaBeta) and Google’s Economic Impact: United Kingdom (UK, 2014, Deloitte)
- https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours
- https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160107224314/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_351954.pdf, https://hbr.org/2017/05/reclaim-your-commute and https://www.inc.com/business-insider/study-reveals-commute-time-impacts-job-satisfaction.html
- <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-friends"https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-friends, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkKuTCFvzI&feature=youtu.be
- http://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/2017/06/12/1910-long-distance/
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/20865386?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://pdfs.semanticscholar. org/7dab/41504f61a8f85fc83c26e6700aad34a251c5.pdf 2
- Using Massive Online Choice Experiments to Measure Changes in Well-Being, Brynjolfsson, Eggers and Gannameni, 2017
- Some of this value overlaps with the consumer surplus from Google’s other core products such as Search or YouTube. As such, we have not included it in the total value.
- The Attention Economy: Measuring the Value of Free Digital Services on the Internet, Brynjolfsson and Oh, 2012, https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=icis2012
- Public First calculation drawing on The Conference Board data and Spieza (2012)
- https://digital-agenda-data.eu/charts/desi-composite
- The Total Economic Impact of Google Apps for Work, Forrester Consulting, 2015, http://www.ditoweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/The-Total-Economic-Impact™-of-Google-Apps-for-Work-Forrester-2015.pdf
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyRPyRKHO8M&feature=youtu.be
- https://economicimpact.google.com/methodology/
- https://evansdata.com/press/viewRelease.php?pressID=244
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/266210/number-of-available-applications-in-the-google-play-store/
- Store Intelligence Data Digest Q4 and Full Year 2018, Sensor Tower
- The State of Mobile 2019, App Annie
- See, for example here or here
- https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/press/ and https://www.statista.com/statistics/259477/hours-of-video-uploaded-to-youtube-every-minute/
- Assuming half of Dutch workers use Google Search on a weekly basis, and a quarter of workers use G Suite. Based upon work by Forrester Consulting, we assume each user of G Suite saves between 15 minutes and 2 hours each a week. We conservatively assume that workers research one question through Google Search a week, and that this saves them 15 minutes. Total time saved is converted into a monetary amount using Dutch people average output per hour.
- https://voxeu.org/article/information-technology-and-economic-change-impact-printing-press
- https://ourworldindata.org/books
- https://voxeu.org/article/information-technology-and-economic-change-impact-printing-press
- https://ourworldindata.org/books
- https://voxeu.org/article/information-technology-and-economic-change-impact-printing-press
- https://ourworldindata.org/books
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites
- Using Massive Online Choice Experiments to Measure Changes in Well-Being, Brynjolfsson, Eggers and Gannameni, 2017
- The Web’s €100 billion surplus, McKinsey, 2011, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/media-and-entertainment/our-insights/the-webs--and-8364100-
- The Attention Economy: Measuring the Value of Free Digital Services on the Internet, Brynjolfsson and Oh, 2012, https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=icis2012