Platforms own you, not vice versa

Posted on February 26, 2025 by Loren

Hannah Ziegler, The Washington Post

Online education company Chegg sues Google, says AI is killing business A new lawsuit against Google alleges that the search giant’s artificial intelligence summaries have hurt online education company Chegg’s traffic and revenue so much that the company may not survive in its current form.

Chegg, which provides students with homework help and test answers, filed the suit against Google and parent company Alphabet this week in federal court. In its quarterly report released Monday, the company tied its recent financial struggles to AI-generated search summaries and claimed Google has “unjustly retained traffic” that once flowed to Chegg’s site. Chegg reported $144 million in revenue in its fourth quarter, a 24 percent decrease from the same period last year.

Chegg's pissed because Google isn't sending them traffic any more. Welcome to the club. If your business relies on another company's platform, you're a tenant with no lease. Chegg's lawsuit? Probably a long shot. The lesson? The landlord can do whatever the hell they want and a public company like Chegg should know better than to rely on someone else’s platform.