I don't think there would be a difference on financials. Alphabet is worth exactly as the old Google, and is currently operating exact same businesses.
Separating Fiber is important for other reasons, most notably, saving themselves from conflict of interest/anti-trust lawsuits.
No it isn't. Clearly Google's management believes the new structure is accretive to shareholder value otherwise they wouldn't have done it.
I really wonder about this though. Conglomerates have a mixed track record [1] and from where I sit, it's not clear Larry/Sergey are better capital allocators than the public markets.
[1] Brealey & Myers "Corporate Finance" has a good section on this topic, comparing big Asian conglomerates like Samsung, LG, Yahama, etc. to American public companies over time.
Nope. If there's an antitrust issue (I'm not saying there is), it's still all the same company to the DOJ. Google is too visible to play that particular shell game and get away with it.
If this was in preparation for spinning Fiber off, sure.
Which might make sense. Perhaps more broadly, they see the advertising entities as a whole that is complete, e.g. the value of these is strong, and not likely to be anything more than incremental (in the case of Youtube, that increment is still likely thousands of percents) nor to need any capital or debt for the foreseeable future.
Fiber, cars et al could be spun off, which would create share holder value without dividends, and allow these units to leverage debt rather than capital. Cars, Fiber, the WiFi balloons, could all be spun off at a point where they need capital and debt, and not drag down Alphabet.
Fiber with an IPO and access to debt as its own needs dictate might grow a lot faster than fiber waiting for capital from Google.
Maybe that is Google's plan: get them ready for IPO, then set them free and take an interest?
Separating Fiber is important for other reasons, most notably, saving themselves from conflict of interest/anti-trust lawsuits.