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Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

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Re: Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

#51

Post by hedora »

pgeorgi wrote: post #19
Dahoon wrote: post #5

>Is Google a monopoly? Yes in more than one area. The lowest hanging fruit (which will cause downvotes): Google Play. No one can release anything Google disagrees with on Google Play.... but google could. Google and Apple really should be separated from their stores. They know everything that happens on them and no one can compete against that. Bundling Chrome with Android (and Apple apps in iOS) is no different than…

> No one can release anything Google disagrees with on Google Play Recent Android versions made it ever easier to install apps without using the Play Store: I have F-Droid installed and whitelisted (so no warnings every time an apk appears), which required toggling a permission switch the system pointed out to me. As for Chrome, apparently various vendors ship their own browser as default although it seems they still…

Side loading is nice, but unless you can uninstall the play store and blacklist the google APIs without breaking your phone, you’re still forced to send them your data (or to switch away from Android).

So, they’re tying their market power in phone operating systems to their unrelated monopoly (duopoly?) in surveillance capitalism, and many peopfle unwillingly/unwittingly hand over their private information as a result.

If you consider the full suite of their products, you’ll find that all people that are on the internet (and some that are not) hand over such information, unwilling or not.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

#52

Post by quickthrower2 »

joeshmoe23 wrote: post #48

There is no monopoly when your stuff is free, has virtually zero replacement cost and no lock-in. The "google is a monopoly" trope was introduced and cultivated by Steve Ballmer's Microsoft and it's being constantly adopted and revised by anyone with an axe to grind.

Google has a monopoly on search advertising which is not free.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

#53

Post by HALtheWise »

When I worked at Google as an intern, there were lots of people internally that were very aware that most of their core products don't have a locked in monopoly like Amazon, Facebook, or Apple do. For example, after the Cambridge Analytica stuff, lots of people wanted to leave Facebook, but mostly aren't able to due to network effects. In contrast, using Bing instead of Google Search is so easy that I do so occasionally when I'm having trouble finding something through Google. If their product was suddenly worse than the competition, they could lose their entire user base in days, because the network effects of personalized search are nowhere near the network effects of Facebook. The same is true for Maps, Gmail (data export is allowed), Drive, Photos, Chrome, Ads (for websites) and most of their other core products. I guess the question of whether they "are a monopoly" is largely dependent on what your definition of monopoly is, but the lack of lock-in means they aren't able to exploit their market dominance in most of the ways that traditionally make monopolies problematic. Google Play / Android is a good example where this is less true, although alternate Android app stores and OS's do exist (see Amazon's attempt to make Fire OS)

Re: Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

#54

Post by qwerty456127 »

ardy42 wrote: post #24

> I know that Google is super powerful and has great products but what exactly are (if any) examples of Google showing anti-competitive behaviour? At least at one point, they nagged you incessantly to install Chrome when you used Google Search. I would attribute Chrome's current dominance [1] to that fact, and that fact alone. That's uncannily like the anti-competitive behavior Microsoft was judged to have used to pu…

Provided we consider artificial measures against monopolies ok, why not force Google to put Firefox advertisement on their search page now?

Re: Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

#55

Post by joeshmoe23 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #52
joeshmoe23 wrote: post #48

There is no monopoly when your stuff is free, has virtually zero replacement cost and no lock-in. The "google is a monopoly" trope was introduced and cultivated by Steve Ballmer's Microsoft and it's being constantly adopted and revised by anyone with an axe to grind.

Google has a monopoly on search advertising which is not free.

"search advertising" is a curiously narrow distinction, the market is "advertising" and they own but a sliver of it.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

#56

Post by dreamcompiler »

mav3rick wrote: post #17
1024core wrote: post #11

Google builds lots of failed products too (hint: Google+). They make up for it in sheer volume ;-)

What is wrong in trying and failing ?

Nothing. But that's not what Google usually does. Much more often, Google tries and succeeds. People begin using the product because it's good, and then Google arbitrarily kills it [0]. I've been burned by this behavior enough that I now avoid Google products whenever possible, no matter how great they seem.

[0] https://killedbygoogle.com/

Re: Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

#57

Post by quickthrower2 »

joeshmoe23 wrote: post #55
quickthrower2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has a monopoly on search advertising which is not free.

"search advertising" is a curiously narrow distinction, the market is "advertising" and they own but a sliver of it.

I’d be interested in what you class as a monopoly? You can always expand or shrink a market definition to suit whatever agenda.

Using DeBeers as an example (from the Wikipedia article on monopoly), they could be argued to not have a monopoly, because diamonds are a sliver of the gifting market.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

#58

Post by narag »

gojomo wrote: post #29

The "or" in the question is a false dichotomy. Many historic examples of monopolistic abuse originated from market power that was initially acquired via excellence in innovation or execution. Also many anti-competitive behaviors, like certain pricing/tying/bundling/cross-subsidization strategies, are perfectly legal for a small operator, but become illegal when a firm gains immense market power. And there is rarely a…

Exactly. Also being a monopoly isn't illegal. That was talked about a lot at the time of Microsoft anti-trust case. What's illegal is using your monopoly position to get unfair advantage in other markets.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

#59

Post by joeshmoe23 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #57
joeshmoe23 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"search advertising" is a curiously narrow distinction, the market is "advertising" and they own but a sliver of it.

I’d be interested in what you class as a monopoly? You can always expand or shrink a market definition to suit whatever agenda. Using DeBeers as an example (from the Wikipedia article on monopoly), they could be argued to not have a monopoly, because diamonds are a sliver of the gifting market.

Isn't that what you're doing?

Search ads isn't the only way to reach people and it's not an impediment for new entrants as shown by Amazon's ad business.

As for the general matter, google has the right to publish and design their website however they see fit, it's a no brainer, the only reason this question keeps popping up is that google has very powerful enemies in basically all news and publishing companies (they blame it for their dwindling ad revenue), not to mention the oracles and yelps of the world and all of them are piggybacking on the infrastructure laid down by microsoft at the time.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google a Monopoly or just really good at building useful products?

#60

Post by quickthrower2 »

joeshmoe23 wrote: post #59
quickthrower2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be interested in what you class as a monopoly? You can always expand or shrink a market definition to suit whatever agenda. Using DeBeers as an example (from the Wikipedia article on monopoly), they could be argued to not have a monopoly, because diamonds are a sliver of the gifting market.

Isn't that what you're doing? Search ads isn't the only way to reach people and it's not an impediment for new entrants as shown by Amazon's ad business. As for the general matter, google has the right to publish and design their website however they see fit, it's a no brainer, the only reason this question keeps popping up is that google has very powerful enemies in basically all news and publishing companies (they…

Ok maybe monopoly isn’t the word, but what’s the word that describes how it is virtually impossible for anyone else to write a seriously competing search engine, given the resources, trade secrets and patents Google has.

Also can you give me an example of a true monopoly as per your definition. Even the US government doesn’t have a tax monopoly because there are other countries you can live in.

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