Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 87 posts

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

#61

Post by joeshmoe23 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #60
joeshmoe23 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If someone were to invent a new method for information retrieval superior to a search engine they could thrive.

As for proper monopolies it's usually the power/water utilities, although I think that the breakup of at&t back in the day was ill advised because their monopoly sustained bell labs, possibly the greatest innovation hub ever, that being one example of these populist antitrust notions backfiring.

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

#62

Post by Youden »

joeshmoe23 wrote: post #50
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…

Promoting stuff on one's own website isn't in any way shape or form illegal.

Not true. See the record $2.7b fine Google got for promoting Google Shopping results in its search results.

Also see why: For leveraging a dominant position in one market (search) to intrude on another market (shopping).

This looks suspiciously similar. Google is leveraging a dominant position in search engines to intrude on the browser market.

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

#63

Post by jogjayr »

wai1234 wrote: post #20
krm01 wrote: post #13

They have their share of failed products (see https://www.computerworlduk.com/galleries/it-vendors/google-... ) Their position allows them to distribute their products to a larger audience, quicker than others for sure, but I don’t believe that’s a formula for success per se. Successful products like Gmail, grew like a scrappy startup working on a great product would grow. The first version Paul made was just a searc…

You write about Gmail as if no one had email before that. GMail doesn't have a single meaningful feature that other clients didn't have before. And those clients didn't completely redo the UI every 3 months whether you want it or not.

> GMail doesn't have a single meaningful feature that other clients didn't have before

That's an objectively incorrect statement. It had:

1. 1GB storage when every other email provider offered like 50 MB at best

2. Superior search

3. Conversational/threaded view for emails

4. Better spam filtering

5. One of the first "dynamic" web applications to use that newfangled "AJAX" stuff to be more responsive and seem faster

Every other email provider was forced to start offering these features and now they seem commonplace. Reminds me of that old joke where someone goes to see a Shakespeare play and complains it was just one cliche after another.

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

#64

Post by dredmorbius »

nknealk wrote: post #44
dredmorbius wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much the case, and you can thank/blame Robert Bork for this. Earlier comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18436387#18436772 I'm liking Lina Kahn's take: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...

Wow, your comment is far better cited than mine. Also, Bork wasn't necessarily wrong for the era he lived in. I think we don't yet have a good vocabulary to describe the kind of bad behavior we see in large tech firms. People use "monopoly" because it's the first word that comes to mind when a large firm is acting badly, but Google's/Facebook's/etc behavior does not fit our current definition.

Bork was, I'm pretty convinced, far beyond wrong. His rationalisation was tremendously useful to those who benefited from that wrongness.

That's a longer story.

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

#65

Post by joeshmoe24 »

Youden wrote: post #62
joeshmoe23 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Promoting stuff on one's own website isn't in any way shape or form illegal.

Not true. See the record $2.7b fine Google got for promoting Google Shopping results in its search results. Also see why: For leveraging a dominant position in one market (search) to intrude on another market (shopping). This looks suspiciously similar. Google is leveraging a dominant position in search engines to intrude on the browser market.

I'm talking about the US where google is also protected by the first amendment and not the bizarro world logic the EU uses to justify their protectionism (how are shopping ads different than any other search ads?!).

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

#66

Post by negutron »

Google is really good at crowdsourcing ideas by reading your email surreptitiously; at getting those tasty IP treats by scanning your cloud documents; and by watching trends by sifting through billions of keypresses and mousemovements sent secretly by your chrome browser.

Also, since they were funded initially by the CIA and Darpa, they have access to unlimited black budget money (51T by some estimates now) so of course they can build the best stuff

and give it all away for FREE!!! (because they are mining all your data for profitizing potentialities among their backchannel services networks)

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

#67

Post by personjerry »

joeshmoe24 wrote: post #65
Youden wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. See the record $2.7b fine Google got for promoting Google Shopping results in its search results. Also see why: For leveraging a dominant position in one market (search) to intrude on another market (shopping). This looks suspiciously similar. Google is leveraging a dominant position in search engines to intrude on the browser market.

I'm talking about the US where google is also protected by the first amendment and not the bizarro world logic the EU uses to justify their protectionism (how are shopping ads different than any other search ads?!).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act_of_1890

"The Sherman Act broadly prohibits (1) anticompetitive agreements and (2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market."

For example, squashing competition by deleting your competitors search results might be interpreted as an attempt to monopolize the market.

In the context of providing a marketplace (i.e. the App Store), we aren't really looking at "private free speech" any more and so the first amendment does not apply here.

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

#69

Post by tomohawk »

joeshmoe23 wrote: post #50
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…

Promoting stuff on one's own website isn't in any way shape or form illegal.

In the IBM antitrust case, IBM was forced to separate their OS and App businesses. Their OS business had to publish all of their APIs and was not allowed to communicate non-publicly with their App business. This was to prevent IBM from using their OS monopoly to gain an App monopoly.

Once you are a monopoly, you can expect such restrictions.

What Google is really good at is evading FTC regulation by staying within FCC jurisdiction. The FCC has historically been hand in hand with industry. The FTC has real teeth.

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

#70

Post by joeshmoe24 »

personjerry wrote: post #67
joeshmoe24 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about the US where google is also protected by the first amendment and not the bizarro world logic the EU uses to justify their protectionism (how are shopping ads different than any other search ads?!).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act_of_1890 "The Sherman Act broadly prohibits (1) anticompetitive agreements and (2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market." For example, squashing competition by deleting your competitors search results might be interpreted as an attempt to monopolize the market. In the context of providing a marketplace (i.e. the App Store)…

Yes it does: https://searchengineland.com/another-court-affirms-googles-f...

The worst thing about antitrust threads on HN is idiots trying to appear knowledgeable by skimming a Wikipedia article.

Post reply on HN