this is a bit farfetched. do you really want to blame the internet for the immense fuck up health care has become? really?
“Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
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Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google beats the competition in some markets because they have so much power in other markets. If you start a startup even in cloud photo storage, and suddenly Google Photos comes along, you’re dead. No one will fund you anymore, and you’ve basically lost. Google has such an immense amount of network effect, and of knowledge they can gain from dominating in other markets, that if Google enters a market – unless there…
Maybe that's a sign that photo storage is already commodity and such a startup shouldn't be funded.
Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
#23It would be great to see more balanced discourse on monopolies, especially in a software-dominated world. Most analyses and articles fixate on the costs of monopolies. Let's assume the worst of Google and conclude they abused their search monopoly. Innovation in search was stifled. Competitors were damaged and achieved only a fraction of their potential. For instance, Yelp might be worth $15B instead of $3B in a worl…
Is that what you're saying?
Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
#24I've worked hard at distancing myself from Google. It seems their motto "Don't be Evil" has about as many asterisks behind it as they can manage. Every product they design seems to be built from the ground up to enable data collection, and every advertiser they partner with seems to have build plausible deniability into every aspect of the "product" they claim to deliver. I can't point to anything in particular, but…
Google officially dropped the "Don't be Evil" motto a while back and picked up Alphabet's "Do the Right Thing" motto, which seems a lot more subjective.
Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've replaced Google Maps with my iPhone's Apple Maps, and I barely use e-mail other than for transactional matters, so I'm pretty close. What's your recommendation for e-mail replacement?
I just host my own email these days. Not going to rely on any 3rd party anymore.
Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
#26It would be great to see more balanced discourse on monopolies, especially in a software-dominated world. Most analyses and articles fixate on the costs of monopolies. Let's assume the worst of Google and conclude they abused their search monopoly. Innovation in search was stifled. Competitors were damaged and achieved only a fraction of their potential. For instance, Yelp might be worth $15B instead of $3B in a worl…
To be clear you can't be sure those things wouldn't be around if google hadn't had a search monopoly. Maybe we would have even better digital maps for example had there been way more firms competing. Monopolies can't just be measured by the businesses that they outcompete but also in all the never-realized businesses who their market domination discouraged.
Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
#27Maybe internet companies should scale horizontally and not verticly in their product offering after they reach certain size?
Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
#28It would be great to see more balanced discourse on monopolies, especially in a software-dominated world. Most analyses and articles fixate on the costs of monopolies. Let's assume the worst of Google and conclude they abused their search monopoly. Innovation in search was stifled. Competitors were damaged and achieved only a fraction of their potential. For instance, Yelp might be worth $15B instead of $3B in a worl…
so if you do something good, you should be permitted some amount of illegal behavior? If you're a priest, perhaps you would be permitted 1 murder, in exchange for your good behavior over the years? Is that what you're saying?
Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
#29Ma Bell's monopoly has never been "natural". It has been enforced by FCC, ever since FCC was formed for that specific purpose in 1934. Even before that, ICC through the Kingsbury Commitment had adopted an ill-considered and unjustified hands-off policy with respect to Ma Bell's anticompetitive actions.
Google doesn't have a monopoly on anything. They have the best search engine, but I can switch in seconds. Likewise the rest of their products all have very well established and really quite functional competitors. That I don't use, cause I like the big G, but I could if they annoyed me too much.
Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
so if you do something good, you should be permitted some amount of illegal behavior? If you're a priest, perhaps you would be permitted 1 murder, in exchange for your good behavior over the years? Is that what you're saying?
Well, if that 'murder' was an execution of a convicted criminal. Why not?