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“Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″

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21–30 of 260 posts

Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″

#21
> (...) he has seen first-hand the damage that the internet economy has wrought on working artists like his friend, legendary drummer Levon Helm, who was forced to put on a series of concerts at his home at the age of 70, while dying from throat cancer, in order to pay his medical bills.

this is a bit farfetched. do you really want to blame the internet for the immense fuck up health care has become? really?

Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″

#22
post #9

Earlier 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.

I'm sure that such attitude doesn't help innovation

Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″

#23
post #15

It 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″

#24

I'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.

"Don't be evil" was never an official motto, just a small part of the code of conduct.

Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″

#25
post #10

Earlier 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.

do you have a guide on doing this successfully? do you have email on your phone as well?

Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″

#26
post #15

It 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…

>But Google's search monopoly and concomitant cash flows also gave society free worldwide communication, self-driving cars, cheaper smartphones, free digital maps, and countless other benefits.

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″

#27
I wonder how does this refer to Microsoft with Azure and other companies with ultra-broad platform offerings with hundreds of services and products.

Maybe 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″

#28
post #15

It 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?

Well, if that 'murder' was an execution of a convicted criminal. Why not?

Re: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″

#29

Ma 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.

Jesus, yes, how did I have to scroll down this far before I read "ATT was a government monopoly"?

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″

#30

Earlier 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?

I know MapQuest is pretty bad but I don't think Google Maps out competing it is equivalent to executing a convict.
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