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“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″

#51

Post by stingrae »

panabee wrote: 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…

Pre-breakup, Bell Labs produced a very large percentage of the scientific/engineering breakthroughs that power our modern world.

The breakup arguably changed Bell Labs, hurting its ability to hire talent as well as its access to resources.

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

#52

Post by polishTar »

FussyZeus wrote: post #20
itp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alphabet code of conduct: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/code-of-conduct.html "Employees of Alphabet and its subsidiaries and controlled affiliates (“Alphabet”) should do the right thing – follow the law, act honorably, and treat each other with respect." "If you are employed by a subsidiary or controlled affiliate of Alphabet, please comply with your employer’s code of conduct." Google code of conduct: https://abc.x…

But wouldn't that technically apply to only those working at Google, not the other Alphabet companies? Not that it really matters, both are utterly without meaning. I was just using it to show how their corporate personality has changed over the years.

That's a really silly way of doing it then. Besides, "do the right thing" is more restrictive than just "don't be evil"

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

#53

Post by redm »

I think the key point here is not whether Google is abusing its effective monopoly willingly, its that it exists at all. There may be alternatives, but not viable ones.

Try not supporting Chrome or ignoring Chrome requirements such as security mandates, you will go out of business. You can say these are 'good' for the consumer but the fact that Google has the ability to unilaterally change the web itself is partially the issue, they are not a standards body.

Whats the viable alternative to Google Search? Sure you can use Bing as a customer, but if you're a website operator you HAVE to stay on Google's good side. (not always easy to do)

Whats the viable alternative to Adsense? Especially when it comes to many Geo's that are hard to monetize.

Whats the viable alternative to Android?

Not all aspects of Google's business are so dominated, but where they are, you have little choice but to go with Google and the fact that are dominate in so many key segments is troubling.

Let's be honest, it's not like Google makes themselves easy to contact, interact with, or get support from. They are in many ways a black box.

Ever notice how the transparency reports for Safe Browsing never includes Google Properties or how they are happy to report DMCA issues for the internet, but never for Youtube?

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

#54

Post by specialp »

fosco wrote: post #25
educar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You can have email everywhere with IMAP and SMTP. Even phones. One thing that is difficult running your own mail server is assuring you do not get spam filtered for running on a cloud server netblock. I had to set up DKIM, DMARC and SPF.

I used this for setup: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Postfix

To get a full stack going with proper SSL auth it is somewhat involved. The good thing is once you do it, it works reliably and you OWN your email. Complying with every anti spam measure is critical though because you will be most likely sending mail to others on large servers that will reject your mail otherwise. Even then I had a lot of problems with Yahoo to get whitelisted, and Verizon just summarily blocks Digital Ocean hosts.

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

#55

Post by ubernostrum »

nickik wrote: post #42
jessaustin wrote: post #14

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.

I don't quite understand what you are saying. It seem like your saying there is no natural monopoly but rather a government enforced one. Then you seem to say that the ICC did not stop 'anti-competitive' behavoir. I'm not sure what that means, all companies are against their competition. If there is not a natural monopoly why would any government agency have to do anything?

The Bell System was allowed to exist as a monopoly because it was assumed telephone service would produce a natural monopoly. The US government stepped in to regulate it because of the lack of effective competition, and the result was a pretty cozy situation for AT&T for many years. Eventually the prevailing theories changed, and AT&T was forcibly broken up by an antitrust suit.

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

#56

Post by iandanforth »

panabee wrote: 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…

Rockefeller was an ardent proponent of Monopoly because to him it was obviously the most efficient system. He controlled the price paid for crude, the manufacture of oil, and the prices paid for transportation. Under this control he substantially lowered prices for the consumer. Of course this also meant that all profits went directly to him making him one of the richest people to have ever lived. Interestingly he also railed against using monopoly to price gouge. He could enforce minimum prices to preserve market stability but rarely charged exorbitant rates. That restraint however is not intrinsic to monopolies and, in fact, the contemporary populace had a hard time believing his motives weren't purely short-term and profit seeking.

Today Google might be in a similar situation where the thing that will take down their huge position of control is not bad behavior toward their end users but a well justified fear that that power can be abused (and would be abused by most people)

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

#57

Post by ng12 »

Retric wrote: post #48
ng12 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Google's search monopoly lead them to self-driving cars? This is why I question the Google vs Bell comparison. It seems to me Google wins because they are really, really good at producing technology, not because they have a systematic first-comer advantage.

Monopolies tend to be lest cost conscious. So, Google may be over investing in their self driving team which could cause a less efficient solution to win. Picture the MBA where one team Q spends 100m/year per player to get the best players and more importantly keep them from other teams, but Q has a poor coaching staff. The fact Q keeps wining reduces the drive to replace that poor coaching staff, and other teams may…

That's just economics at work though. The guy with more money to blow will always have an advantage.

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

#58

Post by wildmusings »

ng12 wrote: post #33
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 m…

How does Google's search monopoly lead them to self-driving cars? This is why I question the Google vs Bell comparison. It seems to me Google wins because they are really, really good at producing technology, not because they have a systematic first-comer advantage.

>How does Google's search monopoly lead them to self-driving cars? This is why I question the Google vs Bell comparison. It seems to me Google wins because they are really, really good at producing technology, not because they have a systematic first-comer advantage.

I don't think you can really call self-driving cars a win for Google at this point. It looks like they might be beat to market by actual car companies, which would be a really devastating outcome for Google.

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

#59

Post by digi_owl »

amelius wrote: post #31
warcher wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The whole issue of Google being a monopoly is silly. Fact of the matter is that they have a huge influence on the entire economy, and this influence is orders of magnitude greater than any other company.

Yeah, the whole "monopoly" word brings stuff to mind that is more a distraction than useful.

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

#60

Post by ubernostrum »

klipt wrote: post #32
kuschku wrote: 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…

Doesn't Apple have iCloud photo storage that pretty much all iPhone owners use by default? I find it difficult to see Google as a monopoly when Apple has an even bigger market cap.

Try to start a video-sharing service. Go ahead, I'll wait.

What will happen is that you will get a flood of DMCA takedown notices, and Google will get a flood of DMCA takedown notices for your site. Then Google will penalize you in search rankings for being a source of so many DMCA notices. Meanwhile, YouTube -- which generates far more takedown claims than you ever will -- is exempt from that ranking penalty because it's a Google service.

The same is true of a lot of other areas; Google can and does use ranking penalties and placement priorities on the search-result pages to give preferential treatment to its non-search businesses. How will you compete with that?

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