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

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61–70 of 260 posts

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

#61
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 al…

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

#62
post #9
post #5

Google has a ton of competition across all of its products. It's dominating in some of them but being better then your competition is a lot different then there not being any.

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…

That's true for almost all large companies. Why would invest in some startup X if Boing announces the same product?

Size gives you advantage, but its not an auto win.

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

#63
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.

It also freed their patent library and talent to develop a whole host of new products and technologies which lead pretty directly to Google and the WWW as we have it today.

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

#64
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."

LOL

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

#65
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well I don't see why funding should be a consideration. Maybe they should release a better product based off of a viable business model.

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

#66
post #36
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…

So how do you feel about Apple? When Google wins it's because they make a better product than the other guy. Apple can deliver a clearly inferior product (e.g. the last 5 years of iTunes) and still win because their customers are using iDevices. Google doesn't have that lock-in and they still do really well which makes me feel like they're not really a monopoly.

I think a big part of it is that Google controls one of the single most effective advertising channels to drive the growth of a competitor, and can therefore strangle them in the cradle.

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

#67
post #34

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…

Agreed that measuring a hypothetical world is impossible, but what do you suggest as a more fair and balanced analysis of monopolies?

Oh boy, antitrust is my pet political issue so I apologize for my inability to maintain impartiality (and wall of text) in advance. I would say that America has gone through this debate already and perhaps we should look to our history. Take this:

The tremendous and highly complex industrial development which went on with ever accelerated rapidity during the latter half of the nineteenth century brings us face to face, at the beginning of the twentieth, with very serious social problems. The old laws, and the old customs which had almost the binding force of law, were once quite sufficient to regulate the accumulation and distribution of wealth. Since the industrial changes which have so enormously increased the productive power of mankind, they are no longer sufficient.

The growth of cities has gone on beyond comparison faster than the growth of the country, and the upbuilding of the great industrial centers has meant a startling increase, not merely in the aggregate of wealth, but in the number of very large individual, and especially of very large corporate, fortunes. The creation of these great corporate fortunes has not been due to the tariff nor to any other governmental action, but to natural causes in the business world, operating in other countries as they operate in our own.

The process has aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is wholly without warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer the poor have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man, the wage-worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in this country and at the present time. There have been abuses connected with the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated by the person specially benefited only on condition of conferring immense incidental benefits upon others. Successful enterprise, of the type which benefits all mankind, can only exist if the conditions are such as to offer great prizes as the rewards of success.

The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to our people. Without them the material development of which we are so justly proud could never have taken place. Moreover, we should recognize the immense importance of this material development of leaving as unhampered as is compatible with the public good the strong and forceful men upon whom the success of business operations inevitably rests. The slightest study of business conditions will satisfy anyone capable of forming a judgment that the personal equation is the most important factor in a business operation; that the business ability of the man at the head of any business concern, big or little, is usually the factor which fixes the gulf between striking success and hopeless failure.

Now this is Teddy Roosevelt in 1901 but tell me that doesn't sound an awful lot like today! And this is the president known as the trustbuster, speaking in general favor of business. I won't spell out how he reconciles this with his general opinion in favor of antitrust regulation because hopefully that hook can get you to read the rest of that speech here.[0] And here[1] is a speech by John Sherman. These are the men who convinced our country of the importance of antitrust over 100 years ago and much rings true today. Perhaps we should consider these arguments first so we can at least avoid retreading old ground.

And to plug one article I love, check out Bloom and Bust by Philip Longman[2]. He uses this quote from Woodrow Wilson in 1912:

Which do you want? Do you want to live in a town patronized by some great combination of capitalists who pick it out as a suitable place to plant their industry and draw you into their employment? Or do you want to see your sons and your brothers and your husbands build up business for themselves under the protection of laws which make it impossible for any giant, however big, to crush them and put them out of business, so that they can match their wits here, in the midst of a free country with any captain of industry or merchant of finance … anywhere in the world?

[0] http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/controlling_the_trusts.h...

[1] https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89098552482;view=1...

[2] http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2015/bloom-and-...

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

#68
post #42

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?

A monopoly is a seller with few or no competing sellers. In many cases this is bad for consumers, so many governments have taken steps to dismantle some monopolies or ameliorate their bad effects. It's not clear that "natural monopoly" is a category that has any members, but the theory is that a natural monopoly is a monopoly such that dismantling it would have other bad effects that would be worse than the direct bad effects of the monopoly. That is the falsehood that various judges and regulators have countenanced over the century that they have refused to dismantle Ma Bell, while continuing to police other monopoly situations.

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

#69
post #35
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…

Which markets do they really dominate? I can only think of search and Android.

Online video, particularly for creators who want to earn based on someone else selling ads on their videos.

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

#70
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are tons of video sharing services. Arguably Twitch is doing a pretty good job of taking on youtube. Do you expect a competitor to simply copy youtube and be successful? Business doesn't really work that way.
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