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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″

#171

Post by rayiner »

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.

AT&T did not become a monopoly by government action. The Kingsbury Commitment was an agreement by the government not to take antitrust action against AT&T, not an agreement to prevent others from trying to compete with AT&T. The Communications Act of 1934 did solidify AT&T's monopoly by basically freezing in place the status quo. But AT&T became a monopoly in the first place by natural means.

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

#172

Post by marcosdumay »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #156

There is another advantage/disadvantage (depending on your perspective) to Google vs. AT&T that I haven't seen discussed. One of the classical arguments in favor of monopolies is not just efficiency but that they concentrate capital for large-scale investment. In the case of AT&T this occurred with Bell Labs, and it is also happening with Google. Whether an alternative system could be more innovative is impossible to…

That extra capital is extracted from society by impoverishing it.

If you wanted to tax people for research, the government can do it way more directly, without depending on the good will of a few rich people.

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

#173

Post by secfirstmd »

scarface74 wrote: post #87
secfirstmd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm forking Android and turning the ecosystem into a complete mess around stuff like security updates. To the point were a lot of people, including myself, are considering buying a Google device purely to ensure some sort of longevity.

Google only guaranteed support for two years. Not exactly what I would call "longevity".

Agreed, but it's better than most Android offerings these days...

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

#174

Post by cobbzilla »

Shivetya wrote: post #49
amelius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

follow the money. they are a monopoly if it can generate penalties and further the careers of politicians with regulatory powers.

You're describing regulatory capture, and it doesn't require a monopoly at all, merely deeply-entrenched players with effective lobbyists. Many, many industries engage in regulatory capture without having a single monopolist, e.g. pharma, defense, even say the SF housing market.

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

#175

Post by notatoad »

bunburying wrote: post #154
jhall1468 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google customers are businesses; end users (who CAN switch easily) are the product. I am a Google customer. They provide me with a product (Google) which I pay for by allowing Google to display advertisements on the results. A business is also a Google customer. They pay Google to display ads to a visitors to the website. But that distinction is moot anyway. Businesses aren't covered by consumer protections because…

I think you're being a bit mischievous with you definition of customer. You're really a user; not a customer. Customers pay. Google is selling your eyeballs to advertisers. Advertises are Google's customers.

>Customers pay

And the important distinction if you want to counter the argument that the person you're replying to is making:

Customers pay with money. "paying" with a currency like privacy or convenience isn't actually paying. If you aren't paying for something with money you aren't a customer, you're a user.

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

#176

Post by amsilprotag »

sfifs wrote: post #88
redm wrote: post #53

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…

This appears to be a common misconception that monopolies are bad from a public policy standpoint. For public policy, the existence of a monopoly is neither here nor there. Monopolies are problem ONLY IF their operations causes negative economic effects to consumers - typically by raising prices. Indeed in many cases (eg. Transport, Infrastructure) a monopoly is actively granted in return for guaranteed availability…

Is this true? Wasn't Microsoft brought down for harming incipient businesses by bundling competing software into the OS? Wasn't standard oil fragmented in part for receiving anti-competitive freight fares?

Couldn't it be argued that Google's featured snippets and accelerated mobile pages will lower the revenue of content creators and thus decrease consumer surplus in the long term?

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

#177

Post by ng12 »

Retric wrote: post #158
ng12 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not so much. The invisible hand of economics just means the less efficient or less desired producers are pushed out of the market. It's just that the guy with more money can often invest it to become more efficient.

Right, money is an advantage and big companies generally have lots of money. The point is Google is not unique in that regard.

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

#178

Post by zeteo »

giggles_giggles wrote: post #162
zeteo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are other ways to build a business that don't depend on search. There are also other ways to run a household that don't depend on running water. (Heck, my great-grandpa never complained about having an outhouse.) Are you saying your local water utility should be an unregulated monopoly?

Who exactly regulates the sewer/water monopoly held by a local government? I cannot even begin to explain the insidious local politics surrounding the local water utility in the city where my folks used to live and the way they forced homeowners to hook up to the ever-expanding sewer at cost to the homeowners, regardless of whether their existing septic systems were adequate or not, to pad the pockets of the contract…

Local politics might be bad, but it'd be far worse to have it run by Google. They'd never pick up your customer support calls; they'd be more concerned with using ML to figure out when you sh*t and when you shower (valuable data for advertisers, you see). Also they'd randomly remove you from the network all the time for no apparent reason.

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

#179

Post by bnolsen »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #159
yazan94 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a really interesting point. In a capitalist/free-market situation, no one cares if you start a business and fail. Competition is seen as a good thing. But how can you blame a company for winning in its domain against its competitors? Also, what does it mean to 'abuse' a monopoly position. I don't think its practical to argue that Google doesn't have a monopoly on internet search[1]. When your product…

> Also, what does it mean to 'abuse' a monopoly position. IANAL, but there is a legally precise meaning. (Of course, lawyers will still argue over whether a particular behavior meets the definition.) But it's basically, you have a monopoly in X, and you try to use that monopoly to gain you market share in Y. For example, let's say Microsoft has a monopoly in operating systems. That's OK, nothing wrong with it, becaus…

Microsoft dealing under the table with OEM manufacturers, forcing none to reveal any details of the deals is absolutely a prime example of abuse of their monopoly position in the OS world. A shame they never convicted of these deals.

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

#180

Post by deelowe »

kuschku wrote: post #150
deelowe wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting pretty close to FUD. What penalties are you talking about? As additional examples, I come across Vimeo and daily motion videos all the time when using video search.

Google automatically down-ranks websites if they get lots of DMCA claims. This is documented, acknowledged, and publicly known. Google also automatically ignores any such claims for their own properties w.r.t search ranking.

I've already given three examples where this doesn't seem to be an issue.
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