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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″

#251

Post by ionised »

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…

> also gave society free worldwide communication

How is that now?

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

#252

Post by ionised »

karajima wrote: post #28
rgbrenner wrote: post #23

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?

Because the death penalty is dumb?

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

#253

Post by kuschku »

notatoad wrote: post #202
kuschku wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hangouts, Duo, Allo, Auto are all things I already had accounted for. Because they have the issue of existing competitors with network effect. > Google Photos has crushed all the other startups in the space because it's so good And why is it so good? Because Google uses an advantage they gained from (partially illegally) datamining user data. Google Duo is better than Skype, Google Allo is better than Telegram. They…

>Google Duo is better than Skype, Google Allo is better than Telegram. Sure, if you want to pick the weakest competitor, they're better. Duo competes with facetime, not skype. Allo competes with WhatsApp, not Telegram. Yes, part of what makes Google Photos good is the integration with their other products. "network effect" is a thing. But leveraging your other products is not the same thing as being an illegal monopo…

> Duo competes with facetime, not skype. Allo competes with WhatsApp, not Telegram.

Yet Allo has less users than IRC, or Signal, or Telegram. And Duo has less than Skype.

The network effect is very powerful, and the network effect of social contacts is stronger than the network effect of software integration.

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

#254

Post by ionised »

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?

Ars Technica had decent little guides for setting up secure web server and mail server;

Secure Web Server series;

https://arstechnica.com/series/web-served/

Mail Server Series

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/how-t...

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/takin...

https://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/taking-e-mail-back-...

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/takin...

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

#255

Post by geppeto »

dang wrote: post #240
geppeto wrote: post #12

Its not 2004 so you shouldn't be as impressionable as a child any longer. If you are fawning over a corporation's motto you are playing life by an ineffective set of rules. But .... now that I think about it, scratch that, maybe you'll be interested in being part of my Amway downline.

Would you please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? It's not what this site is for: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14308965 and marked it off-topic.

Okay sorry and I didn't realize you had that capability for moderation, pretty helpful that you can isolate child threads.

One thing I want to question is how to criticize and steer discussion away from certain directions on this site? HN is widely known for the pedantic and non sequitur directions that discussions go, as ridiculous opinions get elevated and non-comforming opinions get downvoted to oblivion but not based on correctness or relevance.

Thoughts? I often speak in hyperbole to highlight the absurdity of other people's opinions, but that doesn't seem compatible with the mod's ideals for this site

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

#256

Post by warcher »

yazan94 wrote: post #143
jhall1468 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer protections are for the consumer, not businesses. Plenty of companies have managed to get brand awareness without Google. If you build your business to be entirely dependent on a single point-of-entry, then your business can have the "rug" pulled out by whatever the owner of that point is.

Not to be pedantic, but can you name any?

Mine. I don't advertise through google and our SEO isn't anything special. Est 2010, thanks kindly.

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

#257

Post by warcher »

ellyagg wrote: post #46
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.

But new and small businesses can't switch where they go to raise awareness, which always seems to be an underappreciated consequence of Google's monopoly. You either have to buy Google ads or do SEO, and if you SEO, Google can pull the rug out from under you at any moment and you have no recourse.

Sure you can. I mean, no offense, but there are a lot of people who will sell you a display ad that gets in front of whoever you want. And lord knows there is nothing stopping you from doing cold outreach.

I think what a lot of people want is inbound warm leads for free, without actually reaching out to do sales.

And no, that's not gonna happen. That ship has sailed long ago. You could go viral, that's still a thing. Viral content has never been able to spread farther and faster, although it's pretty damned competitive these days.

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

#258

Post by koalaman »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #138
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, you are self-defeating your arguments. Chrome was entirely built to be leveraged to force people to use Google Search, since people don't change their default search engine. Bear in mind, they paid Apple and Mozilla each over a billion dollars to be everyone's default search. Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of Google, got started by pushing the Google Toolbar as one of those bloatware add-ons when you install…

> ... and they make Microsoft look like an innocent kitten in comparison. It sounds like you don't remember Microsoft back in the day. Google "Halloween Memos". (Edit: Note particularly the bit about "de-commodifying protocols", that is, finding ways to break standards and create lock-in.) Microsoft literally paid web sites to put HTML in their pages so that Netscape wouldn't handle properly. Microsoft literally gene…

passive anticompetitive behavior, is just competitive behavior.

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

#259

Post by koalaman »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #138
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, you are self-defeating your arguments. Chrome was entirely built to be leveraged to force people to use Google Search, since people don't change their default search engine. Bear in mind, they paid Apple and Mozilla each over a billion dollars to be everyone's default search. Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of Google, got started by pushing the Google Toolbar as one of those bloatware add-ons when you install…

> ... and they make Microsoft look like an innocent kitten in comparison. It sounds like you don't remember Microsoft back in the day. Google "Halloween Memos". (Edit: Note particularly the bit about "de-commodifying protocols", that is, finding ways to break standards and create lock-in.) Microsoft literally paid web sites to put HTML in their pages so that Netscape wouldn't handle properly. Microsoft literally gene…

passive anticompetitive behavior, is just competitive behavior.

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

#260

Post by jessaustin »

rayiner wrote: post #171
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.

I find this reply to be in complete factual agreement with my original post. You've chosen to emphasize a point which seems unimportant, however. Rockefeller didn't use the government to build Standard Oil into a monopoly. It was a monopoly nonetheless, and the courts still broke it up.
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