Live data from Hacker News

The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

medium.com

61–70 of 118 posts

Re: The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

#61

I honestly find it very easy to not use any of their services. They all have quality competitors.

Please provide your recommendations. I've been prying myself off of their services but currently, I've not found a solid replacement for: Facebook: nothing else has the network effect. Google Drive: online documents are really convenient Google Voice: what else has seamless integration with either android or ios. Amazon: Buying household items like toilet paper, dishwasher detergent, etc, saves me a ton of time.

Facebook: Twitter is a decent competitor for network effects. I've moved my photo sharing to Google Photos as it trumps anything Facebook offers. For me, the biggest Facebook benefit is sharing photos with family on Facebook. Everything else on there is pretty much noise or garbage you can find on any other site. The one recent thing that Facebook does better than anyone that I get value out of are "local events".

Google Drive: Dropbox, Box, OneDrive....

Google Voice: Depends what you're using it to do. Amazon & Microsoft have apps you can use that do similar tasks. Whichever you use does require access to a lot of personal data to be useful though, no matter what company you pick.

Amazon: Target, Walmart, Jet, etc... Lots of competition here. Amazon's online experience is typically better but their is plenty of competition & they often have cheaper prices. FYI in case any Target person reads this. Your site is terrible & full of bugs.

Re: The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

#62
post #6

I'm genuinely unsure how I feel about this article. First, the internet itself is only in danger if net neutrality is genuinely threatened by ISPs. Until then, the network itself is as open as it ever was. As for the services on top, the meta-layer of products and infrastructure we rely on--social media, content sources, smartphones and smart devices, etc--there's a lot of reason to be concerned. But Amazon's markets…

Glad you pointed out the pyramid builders part. That bugged me. I believe I've read that their graves showed that the builders were intelligent engineers, not just random farmers. The graves also showed that the workers were treated very well. Thoughts are that Egyptians may have believed treating employees well resulted in better output. I think this may have covered this topic - http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-egypts-pyrami...

Re: The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

#63
post #56

Fun experiment to try out on your computer and experience the gradual death of the internet: block all domains and subdomains from Google and Facebook in your `/etc/hosts` file, and see how many other websites fail to function. I've had this enabled for 6 months and I've seen websites stopped working as they should, e.g.: - I couldn't reset my password in Twitch, it required (for some reason) access to both Facebook…

> - National Geographic site fetches jQuery from Google and the website is unusable

Try this. It might help with a lot of the issues you're experiencing.

https://decentraleyes.org/

Re: The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

#64
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling Apple the genitals because they're a luxury brand? As soon as I saw that graphic I knew what quality of article I was in for.

Yeah, that was pretty tenuous. And assertion that women buy Apple products to deter "romantic rivals from poaching [their] relationship partner" seems almost ridiculous. I would say that iPhones and MacBooks are almost mass-market these days. Sure, they are more expensive than the alternatives, but they are so ubiquitous that can't really be considered status symbols anymore, can they?

I wonder, did you read the scientific papers linked? Apple are just the new peacocks - there is much historical evidence of sexual signalling in consumption markets, and I urge you to read the papers linked: you may well learn something from them, and either your opinion of MacBooks will change, or it may even become stronger, for the understanding therein..

Re: The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

#65
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is successful in a few areas ..., but they've proven incapable of pushing into other major areas (streaming services... Are we talking about the same Google here? The one that owns YouTube, which created an entire culture around video streaming online?

> Are we talking about the same Google here? The one that owns YouTube, which created an entire culture around video streaming online? they purchased youtube because their own video services was terrible

YouTube was also _significantly_ smaller when Google purchased it. Perhaps they weren't able to create a properly competing platform, but they've certainly been wildly successful in growing it.

Re: The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is successful in a few areas ..., but they've proven incapable of pushing into other major areas (streaming services... Are we talking about the same Google here? The one that owns YouTube, which created an entire culture around video streaming online?

The writers seem to be solid Apple fans and exaggerate their influence. With billions in free marketing from every media site on the planet, Apple would be pretty much irrelevant already.

> With billions in free marketing from every media site on the planet, Apple would be pretty much irrelevant already

So you think the media collectively conspired to prop up Apple, and their subpar, irrelevant products that nobody actually likes? Well, that's creative.

Re: The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

#67
post #6

I'm genuinely unsure how I feel about this article. First, the internet itself is only in danger if net neutrality is genuinely threatened by ISPs. Until then, the network itself is as open as it ever was. As for the services on top, the meta-layer of products and infrastructure we rely on--social media, content sources, smartphones and smart devices, etc--there's a lot of reason to be concerned. But Amazon's markets…

> Google is successful in a few areas ..., but they've proven incapable of pushing into other major areas (streaming services... Are we talking about the same Google here? The one that owns YouTube, which created an entire culture around video streaming online?

[deleted]

Re: The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

#68
post #50
post #6

I'm genuinely unsure how I feel about this article. First, the internet itself is only in danger if net neutrality is genuinely threatened by ISPs. Until then, the network itself is as open as it ever was. As for the services on top, the meta-layer of products and infrastructure we rely on--social media, content sources, smartphones and smart devices, etc--there's a lot of reason to be concerned. But Amazon's markets…

>Apple is already being beaten on many fronts, smartphones included. Not if you're measuring profits and not just sales. They're still the dominant manufacturer by far. But maybe I'm just being pedantic. Otherwise, I pretty much agree with all of this. The article comes across as hyperbolic to me as well.

[deleted]

Re: The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

#69
post #6

I'm genuinely unsure how I feel about this article. First, the internet itself is only in danger if net neutrality is genuinely threatened by ISPs. Until then, the network itself is as open as it ever was. As for the services on top, the meta-layer of products and infrastructure we rely on--social media, content sources, smartphones and smart devices, etc--there's a lot of reason to be concerned. But Amazon's markets…

[Warning: semi-tangential deep dive on your point about Amazon not being a monopoly]

Amazon isn't in the retail business. Amazon isn't in the cloud computing business. Amazon isn't in the logistics business. Amazon is in the business business. It is no longer The Everything Store; it is now the Everything Everything. It wants to be the platform around which all of the world's businesses depend.

This is about as ambitious a mission as a company has ever launched, in my opinion -- and Amazon may be the first company with a justifiable claim to such ambition. Its only business constraints at this point are geopolitical, really. I believe it aims even higher in the long run: it is aiming to become the macroeconomic backbone of at least the Western world.

When viewed in that context, traditional definitions of monopoly -- especially the most widely known definition of the state, which is based on market share within a specific industry -- almost feel antiquated. Jeff Bezos isn't JP Morgan; he's freaking Cohaagen from Total Recall.

It is not in his interest, in fact it is starkly antithetical to his interest, to monopolize any single industry. He wants to engineer a state wherein stronger competition within any given market makes Amazon better off, not worse off, because it is the seller to that market moreso than a competitor in that market. (Though it holds de facto monopolist power in at least the publishing business, and probably others, these positions were the stick that makes Amazon's pivot to being in the carrot business credible and effective.)

Concern about Amazon as potentially Too Big to Fail may be warranted, but not yet. I'd argue that the sudden failure of Amazon tomorrow would have a severe but ultimately noncatastrophic impact on the US economy, with competitors like Walmart and Google and Apple ready to absorb the fallout with net-minimal total economic loss.

It is not TBTF yet, though at some point it seems to be on trajectory to get there. Now the tricky part is in gauging what metric we should even be using to talk about Amazon in the next 5 years.

(To be very clear, I say all of this in admiration of Jeff Bezos, not in fear or criticism of him. His business acumen is mindblowing. Whether you think of him as Business Yoda or Business Palpatine is your choice to make. But either way, you have to admit that the force is strong with him)

Re: The war between Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple

#70
post #6

I'm genuinely unsure how I feel about this article. First, the internet itself is only in danger if net neutrality is genuinely threatened by ISPs. Until then, the network itself is as open as it ever was. As for the services on top, the meta-layer of products and infrastructure we rely on--social media, content sources, smartphones and smart devices, etc--there's a lot of reason to be concerned. But Amazon's markets…

[Warning: semi-tangential deep dive on your point about Amazon not being a monopoly] Amazon isn't in the retail business. Amazon isn't in the cloud computing business. Amazon isn't in the logistics business. Amazon is in the business business. It is no longer The Everything Store; it is now the Everything Everything. It wants to be the platform around which all of the world's businesses depend. This is about as ambit…

That kind of sounds like Berkshire Hathaway. Or an private equity fund for that matter.

A business which owns businesses.

Amazon is taking the concept to the extreme in that it starts its businesses.

Post reply on HN