Hasn't Yelp forced businesses to pay or else they'll showcase the negative reviews more than the positive ones? Pot calling the kettle black when it comes to abusing dominance.
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CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance
141–150 of 191 posts
Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance
#142i thought it was pretty funny during their demonstration of how bad google was, they googled "san francisco restaurants" (or something like that), and there on the auto-complete was "san francisco restaurants YELP", like, dude, this website that is so evil is advertising for you, right there, in the box where you're typing!
Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In a fair world, there would be an option in Google… In a fair world, if you don't like the results Google's service provides, you'll choose a better service provider. Google's search service has always used a business model like “give us your query; we'll apply our proprietary algorithm and return results”. If you don't like those results, you don't like Google's service. You can ask them to change their service s…
One can argue that Microsoft may put whatever they want as default on their OS and customers always have choice to vote with their wallet. In real world, most of the population is too naive to change default or learn something new just because of technology ideology differences. Furthermore, if I want to switch over to something else, I would lose other dozens of apps that are not available there. So customer is effe…
And the point of this reference to MS and Explorer is...? I don't see how it relates to Google and search at all.
Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with IE was not that Microsoft developed IE, the problem with IE was that Microsoft used its ownership of the operating system and MS Office as well as contracts with PC manufacturers to give IE an overwhelming advantage over the competition.
Isn't google doing the same thing. They are using their search dominance to get people to use their other services. If DOJ hadn't forced MSFT to stop making IE the default browser would google be as big. Most people don't ever change the defaults on their browser. If MSFT had been left alone are you sure google would be as big as they are today? I mean they took netscape from 90% market share to like 5% marketshare.
Microsoft tied MSIE to Windows distribution, if you wanted to distribute Windows with your PCs you had to agree to Microsoft's terms. In some cases you had to pay Microsoft for a Windows license regardless of whether or not you had installed Windows on the PC.
I concede I could be wrong but I do not believe Google Chrome ships with Windows or OS X.
Would Google be as big as it is today? I have no idea, but the reason Google is Google has less to do with Microsoft's antitrust case than with dozens of previous commercial search engines failing to compete with them. By the time the MSFT antitrust case was resolved there was no meaningful competition to Microsoft on PCs and Netscape was winding down into the Mozilla project.
Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only sharing for reference, you reminded me that someone made a documentary ('billion dollar bully') about this (not released yet, but supposedly being premiered soon): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Dollar_Bully http://www.prostfilms.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHEbVh3Yhrw (recent interview with the film creator)
The creator has been saying it will be released "soon" for years. Pretty sure it flopped.
FWIW, They talk about the delays at 19m23s in the interview I linked.
From staring at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1299637435/billion-doll... I’d guess they’re still looking for or going through a distributor.
Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance
#146I didn't read the post but the idea of yelp complaining about abuse is pretty funny.
Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The ratings and reviews are integral part of a map product. No they are not. I and many others I know just use the "map product" for directions to get to places. Google maps was useful long before the integration of the cesspool of crowd-sourced reviews. You might want a map of top 10 whatever voted by the democratic people of Gmaps/Yelp busy-bodies but there is no reason that needs to be in the core. Google maps ha…
If you search for places to eat at 10pm, wouldn't you also want to know if they are still open, what kind of food they offer, how people rate them? Google Maps is such a dominant service that a competing company like Yelp will be at a huge disadvantage. No wonder Yelp complains. But you can't say what Google does doesn't make sense.
> If you search for places to eat at 10pm...
All the times I've searched for places to eat at 10pm or later, no. I just wanted to find the place.
Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance
#148Actually, a huge mistake yelp made is forced you in their app. Very very anti user.
it seems like less companies are making this mistake nowadays, but maybe it's just me.
Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might be right, but a company’s abuse of dominant position isn’t defined by the quality of their competitor’s offer.
You are right, at least in the traditional anti-trust-ish legal sense as I understand it. In a wider more pedestrian sense, there is a some kettle-pot-black involved here, at least in my opinion. Yelp's a little monopolistic middle man. Everyone reads and writes reviews on Yelp because everyone reads and writes reviews on Yelp. Market dominance today is the main ingredient for dominance tomorrow. Everyone uses Google…
You're right. This is a kettle-pot issue.
So how come so many arguments here get reduced to "I side with kettle!"
Yelp is bad. Google is bad. Or more precisely, both are amoral, and responding rationally to the incentives of the internet. The traditional anti-trust sense you mention doesn't take network effects into account. If you ask me, network effects cause the landscape of the internet to inevitably trend towards oligopoly.
This explains why the strategy of most startups amounts to "Growth at all costs, until you're the only game in town" (The model of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and every wannabe unicorn running at a huge loss to investors)
Re: CBS “60 Minutes” piece on Google’s abuse of dominance
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When I want to buy something, I type "amazon.com", not "google.com". I do the exact opposite, I either search a specific business' site or Google something vague like "sturdy cargo pants," find a brand / store that I like and visit that store. I've been burned too many times by cheap, fake shit from Amazon. I'm not willing to deal with the hassle and wasted time.
Same. I start on Google and then usually buy on Amazon. Google has the Amazon links like they should and it is high on the list even though Amazon is Google chief competitor. Reason being Amazon is popular and offers a great service. Versus Yelp is horrible so not high on the list. Kind of indicates Google search is working how it should and Yelp just has sour grapes. Now if Amazon moved to the second page that would…
> Same. I start on Google and then usually buy on Amazon.
When I said "visit the store" I meant "visit a physical shop." Amazon Basics aside, purchasing their physical products are fraught with peril. Especially with easy-to-forge high-margin products like clothing.
I have a few pairs of $40 inauthentic shorts I'd ordered off of Amazon a few years back. I realized they were fake after venturing into a physical store and seeing the difference, but I had gone years thinking Billabong had some seriously shoddy clothes.
I'm surprised we don't see more lawsuits of companies suing Amazon for peddling fakes goods and damaging their brand.