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How did Google get so big?

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Re: How did Google get so big?

#41

Post by b_b »

izzydata wrote: post #31
tinbad wrote: post #17

"Some were investigated, but only superficially, the government just really isn't enforcing our antitrust laws. And that's what's happened. None of these acquisitions have been challenged." Behemoths like Google emerge every time new inventions lead to the creation of new markets followed by mass adoption during a relatively short timeframe, when regulations don't exist yet. It has happened in history time and time a…

That seems to be implying it is inherently a bad thing. Is trying to stop innovative companies also a hindrance to technological progress?

The point of antitrust regulations is to stop the anti-innovation practices in the first place, so while they may appear to be a 'benevolent dictator,' they will quickly turn for the worse.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#43

Post by komali2 »

acover wrote: post #30
wilsonnb2 wrote: post #6

So if Google is a monopoly, what should be done about it? Split it up into separate, competing mini-Googles? Keep fining them more and more money until they stop anti-competitive practices? Split off Maps/Android/Drive/etc into separate companies so that Google can't use their search monopoly to dominate those fields? I'm genuinely not sure what the best way to go about this would be.

Technology often leads to a natural monopoly as it has high fixed costs and low variable costs. One way I can see changing this dynamic is using open source services. That way anyone is able to clone, improve or change them. Provide consumer choice. However businesses are aiming for monopolies. Crowd funding and open source might change the dynamic. It's probably too late for search as the lead is too far. I also dou…

Even if everything about search was open source, how would an upstart competitor possibly compete on the hardware front? A single Google-style data center would imo be an insurmountable capital cost.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#44

Post by TomMarius »

sincerely wrote: post #40
izzydata wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be implying it is inherently a bad thing. Is trying to stop innovative companies also a hindrance to technological progress?

I mean, you're implying that "technological progress" is inherently a good thing.

Isn't it? Can you support your statement?

Edit: am I really being downvoted for asking for evidence that technological progress (the driving force that made all people on Earth extraordinaly more rich) is bad? What is wrong with you, people?

Re: How did Google get so big?

#45

Post by zjaffee »

wilsonnb2 wrote: post #6

So if Google is a monopoly, what should be done about it? Split it up into separate, competing mini-Googles? Keep fining them more and more money until they stop anti-competitive practices? Split off Maps/Android/Drive/etc into separate companies so that Google can't use their search monopoly to dominate those fields? I'm genuinely not sure what the best way to go about this would be.

This is how they would do it. When Microsoft ware being ruled against for anti trust, they would have forced them to split the operating systems business from the rest of their product businesses.

My guess would be that google would get broken up in a way that separated things that were strategically vertically integrated, say, search+android (their big platforms for directing you at their services) and things like youtube, maps, ect. which are services to be consumed.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#46

Post by wallflower »

zjaffee wrote: post #36
wallflower wrote: post #8

If I could give a six word response for the technical side: "Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat and team". To paraphrase some Cal/UC Berkeley professor that I cannot remember, he said that the problem with scaling is that when you go up a magnitude or more, you may need a qualitatively different solution for the same problem. Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat and their team have time and time again managed to design and build st…

I think it's important to mention Sanjay Ghemawat is very likely just as important to google as Jeff Dean, just Jeff has been made the public figure for a variety of reasons.

Thank you. I increased the answer to six words because you are very right.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#47

Post by TomMarius »

lovich wrote: post #29
thekingofh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing objectively wrong with a large company unless they begin to squash competition with regulatory lock-in. This is what led to the breakup of AT&T/Bell. As far as I can tell, Google doesn't keep others out of the search market through any other means than just being better than the other guys. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I certainly haven't seen any shortage of search engines and alternative cloud servi…

They routinely put their other products on top of the search pages, such as Google reviews over Yelp or Google maps over OpenMap results. The issue isn't even so much as Google is dominating search, because they have been providing a better product in almost all cases until recently. The issue is that they are using their dominance in search to try and dominate other markets

It's their product after all; do you point people to your competition from your product? Everyone is free to use anything else. Anti-competitive would be if you couldn't use anything else.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#48

Post by fixermark »

b_b wrote: post #41
izzydata wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be implying it is inherently a bad thing. Is trying to stop innovative companies also a hindrance to technological progress?

The point of antitrust regulations is to stop the anti-innovation practices in the first place, so while they may appear to be a 'benevolent dictator,' they will quickly turn for the worse.

It seems to be an open question whether letting a corp play benevolent dictator for some timeframe, at least, is a useful thing.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#49

Post by Keyframe »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #2

"Bing, their competition, has 2% of the market. They have 90%." Who has the other 8%?

Cuil. On a serious note, it seems to me that barrier to entry for search is now exponentially higher than it was when they started. I'm not sure if it's even doable with small resources (in proverbial garage) anymore.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#50

Post by aglavine »

ur-whale wrote: post #25

Why is Google being big a problem? Who are they hurting by being big at this time? [edit]: to elaborate, I was under the impression that the whole point of anti-monopoly regulations was to protect consumers from monopolistic predatory practices, not to prevent monopolies from actually existing per se. Hence my question: is there anyone actually being hurt by the currently limited choice of search engines or phone ope…

It is already happening that some (old) sites or blogs aren't popping up in their search results.
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