61–70 of 417 posts
Google got so big by causing its server-side adtech businesses to collude in such a way as to restrain trade and forestall competitors.
* I say these things as someone who has many problems with Google--and as someone who does in fact assist his competitors :O
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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?
Some technological progress is good and some of it bad.
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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.
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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.
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Because of having 90% of the search engine market they have a uniquely comprehensive view into the human mind. I would not be suprised if these huge data aggregation companies lead the race into sentient AI.
I'm not sure their view into the human mind goes much beyond insights gleamed from searches like "cat videos" and "good restaurants".
"Cat videos" and "good restaurants" is not all that people search for.
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Im pretty sure this is why Alphabet was formed, they sort of split themselves up as a preventative measure.
I've always been curious about that. Is a parent company + subsidiaries immune from anti-trust laws in the US? I mean, I'm sure Alphabet still shares Google search data across its subsidiaries--which is the real monopoly power concern.
With the companies logically divided, Alphabet can choose devote $XYZ money to some specific initiative and have a guarantee that they're liable for AT MOST that much money. If the sub-company completely mis-manages its assets and goes belly-up, its failure doesn't impact e.g. Google or Waymo (in any deeper way than opportunity cost of the money going to the other sub-company instead of those). Bankruptcy responsibility stops at the owning company and doesn't trickle up to the assets of the company that owns that company, in general.
It's a common pattern for movie studios---Hollywood studios build out a short-lived company to own every film production to insulate themselves from liability and financial disaster.
Google got so big by causing its server-side adtech businesses to collude in such a way as to restrain trade and forestall competitors.
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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.
If you are not for technological progress, is the corollary true, that you are for technological stagnation? Is not tech stagnation also tech attrition?
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Because of having 90% of the search engine market they have a uniquely comprehensive view into the human mind. I would not be suprised if these huge data aggregation companies lead the race into sentient AI.
I'm not sure their view into the human mind goes much beyond insights gleamed from searches like "cat videos" and "good restaurants".
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.
If you required Google to license either their algorithmic search index or their search ad marketplace to other companies, it would have a dramatic effect on the competitive dynamics of the search market worldwide.