Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How did Google get so big?

cbsnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 417 posts

Re: How did Google get so big?

#251

Post by ur-whale »

stuckinarut wrote: post #225
ur-whale wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Namely, the equity value of google would be more balanced with other smaller firms, and in turn we'd see more very rich people rather than fewer people with net worths well over 10 billion. Why would that be a good thing? Or rather, a better thing than the current situation? Why would that even be desirable? Again, antitrust laws exist for one reason: to protect consumers. Not to implement someone's idea of an ideal…

> Why would that be a good thing? Or rather, a better thing than the current situation? Why would that even be desirable? Because wealth inequality is massively harmful for society. It's the sort of thing that leads to revolution. > If you believe e.g. that company equity should be more uniformly distributed, go talk to your congressman, have him draft a law to that effect and get congress to vote on it. and then Goo…

> Because wealth inequality is massively harmful for society.

Nope.

Hunger, poverty, lack of education, lack of access to medical care, etc.. is harmful to society and leads to revolutions and whatever root cause leads to those is to be fought against.

Except that wealth inequality isn't such a root cause.

Wealth inequality isn't and has never been a problem except in the minds of utopian ideologues, collectivists or people with a basic jealousy problem.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#252

Post by microdrum »

fixermark wrote: post #77
microdrum wrote: post #26

Google got so big by causing its server-side adtech businesses to collude in such a way as to restrain trade and forestall competitors.

Collude with whom?

By 'collude' I just meant worked together. The operative legal word is 'restraint of trade.'

Re: How did Google get so big?

#253

Post by bepotts »

stuckinarut wrote: post #221
tills13 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if they're _purposefully_ ranking their own services above competing services, then yes, I agree they should be fined until they stop. _however_, more often than not, their own service is _exactly_ what I'm looking for - be it GPM/YouTube/Maps/etc. It's not really their fault they're head and shoulders above the competition/the de-facto provider for most of the content people search for every day (well, maybe it is t…

Worth noting they have been fined int he EU for this behaviour. They destroyed some guys business with their self promotion. Google has too much power. They should be broken up for hte good of society.

So what? Businesses are born and die every day.

Every major US tech company is being fined in the EU nowadays. Poor EU regulation shouldn't dictate US policy.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#254

Post by nunez »

samstave wrote: post #159
ransom1538 wrote: post #135

Ads. Previously to buy ads you had to call someone, get dinner with some weird guy, make tons of calls, get crappy click rates, trust the other companies 'reporting', pay for impression ads (wtf). It was a mess. You also had to do this with 23 DIFFERENT companies, which were all different . Google wasn't the first, but they did follow through and make a great way to advertise with self serve. Selling ads is awesome.…

I recall one of the questions in my interview at google years ago: "Do you know what kind of company Google is?" "Sure, everyone thinks you're a tech company or a search company or whatever - but Google is an advertising company, and thats it. All the other stuff distracts from the fact that youre just the most profitable ad company."

Well techncially Google is an information company that happens to use ads to fund its mission of making information more accessible and useful.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#255

Post by lovich »

TomMarius wrote: post #47
lovich wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When a company completely dominates a field they get different rules to prevent them from taking over every related field one at a time. "It's their product" doesn't cut it as a member of our society when that means they can control entire industries and jack up prices.

Having a single company own one industry after another is completely antithetical to the idea of capitalism, and if we're not going to do capitalism then we might as well start taxing Google even more to pay for public services, which I am sure they also don't want

Re: How did Google get so big?

#256

Post by lovich »

TomMarius wrote: post #234
xg15 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short, network effects. Longer: the amount of power their decisions have to affect society. If the mom-and-pop shop would refuse to serve readheads, that's (mostly) their decision. If Google decided to lock redheads out of their accounts, or block from using Chrome, Android or Search, those people would have serious disadvantages simply going around their daily life.

Are they getting hurt? I guess not. No one has any right to Google services[0]. Google has every right to refuse service to anyone[0]. What if they decided to close shop altogether? Note that locking them e.g. out of a phone they bought before the ban is something different - that would be a breach of contract from Google side. [0] unless there is an existing contract

When a company has an almost complete monopoly and they decide to bar someone from service, how is that not hurting them?

If you run a website that earns revenue based on incoming users and Google cuts you off, how is that not damaging you? You could use every single competitor and still not even get a quarter as much traffic as Google.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#257

Post by TomMarius »

eftychis wrote: post #242
TomMarius wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand you. You're saying that we will solve lack of knowledge with stopping the pursuit of knowledge?

No. My argument is kind of the opposite. I am here countering the point that gaining knowledge is a monotonous function with respect to "goodness"/value. We need to be cautious and acknowledge our lack of knowledge, when we move ahead.

I fully agree with you, of course. That doesn't mean the technology is bad, though - it's just that people are too cocky and think they know everything. Knowledge can't be bad nor good, people and their use of knowledge are.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#258

Post by lovich »

TomMarius wrote: post #243
stuckinarut wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except google dominates search and search is the only way. This is like if one company owned the street signs, and just took them down arbitrarily.

You are free to use duckduckgo.com, bing.com or several more alternatives. Your metaphor is invalid.

All of those alternatives together don't even provide a fraction of the service that google provides.

The monopoly takes control and keeps prices higher than they would be with competition. New competition comes along every now and then but a monopoly just has to compete heavily for a short time to put the new comes out of business and then it's back to mining the market. This is how monopolies work and what anti trust legislature is supposed to stop.

Based on your comments here, I have to ask. Is there any situation you can think of where the government should step in to break up a company, short of violence or breaking a contract?

Re: How did Google get so big?

#259

Post by jhall1468 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #143
lern_too_spel wrote: post #100

Stoppelman's Yelp is a bad example. I don't want to visit a page that pesters me to install their app instead of showing me the reviews I came to read . If Yelp's ranking has been lowered, good riddance.

It's funny you mention this: I've discovered that Google is injecting an ad above searches for "mapquest" that leads users who make the mistake of clicking on a Google ad to install a browser hijacker plugin before they can get the directions they're looking for. This hurts MapQuest's brand, gives people malware, and of course, conveniently, makes Google a lot of money. They've been doing it for at least a number of…

You honestly think Google cares about MapQuest at all? The ad you're mentioning is using MapQuest as a keyword. It needs to be reported. Job done.

Google doesn't care about MapQuest and it remains the top non-advertised listing for searching MapQuest. MapQuest is a has-been and it has nothing to do with Google's ranking them, and everything to do with a terrible UI that was entirely inferior to Maps on release.

Re: How did Google get so big?

#260

Post by jhall1468 »

stuckinarut wrote: post #223
bepotts wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I really don't understand why people try and muddy the waters around Google products. I'm not forced to use Google; Google products are just damn good. Having a monopoly in a market due to the fact that your product is just that good isn't a bad thing, and punishing companies for being successful sets an awful precedent (which is why breaking up Google isn't going to happen). From search, maps, email, YouTub…

Is it because their products are that good, or because they have one monopoly that also functions as a money hose that they can aim as needed to decimate competition in other areas.

Did you ever use Excite/Alta Vista/Yahoo, MapQuest, Hotmail, etc? Because if you had, you wouldn't have to ask that question. Every product Google has had success with was better than the competition by a large margin. When it failed (Google+) it gained zero traction.

The competition sucked and they have yet to make something better.

Post reply on HN