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Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

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Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#161

Post by AnthonyMouse »

vondur wrote: post #120
akersten wrote: post #23

I will continue to believe that this is another tentacle of William Barr's political harassment of Google and tech in general until he leads the same crusade against other 'monopolies' of the same degree like Comcast, Apple, Boeing, Amazon, United Airlines, etc.

I agree with Comcast, they need to be broken up, and Amazon could do with some scrutiny. But Apple, Boeing and United Airlines? The aren't monopolies by any definition.

Apple's monopoly is unusual, because what they did was create a wall around a section of an ancillary market (apps) which caused it to be its own market. Walmart doesn't have a monopoly on bread because anybody can buy bread from Costco instead without having to buy a new toaster. Once you make buying $1 apps from not-Apple require people to replace their $1000 phone, that makes apps for that kind of phone its own market which Apple has a monopoly on. That wouldn't be the case if they had competing app stores, but they don't.

Boeing has a serious lack of competition. Their only meaningful competitor is Airbus and that's a foreign company. They have no domestic competition at all, which is inherently problematic, especially for a critical industry like that.

I don't understand why United Airlines is on that list either. Airlines are a weird market because it's extremely capital intensive but also aggressively competitive, so they sort of alternate between all going bankrupt from relentless price competition and all colluding to raise prices enough that they don't all go bankrupt and then getting in trouble over it.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#162

Post by jm4 »

a9entroy wrote: post #116
noad wrote: post #3

Amazon and Facebook should be next. Break them all up with extreme prejudice and put strict new anti-trust laws around acquisitions in place for the future. We're going to do this and open technology back up to innovation and progress, or just watch the tech giants continue to grow in power and abusiveness year after year while new startups continue to decline.

What will breaking up Google accomplish? I think the individual orgs inside Google already act as separate businesses. So they are already split internally.

In my opinion, Microsoft became a much better company after their brush with antitrust. I don’t know how much had to do with the case and how much is just because of the quality leadership they have now, but I hope Google becomes a much better company in the future. They went from having great products to downright creepy and it’s difficult not to use any of their products or to be tracked by them. I’d like to see a different Google.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#163

Post by papeda »

CaveTech wrote: post #37
leoh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telecom, etc. are far, far more harmful IMHO

They're also currently much better regulated

They are? Recent history suggests it's way easier for a random person to build a successful search engine (e.g. DuckDuckGo) than a successful telecom, and I have way more choice of search engine than telecom.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#164

Post by thephyber »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #132
subsubzero wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying google isn't a monopoly, it classically is, same with facebook. But I wonder if Goog wasn't a majority "blue" company would he aggressively go after them. The problem is there are so many oligarchy's controlling industries. Chips, well its a two or three company game(intel, amd, ARM). Lets look at airlines, well its united, delta, american etc. Communications(cell phones), ATT, Verizon, Sprint/Tmobile. Ame…

> But I wonder if Goog wasn't a majority "blue" company would he aggressively go after them. "Majority blue" is in a majority of their employees vote Democrat? That's just what happens when you're headquartered in California, in a metro area, with a workforce that skews younger. I don't think that Google is somehow pushing liberal objectives in a meaningful way.

> I don't think that Google is somehow pushing liberal objectives in a meaningful way.

But true or not, it is perceived that way by those who are aggrieved (social conservatives in the USA)... which is what your comment's parent was discussing.

I'm not disagreeing with your comment, but you aren't disagreeing with your parent comment either.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#165

Post by kortilla »

renewiltord wrote: post #151
nitrogen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's particularly useful to compare across industries like this, especially when invoking an "appeal to worse problems" to justify ignoring a problem under discussion.

> > > Are any of those companies (except Amazon) even in the same league in terms of negative impact as big tech? > > Boeing's 737 Max debacle killed two plane-fuls of people. It's pretty hard to argue that either Amazon or Google has had negative effects on that magnitude. > I don't think it's particularly useful to compare across industries like this, especially when invoking an "appeal to worse problems" to justif…

Death count is not the only way to measure how bad something is.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#166

Post by paul7986 »

This is good to see as there has been tons of posts here on HN detailing Google abusing their power in the last few years.

Prior to I'm guessing 2013 to 2015, Google to many was viewed as the company who actually did no evil & a dream company to work.

Maybe them absorbing other company's and their cultures affected them?

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#167

Post by shadowgovt »

iateanapple wrote: post #158
shadowgovt wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on the flip side of the coin, we can change our search engine if we don't like the results it vends.

Because of network effects that turns out to be a lot weaker protection against much more powerful companies. Edit: Perhaps network effect is the wrong term - but it’s a bit like saying if you don’t like guns don’t buy a gun - that doesn’t really limit the negative impacts from guns...

How? What network effect is keeping Bing a poor alternative to Google search?

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#168

Post by ghastmaster »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #104
ghastmaster wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever wonder why innovation takes place? Wonder why we are not still reliant on locomotives for transportation? Economic incentives for innovation and disruption are greater when a monopolistic entity is over charging for it's good or service. If they are not over charging then there is not as great an incentive to innovate or disrupt. If the latter is the case, why bust a monopoly that is providing a fair service?

> Wonder why we are not still reliant on locomotives for transportation? Railroads still are. If you mean transport in general, it's because the government build a huge number of roads, waterways, and airports.

Good point. I did mean for commercial goods transport, but did not make that apparent.

Re: Justice Department, states likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google

#170

Post by w3mmpp »

akersten wrote: post #23

I will continue to believe that this is another tentacle of William Barr's political harassment of Google and tech in general until he leads the same crusade against other 'monopolies' of the same degree like Comcast, Apple, Boeing, Amazon, United Airlines, etc.

Other monopolies don't openly support and promote a liberal agenda like tech companies do in general. They should have stay out of politics.
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