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Break Up Google

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Re: Break Up Google

#71

Post by aliante »

searchableguy wrote: post #59
aliante wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't demonstrate that it turned a profit though. Video streaming is costly and they pay over 50% of that to creators. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21121370/youtube-advertisi...

Maybe people should just pay for it? Oh no. How could they make us pay for the software services. Imo, this mentality needs to go. People spend $$$ in cafe, buy expensive branded clothes, transportation, hanging out with their friends, outside food, and so on. All of those are not necessary but they pay for it. They should pay for the digital services they spend most of their time on now a days. What's different?

Except, they don't. People aren't willing to pay much for non-physical goods anymore.

Re: Break Up Google

#72

Post by searchableguy »

robbrown451 wrote: post #47
nabaraz wrote: post #34

Is anyone else tired of seeing the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day. So, we want to break up Google because it has gotten too big. What about Luxottica? It has over 80% market share on eyewear brands. What about Pearson? It has over 60% market share on testing market? What about Paypal? It has over 80% market share on online payments. What about Aetna (merged with Humana) on health care…

Because this is HackerNews and we are more affected by Google than those other companies.

I doubt this. Most people here employ ad blocking of some form, use Firefox and religiously de-google. At least this particular thread is probably 90% of those people.

Re: Break Up Google

#73

Post by Kiro »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #13

I know that there's a quota of at least one "Google bad" article at the top of Hacker News each day, and that's fine and all, but I feel like the bar for them is getting lower. There's a pretty good case for breaking up Google, but this article doesn't make it. The word "monopoly" doesn't appear once in the whole article, which is pretty weird in an article about how to break up Google and the justifications for doin…

People reflexively upvote any articles that contain Big Tech and something negative. I'm sure most people who upvoted this didn't even read it.

Re: Break Up Google

#74

Post by blahblahblogger »

jaspax wrote: post #9

Here's the rub: I strongly suspect that YouTube is not profitable, or is just barely profitable, such that it would be difficult to run as a separate company from the rest of Google. This is even more true for Maps. Breaking apart Google would substantially risk those businesses. On the other hand, maybe that's a good thing.

> Here's the rub: I strongly suspect that YouTube is not profitable, or is just barely profitable, such that it would be difficult to run as a separate company from the rest of Google... > Breaking apart Google would substantially risk those businesses.

Isn't that kind of the point of "break up google" though?

That "they" (big tech) destroy any other businesses in a similar space (video in this case) that isn't similarly an ads or social-media giant? Or that tech "eats the world" in ways that aren't always strictly good?

Re: Break Up Google

#75

Post by jwilber »

Didn’t feel much substance in this, though to be fair I felt the same wait from his aws farewell (maybe I just don’t relate to his writing style?).

Anyways, I think all the talk about breaking up google/Facebook etc feels performative at best - never seem see any solid reasons Or arguments. Would be nice to see tech people use their clout for actually monopolies, eg intel, ykk group, Tyson, etc.

Re: Break Up Google

#76

Post by [deleted] »

jhowell wrote: post #51
jaspax wrote: post #9

Here's the rub: I strongly suspect that YouTube is not profitable, or is just barely profitable, such that it would be difficult to run as a separate company from the rest of Google. This is even more true for Maps. Breaking apart Google would substantially risk those businesses. On the other hand, maybe that's a good thing.

> I strongly suspect that YouTube is not profitable, or is just barely profitable Why suspect when you can Google... "On an annual basis, Google says YouTube generated $15 billion last year and contributed roughly 10 percent to all Google revenue. Those figures make YouTube’s ad business nearly one fifth the size of Facebook’s, and more than six times larger than all of Amazon-owned Twitch." https://www.theverge.com/…

[deleted]

Re: Break Up Google

#77

Post by searchableguy »

aliante wrote: post #71
searchableguy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe people should just pay for it? Oh no. How could they make us pay for the software services. Imo, this mentality needs to go. People spend $$$ in cafe, buy expensive branded clothes, transportation, hanging out with their friends, outside food, and so on. All of those are not necessary but they pay for it. They should pay for the digital services they spend most of their time on now a days. What's different?

Except, they don't. People aren't willing to pay much for non-physical goods anymore.

If there are no free services subsidized by google or other tech corp, then they will have to pay or shut up.

Re: Break Up Google

#78

Post by anonytrary »

nabaraz wrote: post #34

Is anyone else tired of seeing the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day. So, we want to break up Google because it has gotten too big. What about Luxottica? It has over 80% market share on eyewear brands. What about Pearson? It has over 60% market share on testing market? What about Paypal? It has over 80% market share on online payments. What about Aetna (merged with Humana) on health care…

Your argument doesn't take into account the absolute market size and influence. No one is churning out propaganda on the other companies you mentioned because those markets are either much smaller or much harder to manipulate than Google's market.

Why would people try to cancel Luxottica? Eyewear touches a much smaller market and doesn't have nearly the same potential to manipulate people as Google does (at least not yet). People will always focus all of their attention on the largest threat.

Re: Break Up Google

#79

Post by lenkite »

nabaraz wrote: post #34

Is anyone else tired of seeing the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day. So, we want to break up Google because it has gotten too big. What about Luxottica? It has over 80% market share on eyewear brands. What about Pearson? It has over 60% market share on testing market? What about Paypal? It has over 80% market share on online payments. What about Aetna (merged with Humana) on health care…

Ok, if you don't want to break them up, then can we at-least consider anti-trust charges?

US anti-trust litigation has degraded to the point of non-existence. Microsoft faced anti-trust charges in 1998 that will puzzle most youngsters in HN today - because both Google and Apple do far-far worse. Destroying all competition via control of the market has become normalised US corporate behaviour. Why has this been allowed to occur ?

For all its faults, the EU appears to notice this when the US doesn't.

Re: Break Up Google

#80

Post by peteretep »

kelnos wrote: post #57
peteretep wrote: post #22

> Page and Brin each own 25.9% and 25.1% of Alphabet's voting power, respectively, accounting for over half of the company's controlling shares. That's because of Alphabet's super-voting structure, which gives 10 votes per share of its Class B stock. also: > Mark Zuckerberg owns the majority of the voting rights to Facebook due to a dual class structure that weights certain shares over others. I would like to see emi…

> I have a big problem with him and the unelected Page and Brin having all that power with no recourse for the market. I just don't get that mindset. Private-company Google said "hey, we're down to be public, but Larry and Sergey will always control the company... cool?" And the market said: "yeah whatever give us those shares". It's not like anyone was holding a gun up to anyone's head, forcing them to buy GOOG. The…

> They went into it knowing that their shares' votes would be useless.

I don't disagree with that at all, and I would see the current holders compensated for their shares. What I _am_ saying is I don't think society is benefitting from this structure.

> the shareholders have validated their control every day since Google went public

What? No, that's not how that works. The market has decided solely on the current price for Google shares. There's no nuance about what the market thinks about Page and Brin other than they think that the stock is currently accurately price, no more and no less.

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