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Break Up Google

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Re: Break Up Google

#181

Post by sudhirj »

kevingadd wrote: post #137
peteretep wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking up monopolies gives us more free markets, and is a move towards capitalism, not away from it.

It's fair to say it's a non-capitalist power, I think. It's the government interfering in the operation of companies instead of allowing it to be entirely controlled by the market players - for good reason, of course. A capitalist alternative would probably look more like levying fees or capping prices to try and balance the market... which is something that also happens from time to time.

Even fees and price caps would not be considered capitalist or free-market - they both interfere with the market dynamics. In all cases, we need to interfere with the free market to improve goodness for society as a whole.

But we don't need to attach moral connotations to this – the companies have done nothing illegal, and the executives are doing their jobs. The issue is when technology is applied to natural free markets, a monopoly logically results, which kills the market if left unchecked.

Re: Break Up Google

#182

Post by jdub »

balanced009 wrote: post #8

These type of posts are now starting to sound like propaganda. Just emotional catharsis of some sort. There are plenty of large companies on this planet. Why do you focus on Google? and why do we see these posts frequently making it to top ten of hacker news?

One of Tim's previous posts was about breaking up AWS.

Re: Break Up Google

#183

Post by tarsinge »

LatteLazy wrote: post #171
tarsinge wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shitty cash hungry monopoly like OpenStreetMap? I’m ready to bet Google Maps dying could lead to a huge interest in improving OSM instead of the opposite today. Also email is an interoperable standard so I don’t see a monopoly coming soon, it’s not AOL era anymore. Before monopolies there is competition, and if monopolies come then break them. It’s not like it never happened before and “these times it’s different”. E…

Do you really think Openstreetmap is an alternative to Google maps? Really? This is our vision for the future? Anyone who spends 5 minutes on there will be begging to give Google their data. We're meant to be improving things, not just reverting to the 1940s approach but with a website to look at the paperwork on...

My point is that Google Maps prevents the development of OSM.

Re: Break Up Google

#184

Post by tarsinge »

dorgo wrote: post #176
tarsinge wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shitty cash hungry monopoly like OpenStreetMap? I’m ready to bet Google Maps dying could lead to a huge interest in improving OSM instead of the opposite today. Also email is an interoperable standard so I don’t see a monopoly coming soon, it’s not AOL era anymore. Before monopolies there is competition, and if monopolies come then break them. It’s not like it never happened before and “these times it’s different”. E…

>Also email is an interoperable standard If emails from no-name servers/domains are increasingly dropped/refused (considered spam), is email still interoperable?

That's not my experience, but if that's the case then one more reason for the break up.

Re: Break Up Google

#185

Post by pwinnski »

After reading Matt Stoller's book Goliath, I've come around on breaking up big companies like this, primarily as an act of undoing mergers and acquisitions that should never have been allowed in the first place.

So splitting off YouTube seems obvious, since it should never have happened. Some of the others are more difficult, since they're not the result of acquisitions. Then again, DoubleClick was a large acquisition, so splitting off Gmail and so on as a proxy for undoing the DoubleClick acquisition probably makes sense, too.

As Bray points out, Google is deliberate vague about a lot of numbers, but reverting acquisitions always seems like a good first step to me.

[0] https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/...

Re: Break Up Google

#186

Post by pwinnski »

balanced009 wrote: post #8

These type of posts are now starting to sound like propaganda. Just emotional catharsis of some sort. There are plenty of large companies on this planet. Why do you focus on Google? and why do we see these posts frequently making it to top ten of hacker news?

Google is second on Bray's list, since he started with his alma mater, Amazon.

I'm guessing either Facebook or Apple is next, but we'll see.

I'm guessing posts like these are popular because many of us agree that it's well past time for an antitrust department to take action against companies like Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, and others.

Re: Break Up Google

#187

Post by pwinnski »

wise_young_man wrote: post #111
MattGaiser wrote: post #15

Yes, let’s destroy one of the few large companies which has found a viable method of long term innovation instead of endless cost cutting and outsourcing. Let’s force Google to be like every other company in needing to constantly extract money from every project quarter by quarter. Not to mention that it is not clear that any except advertising are viable businesses by themselves. YouTube wasn’t profitable for a whil…

Honestly I’m wondering what innovations they’ve had in the last 5 years. I’ve been around long enough to see their decay in that area. YouTube you mentioned was an acquisition. Android was created in 2008. Maps in 2005. What’s really new with Google besides a ton of failed ideas like Reader, G+, and messenger apps?

It's worse than that. Maps was a 2004 acquisition[0]. Where 2 developed the base map tech originally, and Google acquired them and a couple of other companies, combining them to launch Maps in 2005.

Android, also, was an acquisition[1]. Google bought them in 2005 and launched in 2008.

Even their core ad business is mostly-acquired from DoubleClick. Even the "personalized search" they're known for involved an acquisition! Really, the list is amazing.[2]

[0] https://medium.com/@lewgus/the-untold-story-about-the-foundi...

[1] https://venturebeat.com/2010/10/27/google-exec-android-was-b...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

Re: Break Up Google

#188

Post by mav3rick »

pwinnski wrote: post #187
wise_young_man wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I’m wondering what innovations they’ve had in the last 5 years. I’ve been around long enough to see their decay in that area. YouTube you mentioned was an acquisition. Android was created in 2008. Maps in 2005. What’s really new with Google besides a ton of failed ideas like Reader, G+, and messenger apps?

It's worse than that. Maps was a 2004 acquisition[0]. Where 2 developed the base map tech originally, and Google acquired them and a couple of other companies, combining them to launch Maps in 2005. Android, also, was an acquisition[1]. Google bought them in 2005 and launched in 2008. Even their core ad business is mostly-acquired from DoubleClick. Even the "personalized search" they're known for involved an acquisit…

List is amazing ! They've just lucked out on their success.

Re: Break Up Google

#189

Post by kats »

kevingadd wrote: post #144
kats wrote: post #38

Yeah, let's break up Google! I've been depending on their software for almost 15 years now, I use something they made practically every hour that I'm awake, and never paid a cent for it! I'm really getting a raw deal here!

Are you sure you've never paid a cent? Many products or services you buy are probably funneling some money into Google's pockets - perhaps licensing fees or agreements with Google, company profits being handed to Google for advertising. If you've ever bought an Android app or In-App Purchase, 30% of that went directly to Google. If you think you're getting Google products and services for free, you're just not paying…

I guess Google has received 30 cents from when I bought something on the Play store.

It still seems to be a pretty good deal when you compare the bill for GMail, YouTube, Google Search, Drive, Docs/Sheets and Maps to the cost of the phone bill, cable tv, and internet.

Re: Break Up Google

#190

Post by kats »

wise_young_man wrote: post #111
MattGaiser wrote: post #15

Yes, let’s destroy one of the few large companies which has found a viable method of long term innovation instead of endless cost cutting and outsourcing. Let’s force Google to be like every other company in needing to constantly extract money from every project quarter by quarter. Not to mention that it is not clear that any except advertising are viable businesses by themselves. YouTube wasn’t profitable for a whil…

Honestly I’m wondering what innovations they’ve had in the last 5 years. I’ve been around long enough to see their decay in that area. YouTube you mentioned was an acquisition. Android was created in 2008. Maps in 2005. What’s really new with Google besides a ton of failed ideas like Reader, G+, and messenger apps?

Self-driving cars...
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