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United States vs. Google

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Re: United States vs. Google

#221

Post by pythonaut_16 »

bun_at_work wrote: post #202
jeffbee wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making the same flawed argument that the DOJ complaint is making: that Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, some of the largest companies Earth has ever seen, somehow can't afford to compete in search, which is plainly ridiculous.

This is not what the DOJ is complaining about. The case is that companies that aren't huge can't compete, because they can't scale.

I don't understand that argument.

By that same argument, companies that aren't huge can't compete with Walmart, UPS, McDonald's, etc.

That argument basically breaks down to "Small companies can't compete against huge companies without finding a way to become huge themselves."

Isn't that just capitalism?

Re: United States vs. Google

#222

Post by tsycho »

shliachtx wrote: post #92
wwwdonohue wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of agree, but part of me also thinks that if a company builds the world's best mobile OS and search engine and ad platform and video streaming service and internet browser and mapping service... well, good for them! They built the best products and it seems like it would ultimately be anti-consumer to do anything about it. It's different if a company like Google establishes its dominance via one great product…

Except they purchased their way into many of these. Their advertising business was built on a number of acquisitions (DoubleClick, AdMob) - strategic acquisitions, surely, and they improved on them since - but it is not as if they bult the business from the ground up. The same goes for video streaming (YouTube - after attempting to create their own), and mobile OS (Android). With Android in particular it can be argue…

I see this oft repeated comment about Google acquiring YouTube, DoubleClick and Android. Yes they did. But the companies they acquired were tiny upstarts, which might have even died on their own. Google built them into what they are today, and deserve 90% of the credit for their current significance.

The same applies to FB and Instagram as well, fwiw. Though imo, not as much for WhatsApp, which already had 400MM users and would have organically reached 1B+ users on its own.

Re: United States vs. Google

#223

Post by zanny »

r00fus wrote: post #201
dcow wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except we do have people willing to challenge the status quo. Go listen to Tulsi Gabbard’s responses in the DNC debate. Talk to any Trump hating republican who at this point would betray their party for a principled person like Sanders. People just don't vote for them and don’t participate locally where it counts. I believe America is desperately in need of voting reform. And I believe the only way to achieve that is…

A third party vote is a spoiler unless you change the voting system. RCV/IRV is an absolute minimum.

Approval voting requires no modifications to ballots, has no spoiler effect, and would be so much better than what we have now.

Which is exactly why it will never happen - both major parties enjoy their power duopoly. The powerful always resist democracy because it takes their power and gives it to the people, be they monarchs, corporations, or political parties.

Re: United States vs. Google

#224

Post by TuringNYC »

closetohome wrote: post #169
deelowe wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also for youtube, how many people are now able to make a living producing content which they fully own and have control over the means of distribution?

I do like to point out that whatever shenanigans YouTube is doing with their discoverability and promotion features, they still provide unlimited lifetime 8K video hosting for free . And that's a pretty good deal.

Not only that, they allow anyone to become a publisher. You can be poor, you can live overseas, you can be a minority, you can have no connections -- and you still get to publish on YouTube -- and if you are good, they even send you traffic.

Now show me another major media network that allows that.

Re: United States vs. Google

#225

Post by joshspankit »

dsabanin wrote: post #47

I think Google is the best search engine. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with them being the best search engine, top online ad platform and a developer of the top mobile OS, top video streaming service, top internet browser, top mapping/navigation service, among other things, at the SAME time. Their assets give them undue and unsupervised influence over a very big chunk of what's happening onli…

It is my firm belief that companies will be larger and have more influence than (all) countries (combined).

It’s also possible that the groundwork has been laid already with Google, Facebook, and Apple (along with other non-tech companies).

IMHO every dollar you spend is more of a vote than the political votes.

Re: United States vs. Google

#226

Post by zanny »

thayne wrote: post #117
rland wrote: post #109

> there is a strain of political thought in America, independent of political party (although traditionally associated with Democrats), that is inherently allergic to concentrated power — monopoly in the populist sense, if not the legal one. > Hatred of monopoly is one of the oldest American political habits and like most profound traditions In what country does the author live? Americans are so used to concentrated…

I think most Americans are unhappy with this situation. But we feel powerless to change it. We may have the right to vote, but we don't have options to vote for anyone that is incentivized to change the status quo.

You can technically write whomever you want on your ballot. In most states. At least in PA where I live every slot on my mail in ballot had a write in box.

The problem is that there is no coordination of the people to actually change the status quo. Too many people are still content with it. From both sides movements like BLM, Antifa, Occupy, the Tea Party, the alt-right, etc represent at most a tenth of the nation. And by-and-large the other 80% not participating in political activism at all largely either A. don't believe in the ability to organize a movement for change or B. don't want it at all.

This is not to say it would not be in the self interest of a vast supermajority of Americans to seek such change - for example, universal public healthcare would be a tremendous boon to like 4 in 5 people at least. Better elections, with election day being a public holiday, universal mail in voting, and any of the myriad alternatives to first past the post voting would all improve the conditions of like 95% of the country. The problem is that most people were taught and conditioned to be non-participatory and largely will not become so no matter what anyone else does or says . Even if things did get bad. Even if there were tangible impacts to their day to day experience. Conditioning is an extremely potent force and a combination of American corporate news, American public education, the cultures of swathes of the country raise their kids on, the material conditions you live through and your life experiences within them, etc all contribute to the apathy and attitude.

Thankfully the dial is moving in a positive direction, I think. Anyone under the age of 40 to greater and greater degrees was unable to grow up in an isolated microcosm of Americana that conditioned them into non-participation. The numbers still aren't great, but they are getting better, and unless we see systems collapse take us all offline it will hopefully keep improving moving forward, albeit centralized private social media has done a lot last decade to stymie progress.

Re: United States vs. Google

#227

Post by [deleted] »

orhmeh09 wrote: post #212
alexashka wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't 'believe' an IQ range of 20-34, labelled as 'severely retarded' [0] is relevant to one's ability to be informed? https://paulcooijmans.com/intelligence/iq_ranges.html

You're putting words into that poster's mouth as you shift the goalpost, but an IQ of 20-34 isn't especially common as IQ is not distributed uniformly. You might have a hard time being informed with a 34 IQ but that applies to all matters. IQ isn't designed to assess political competence nor even one's ability to be informed. Politically it's pretty irrelevant.

[deleted]

Re: United States vs. Google

#228

Post by john-radio »

tsycho wrote: post #222
shliachtx wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they purchased their way into many of these. Their advertising business was built on a number of acquisitions (DoubleClick, AdMob) - strategic acquisitions, surely, and they improved on them since - but it is not as if they bult the business from the ground up. The same goes for video streaming (YouTube - after attempting to create their own), and mobile OS (Android). With Android in particular it can be argue…

I see this oft repeated comment about Google acquiring YouTube, DoubleClick and Android. Yes they did. But the companies they acquired were tiny upstarts, which might have even died on their own. Google built them into what they are today, and deserve 90% of the credit for their current significance. The same applies to FB and Instagram as well, fwiw. Though imo, not as much for WhatsApp, which already had 400MM user…

YouTube was delivering an average of 100 million video views per day in July 2006, months before the Google acquisition for $1,650,000,000 that same year. It's inaccurate to characterize them as a "tiny startup."

Re: United States vs. Google

#229

Post by residentfoam »

pbalau wrote: post #111
residentfoam wrote: post #62

If I were the US authorities, I'd start asking/demanding Google to stop SSO across Search/GMail/Browser. Just because I am a GMail user does not automatically mean that you can trace all my web search. In addition, I'd demand removing Captcha-alike when using VPN services, to avoid them from tracking my IP. I mean, even if you are not logged-in, they can still correlate IPs across products.

> In addition, I'd demand removing Captcha-alike when using VPN services, to avoid them from tracking my IP. You'll demand that from whom? Is not Google that plops the captcha in your face, is the particular webiste/app that is doing it. Is the same thing as with the Facebook trackers/buttons.

It is also Google.

Re: United States vs. Google

#230

Post by cvwright »

closetohome wrote: post #169
deelowe wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also for youtube, how many people are now able to make a living producing content which they fully own and have control over the means of distribution?

I do like to point out that whatever shenanigans YouTube is doing with their discoverability and promotion features, they still provide unlimited lifetime 8K video hosting for free . And that's a pretty good deal.

Yes, it’s called dumping, and it’s illegal to do this to expand a monopoly.
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