Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility • Hacker News Board

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#131

Post by LeifCarrotson » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #72

gumby wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Not denying their monopoly position, but how could Google meaningfully be broken up? It's really just a single business (advertising) with a gaggle of loss leaders adding up to less than 20% of revenue. Even pushing advertising down to 80% took a huge amount of effort. It's not like Standard Oil which was a vertically integrated trust of several points in…

I think the suggestion is breaking up alphabet, which is quite literally loads of companies. YouTube, Google search, deep mind, Google fiber, waymo, Fitbit etc Seems pretty easy to break up if you want to.

The parent's point was that breaking up Alphabet in any way that leaves Google Ads contiguous is insignificant. When you go to the barbershop and get a haircut, you've broken up your person into 100,001 individual pieces, but that hasn't solved your weight loss problem, because the 100,000 bits of hair are only a few hundred micrograms each and the one piece that is your body still weighs 90 kg.

Google Cloud is big enough to be significant in terms of revenue, but AFAIK is only maybe breaking even in terms of profit. If you break up Alphabet into 26 or more different companies, you haven't broken up the monolith into non-problematic small companies 1/26th the size of the original, you've got 25 irrelevant companies and then one subsidiary that gets Ads which is almost as big as the original. Google even says as much in their financial statements, most of those listed companies are listed as 'other bets' and are a tiny fraction of the main line item that represents ads.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#132

Post by jbgreer » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #123

Reminds me of Snowcrash, the novel by Neil Stephenson. Technology was so far ahead of conventional people that the US govt became vestigial and largely ignored.

“When you are wrestling for possession of a sword, the man with the handle always wins.”

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#133

Post by ethbr0 » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #48

ping_pong wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a direct result of their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Because they have such a huge monopoly, they can afford to ignore customers and have a draconian approach to people, and can get away with it. If there were better competition, they wouldn't have been able to ignore their customers. Breaking them up will alleviate this by ensuring that each company needs to be able to survive on their…

> ...their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Not denying their monopoly position, but how could Google meaningfully be broken up? It's really just a single business (advertising) with a gaggle of loss leaders adding up to less than 20% of revenue. Even pushing advertising down to 80% took a huge amount of effort. It's not like Standard Oil which was a vertically integrated trust of several points in…

> It's really just a single business (advertising) with a gaggle of loss leaders adding up to less than 20% of revenue

A better way of looking at it is that Google is a collection of traffic drivers (YouTube, Gmail, etc) and monetizers (ads).

If you break the monetization into a separate company, the traffic drivers aren't profitless: because a large part of the ad profit was created from their traffic.

If Google Ads had to buy space / share ad revenue from Google YouTube, Google Gmail, etc then economics would look a lot more reasonable.

And I'd frankly be shocked if that isn't what they do internally, albeit more in the sense of "How much ad traffic do you drive, from your corner of the company?"

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#134

Post by bumby » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

pcmoney wrote: post #117

adrr wrote: post #95

But I have multiple choices for email, search, video hosting and browsers. I don’t have any choice for water, electricity, sewer, on any other public utility. I am sure there are a bunch of people on here that don’t use any Google products and are using DuckDuckGo, Firefox, ProtonMail, Vimeo. There are many choices.

You have multiple choices for water, dig a well, buy it from the local grocery store. Same for sewage because self composting toilets exist. Also electricity isn't a utility just use a stationary bike as a generator or buy solar panels... Just because you have multiple choices doesn't mean something is/isn't a utility. Its pretty arbitrary. They also aren't talking about Google products (most of which are completely…

To a certain extent, utilities differ in that they are regulated monopolies protected by the government. Any competing water company, for example, can’t just start running water mains without government approval. In exchange for that protection, the existing water utility incurs additional regulations, like needing approvals to raise rates and bring required to provide services to areas where it may not be profitable by itself.

Regarding your electrical example, that only works in isolation. You cannot just decide to tie your solar or generator to the grid, for example, because that utility is a regulated public good.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#135

Post by babypuncher » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

ketzo wrote: post #70

gumby wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Not denying their monopoly position, but how could Google meaningfully be broken up? It's really just a single business (advertising) with a gaggle of loss leaders adding up to less than 20% of revenue. Even pushing advertising down to 80% took a huge amount of effort. It's not like Standard Oil which was a vertically integrated trust of several points in…

GSuite/Gmail, YouTube, Search, Android, Google Shopping, Google Maps -- all of these could become separate software companies. Not saying they would enjoy that, of course, but those are some of the divisions that immediately jump to mind.

That doesn't do much to break up the effective monopoly these services have in their respective markets. You split off Google Search into it's own company and they will still have 90% of the search market share when you're done.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#136

Post by notatoad » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

_hyn3 wrote: post #120

Buttons840 wrote: post #34

> the lawsuit seeks a legal declaration that Google is a "common carrier," like phone, gas and electric companies, which must provide its services to anyone willing to pay its fee. How can something on the internet be a common carrier when the internet itself is not a common carrier?

> How can something on the internet be a common carrier when the internet itself is not a common carrier? The internet isn't a thing. It's not a single entity (or even a single idea). It was different in the days of Ma Bell, when there was one entity for the entire U.S. with phone service (could we define that in today's age? is VOIP phone service? mobile? Whatsapp?), and it was even different later, when the baby be…

when people talk about the "the internet" being a public utility, they mean internet access. which is "a thing", and is a single discrete idea.

public utility status for the internet means that every packet delivered over internet protocol (aka "IP", which again, is a thing) must be delivered by the carrier/ISP without discrimination.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#137

Post by Dma54rhs » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

jolmg wrote: post #24

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty much impossible to function in modern society without an email address that you can rely on.

But Google isn't the only provider of email addresses. In contrast, water utilities typically hold monopoly over their region. EDIT: Many people are replying with some variant that the problem is that Google can block the email account that people have tied to their financial and government services. But the same is true of any other email provider. If Google is somehow turned into a public utility, how does that sol…

Not if you're allowed to build a well, which is a lot of places. Install a pump. Same for electricity - solar and huge ass batteries for the night. Definetly not only providers despite being classified as utilities.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#138

Post by woodruffw » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #114

woodruffw wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where I stand on the public utility argument, but to make the strongest possible case for this analogy: most peoples' online lives (including their financials) are tied to a singular email address. That email address forms the ground truth for their identity, including being able to access services that they've lost their credentials for. Google's ability to unilaterally revoke access to the account that…

People opted in to that. You don't opt in to the water pipe monopoly.

> People opted in to that. You don't opt in to the water pipe monopoly.

I accept this argument for social media, but I don't think I do for online identities that are tightly integrated into financial and government services.

I happen to be sufficiently positioned to cause a big stink if Google arbitrarily bans my GSuite account; the average person probably isn't, and would have to spend weeks reidentifying themselves to essential services (my power bill goes through my email!) to ensure that their material welfare isn't disrupted. Is that acceptable?

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#139

Post by ccity88 » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

caslon wrote: post #111

adrr wrote: post #95

But I have multiple choices for email, search, video hosting and browsers. I don’t have any choice for water, electricity, sewer, on any other public utility. I am sure there are a bunch of people on here that don’t use any Google products and are using DuckDuckGo, Firefox, ProtonMail, Vimeo. There are many choices.

Google-avoider checking in! It's actually really easy to avoid it. DuckDuckGo's search quality is better, Firefox is deteriorating daily but still looks and feels better than Chrome does, email should really be avoided but there are dozens of really good email services, and their ad service doesn't need a replacement for obvious reasons (just block it).

Except it's actually not that easy. Most of the web uses google analytics, so its unavoidable when you visit a website. Most of the web's emails are routed through google; I remember reading a post about a guy who set up his own SMTP server and everything, but then realised that everyone he was contacting was using gmail anyway (can't find the post). Every time you see an add that's served by google, that means that there's a google embed in the page your looking at. Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor. If you have an android phone (most of the world does) you're forced to use google play services. In today's world, they're unavoidable. That being said, making them a public utility is a bit forward...

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#140

Post by dane-pgp » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

dimitrios1 wrote: post #10

Hamuko wrote: post #2

So Republicans have completely flipped on the sovereignity of private companies? Or is this just posturing to please the number one of the GOP (Dave Yost filed a “friend of the court” brief in support of invalidating 2020 votes in Pennsylvania)?

This is the beginning of the Republican rebrand to be the people's party again, since democrats have abandoned that cause long ago. They simply seek to be the in charge political force, and they are winning, as evidenced by every major corporation seemingly overnight bending over to satisfy democratic candidates and democratic voting blocs.

> the Republican rebrand to be the people's party again

Or at least the party of some people. If they thought they had the majority on their side, they wouldn't be afraid of the popular vote, or need to gerrymander every map they get their hands on.