can we donate to support this lawsuit? :P
Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
601–610 of 748 posts
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#602Earlier quoted context omitted.
google could take over almost any business like this. That didn't happen to travel companies. Google added flights, but Booking Holdings (aka Priceline) continued to grow each year to 15B in revenue for 2019. (Huge drop for 2020 obviously.) If I type " weather" google will show me the weather, but which weather company has shutdown because of that? Google news is in the search results, but there are a lot of news com…
I switched to almost only using Google Flights. I try to use Skyscanner because I want to support the underdog, but Google Flights gives me better, and more results. For hotels, Google started displaying results from other search engines like Agoda, so I just use Google for that too and clickthrough to whatever is the cheapest. They could also just stop displaying agoda from one day to the next.
The killer feature for me is : i can see in a calendar what the flight would cost at Google. Every other platform only shows exact date..
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm surprised I haven't seen much in the responses to this comment that the issue isn't so much that consumers have other options (though given how high Google's search reach is, how relevant is that if hardly anyone does), it's that for most businesses your option is either have a strong search presence on Google or go out of business. There is just no viable path to avoid Google as a business when they control 80+…
> ...most businesses your option is either have a strong search presence on Google or go out of business. Your perspective is a bit skewed here towards the software world. There are businesses on every street-corner in the US, and for that matter world, without any meaningful internet presence or need for great search engine ranking. And for that matter, consumer products and consumer-facing businesses are only a sub…
These businesses without internet presence usually still want to be shown on g.maps.
OTOH maps add businesses even if the businesses don't add themselves.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. I can't believe this is a serious comment. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars would say otherwise. I search for consumer products on Google all the time.
It's definitely hyperbole to say "irrelevant", but I think the overarching point is right. When I'm looking to buy something, I'll usually start my search on Amazon or Pinterest or Walmart or eBay or Etsy. Google is definitely a search of last resort. Everyone's behavior is different, but while Google may "own" search for knowledge, it absolutely does not "own" search for consumer products.
You should check shopping.google.com. They aggregate all these, and their search us way less broken than Amazon's.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#605But 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…
how do you dig a well if you live in the city? Buy water from the grocery store to take showers? cmon, this is ridiculous
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm surprised I haven't seen much in the responses to this comment that the issue isn't so much that consumers have other options (though given how high Google's search reach is, how relevant is that if hardly anyone does), it's that for most businesses your option is either have a strong search presence on Google or go out of business. There is just no viable path to avoid Google as a business when they control 80+…
Do you Google shoes to find shoes,some workout shorts or any consumer product line? Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. What do you Google from a consumer perspective?
Uh, yes? All of those. What do you do, hope a salesperson in a retail store doesn't rip you off?
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a content creator rich snippets are such a bugbear. If you don't play the game then someone else's content and name shows up. If you do, there's a huge chance people get what they need and never visit your site. It's a Google wins, consumer wins, creator loses situation.
I would argue that bad behavior (“bad” = existing more to get ad revenue than to deliver valuable information to users) made this a viable business model for Google. I don’t love snippets, and sometimes they’re hilariously wrong, but I’d rather get wrong info from a snippet vs having a site waste my time and beg me to sign up, blocking the info from view, forcing me to “open in app”, only to find that it was bad info…
If the information is valuable, why aren't we paying for it? That's the problem we still haven't solved. It's why you are Google's product, and it's why companies use that "sticky" behaviour. You need to be a user, a member, a customer - that way you might eventually give them a few dollars instead of glean a little information and forget they ever existed.
I really don't know what a good customer-centric endgame looks like. Maybe a self hosted AI assistant that knows what I need, coupled with a micropayment infrastructure to apportion funds based on where I visit? No idea.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
I switched to almost only using Google Flights. I try to use Skyscanner because I want to support the underdog, but Google Flights gives me better, and more results. For hotels, Google started displaying results from other search engines like Agoda, so I just use Google for that too and clickthrough to whatever is the cheapest. They could also just stop displaying agoda from one day to the next.
The killer feature for me is : i can see in a calendar what the flight would cost at Google. Every other platform only shows exact date..
Skyscanner has this too. Click on the depart or return date and then select 'whole month'.
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the whole argument is setting up the presupposition that Google kills non competitive businesses, and that's not what antitrust law is about. It's about protecting consumers, not competitors. Take Android for example. Did Google kill Blackberry with Android? Or was it other factors like the Blackberry CEO cannibalizing their R&D budget, and stubbornly refusing to give consumers what they wanted?
Research in Motion thought the Blackberry keyboard was their killer feature for business professionals. They were wrong. The iPhone killed Blackberry, not Android.
The 3rd hand story I heard ~2011 from a former RIM executive who was there at the time of Steve Job's demo of the iPhone was that Mike Lazaridis' (co-founder of RIM) reaction to seeing the demo: "It's impossible! The whole thing would have to be a battery!"
Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility
#610Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would argue that bad behavior (“bad” = existing more to get ad revenue than to deliver valuable information to users) made this a viable business model for Google. I don’t love snippets, and sometimes they’re hilariously wrong, but I’d rather get wrong info from a snippet vs having a site waste my time and beg me to sign up, blocking the info from view, forcing me to “open in app”, only to find that it was bad info…
If the information is valuable, why aren't we paying for it? That's the problem we still haven't solved. It's why you are Google's product, and it's why companies use that "sticky" behaviour. You need to be a user, a member, a customer - that way you might eventually give them a few dollars instead of glean a little information and forget they ever existed. I really don't know what a good customer-centric endgame loo…
> If the information is valuable, why aren't we paying for it?
Several reasons:
1. You often can't judge the value of the information before purchase.
2. The downside of having to decide whether or not to purchase is often larger than the value of the information.
3. Microtransaction costs (time and otherwise) are higher than the value of the information.
4. That information is often available for free somewhere else (sometimes people just want attention or to inform others rather than money). The top results are just the ones that spent the most money on SEO (and hence have the most intrusive ads).