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

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

#631

Post by londons_explore »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #573
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve used a number of those others, and at least via my personal scoring system, google flights is still by far the number one. Your link prioritizes very different things than I do, for example one of its top scoring sites has as a con that you can’t filter out 10+ hour layovers).

"We also ignored any itinerary that would be hell to fly-basically anything increasing total travel time by more than half through excessively long layovers, too many stops, or flying way out of your way just to change planes. Airlines may think that makes for a viable plan, but we don't." Am I reading this wrong or does this indicate Frommer also prioritises avoiding long layovers. (I dislike the inclusion of the lo…

Occasionally I am actually looking for the longest possible layover. Having a couple of days in another city along the route can actually be pretty cool - you get 2 holidays for the price of one, or a free holiday on the side of a work trip.

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

#632

Post by stiray »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

I think that some other example is needed to explain "As a consumer, I love it. So much easier."

Please watch this, it is about not well known company called Luxottica that holds majority of world market for eyewear. There is a good posibilty that if you have sun glasses, they made them. It is not something technical, just simple merchandise, simple to understand:

https://youtu.be/yvTWjWVY9Vo

Since the video came out, they have also bought (actually "merged") one of the largest companies creating perscription lenses.

Now, do you like what you see? Is it "so easy" and "good" for the customers? Do you love it? How is their status impacting you wanting to buy eyewear?

Same is with google, amazon, microsoft, just name it. But yes, until they get a vast majority of market, they will not start to milk the users. As they want majority of market first.

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

#633

Post by simonjgreen »

The status of Google, and additionally AWS and Azure, is feeling very reminiscent of the early days of electricity companies, and the early days of (in UK at least) telco. Bit by bit the world is realising that the global economy and system is now at the mercy of these businesses to a defacto point where there's no option any more. I believe it's a responsible direction for governments to legislate to control them, if nothing else then purely to guarantee risk management and sustainability for the population at large.

Suspending for a moment how unlikely it is to happen, imagine if Amazon decided tomorrow they were shuttering AWS. Or Google was ceasing providing search. These things are so essential to everyday life now the impact would be staggering.

Governments should be looking at these threats with open eyes in the same way they have had their eyes opened to global pandemic prep.

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

#634

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

londons_explore wrote: post #631
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We also ignored any itinerary that would be hell to fly-basically anything increasing total travel time by more than half through excessively long layovers, too many stops, or flying way out of your way just to change planes. Airlines may think that makes for a viable plan, but we don't." Am I reading this wrong or does this indicate Frommer also prioritises avoiding long layovers. (I dislike the inclusion of the lo…

Occasionally I am actually looking for the longest possible layover. Having a couple of days in another city along the route can actually be pretty cool - you get 2 holidays for the price of one, or a free holiday on the side of a work trip.

Another example is people doing mileage runs (see FlyerTalk).

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

#635

Post by Cthulhu_ »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

False dichotomy; when it comes to flights, they could show general information with links to flight companies. When it comes to images, they could limit themselves to small image previews / thumbnails.

Of course, one reason why I for one prefer to stay on Google Images (and have an addon to go directly to an image file instead of the site it's on) is that the sites themselves have so much cruft on them. And they kinda have to, because there's no money to be made on a minimalist image hosting site, while there's plenty of expenses - wouldn't be surprised if the brunt of expenses is abuse prevention.

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

#636

Post by marticode »

minsc__and__boo wrote: post #544
rgbrenner wrote: post #538

Earlier 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 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?

> It's about protecting consumers, not competitors.

That's true in the US, but not in the EU. And not operating in the EU is not really an option for any of the FAANG.

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

#637

Post by Broken_Hippo »

blntechie wrote: post #584
amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

Same with sports scores. I’m surprised the various sports websites have not made a cry about this as part of anti-trust investigations. Maybe because those sports sites are still reliant on Google for their other page views? Which only makes it worse.

There is more at stake here, though: If folks cannot easily look up scored and things, who will they blame? Probably the sports sites and team owners. It would be similar to the companies disallowing sports scores to be printed in newspapers.

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

#638

Post by tibbydudeza »

Why is US laws applicable to Google ???. What if Google simply relocates it's incorporation domicile to Lichtenstein or sometime to Mars instead ???.

I am baffled as I can access and use Aliexpress based in China and they don't have any paperwork filed in my country to operate there.

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

#639

Post by Nkuna »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

My initial thinking behind any business idea was more often than not preceded by "what if Google clones my idea???!?!? :((((". Two things wrong with this line of thinking.

First it assumes Google can execute on said idea better than me and that I can't innovate. Here's the thing though; the bigger a company is the slower it gets. Sure, they can implement processes but big always gets more complex. Being small gives you an edge. What you do with that edge will determine whether FAANG apes your idea or not.

Secondly, big tech isn't immune to market forces. The more features they add, trying to please every last potential user leads to bloat. At some point their search experience is bound to get degraded from adding way too many features in pursuit of every last user. This adds more bureaucracy. More tech debt. More uncontrollable variables.

Search in 2021, especially on mobile, is vastly different from even 5 years ago. There are more ads, more tracking, more fraud, more shady back dealing, more user hostile anti-patterns. Yes, users currently enjoy their product but at some point surveillance capitalism will get its reckoning (see Apple, Europe, regulation in general) and for all the various products they have, search is the only relevant one. Without Search, how 'threatening' is Google really?

Same goes for Facebook and that hot mess of an app. News feed, groups, pages, dating, marketplace, messaging, watch, etc. All this reeks of a co. that's lost focus in pursuit of not ceding users to competitors. This just means when they fail (which they will!), they will fail spectacularly.

My advice to you and myself is focus on a niche. Try to do things that will be hard for FAANG to reproduce by making your users love your product more.

Competing head on with these behemoths is foolish, but a moat is possible nonetheless given proper execution.

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

#640

Post by Dah00n »

stiray wrote: post #632
amadeuspagel wrote: post #451

If we ignore all this culture war bullshit for a minute there's a really fascinating issue here. The concrete issue is flight search. When you google "flight from a to b", rather then seeing search results linking to websites for flight search, the first thing you see is the results of Google's own flight search. Is that wrong? What about image search? When you search for "skyline berlin", you'll see images of berlin…

I think that some other example is needed to explain "As a consumer, I love it. So much easier." Please watch this, it is about not well known company called Luxottica that holds majority of world market for eyewear. There is a good posibilty that if you have sun glasses, they made them. It is not something technical, just simple merchandise, simple to understand: https://youtu.be/yvTWjWVY9Vo Since the video came out…

"99% believe they buy an American brand!" she says with horror in her voice. That i so.... American.

While a monopoly is bad this is a very poor source to use to prove a point, even though they do admittedly have a point (like the broken clock being correct twice a day). The problem has absolutely nothing to do with it being an Italian company but that is of course a big point in any 60 Minutes video (US good, others bad) and I highly doubt it would have been made had it been Walmart instead of Luxottica.

But to comment on-topic: I believe Google and/or search engines should be put under the same rules and laws as the EU did with Microsoft. Search engine is searchengine, not search/travelplanner/hotel finder/translator/whatever. It strangles competition and innovation. Google should include those other things from other services if another service will sell the service to Google or keep clear.

Edit: In short, as the EU is already working on, Google and the likes that are gatekeepers, needs to be stopped or broken up.

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