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An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

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Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#41

Post by xmprt »

flyinglizard wrote: post #33
mrweasel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Microsoft, where at least some of the business units could do pretty well on their own, if the company was broken up, I doubt the same would be true for Google. Other than search and ads, I doubt other part would do particular well. Breaking up Google would result in a lot of people losing their job. I’m not arguing that you’re wrong in the idea of breaking up Google, but I doubt it will happen.

I can see at least five entirely separate units with very little synergy: 1. Search + Maps 2. GSuite + Gmail 3. GCP 4. YouTube 5. Android + Chrome Each can probably support its own P&L sheet, other than perhaps the last (not sure about that one). Such a move would surely limit innovation (I can’t see these smaller entities doing things like mobile ASIC development, although if TPU is under Search it would continue),…

I think Chrome being the largest browser provider could make big profits from partnering with other search providers to make one the default search engine.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#42

Post by flyinglizard »

capableweb wrote: post #37
flyinglizard wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see at least five entirely separate units with very little synergy: 1. Search + Maps 2. GSuite + Gmail 3. GCP 4. YouTube 5. Android + Chrome Each can probably support its own P&L sheet, other than perhaps the last (not sure about that one). Such a move would surely limit innovation (I can’t see these smaller entities doing things like mobile ASIC development, although if TPU is under Search it would continue),…

> Such a move would surely limit innovation [...] but increase competition Wouldn't increasing competition also increase innovation as more companies can actually enter the market with new ideas? Sure, the innovation at Google itself might go down, but that should hardly be an argument against solving their anti-competitive behavior.

There are some things requiring capital investment at a scale that wouldn’t be feasible for a company outside the 100bn market cap club. Data centers, intercontinental data links, high end VLSI development, high end smartphone hardware and things like Waymo all come to mind. It’s more than cash alone, it’s low cost nature of their mistakes (because everything is paid for by Search anyway) that enables that.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#43

Post by heisenbit »

colordrops wrote: post #34

I just can't get worked up over this. Advertising is at best amoral, and inherently a shady activity. I've always assumed that advertising is a cut throat industry full of sharks. This doesn't really come as a surprise that google, the king of advertising, would partake in cutthroat activities in a cutthroat industry full of sharks to dominate and extract maximum value. So they acted like sociopaths among a society o…

In a world where R&D is now often dwarfed by ad spend it is really a threat to progress.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#44

Post by willvarfar »

willvarfar wrote: post #5

I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…

Answering my own question,

What about the timescales and starbursts and small tech startups that we like to see crop up on HN?

My list above is tainted by my own interest in data; what is there in other spaces?

Impressions and anecdotes?

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#45

Post by mrweasel »

flyinglizard wrote: post #33
mrweasel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Microsoft, where at least some of the business units could do pretty well on their own, if the company was broken up, I doubt the same would be true for Google. Other than search and ads, I doubt other part would do particular well. Breaking up Google would result in a lot of people losing their job. I’m not arguing that you’re wrong in the idea of breaking up Google, but I doubt it will happen.

I can see at least five entirely separate units with very little synergy: 1. Search + Maps 2. GSuite + Gmail 3. GCP 4. YouTube 5. Android + Chrome Each can probably support its own P&L sheet, other than perhaps the last (not sure about that one). Such a move would surely limit innovation (I can’t see these smaller entities doing things like mobile ASIC development, although if TPU is under Search it would continue),…

The only two of those I’m pretty sure could survive on their own is search and YouTube.

Android and Chrome pretty much doesn’t have a business case. GCP might be big enough at this point, but is still just burning ad money. GSuite/GMail is again a maybe, but can it afford the infratructure? They would at least have to cribble the free tier.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#46

Post by nosianu »

rawoke083600 wrote: post #26
polytely wrote: post #10

Google seriously needs to be broken up into small pieces or disolved entirely. Their leadership just cannot be be trusted and the internet would be better off without them around.

Can we trust the leadership of "smaller versions" of Google ?

The point is that we won't need to nearly as much because they don't have that overwhelming power.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#47

Post by 7952 »

flyinglizard wrote: post #33
mrweasel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Microsoft, where at least some of the business units could do pretty well on their own, if the company was broken up, I doubt the same would be true for Google. Other than search and ads, I doubt other part would do particular well. Breaking up Google would result in a lot of people losing their job. I’m not arguing that you’re wrong in the idea of breaking up Google, but I doubt it will happen.

I can see at least five entirely separate units with very little synergy: 1. Search + Maps 2. GSuite + Gmail 3. GCP 4. YouTube 5. Android + Chrome Each can probably support its own P&L sheet, other than perhaps the last (not sure about that one). Such a move would surely limit innovation (I can’t see these smaller entities doing things like mobile ASIC development, although if TPU is under Search it would continue),…

That broadly equates to...

1. Ads

2. Corporate

3. Cloud infrastructure

4. Ads

5. Retail app sales and hardware.

Maybe things get messy when those different models are mixed.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#48

Post by danbmil99 »

willvarfar wrote: post #5

I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…

A startup, perhaps?

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#49

Post by [deleted] »

bserge wrote: post #29
bawolff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you know you could just undubscribe from those. Its not like major tech companies are ignoring unsubscribe requests.

Yeah, so every unsubscribe link I tried led to a page that's convoluted (likely on purpose, like GDPR cookies) and it was hard to actually unsubscribe. That was quite a while ago tbf. Since then, I just mark everything as spam. I just tried to unsubscribe from Twitter and... I need to login to my account. That I never used. To unsubscribe to spam I never signed up for (Twitter did not send these kinds of "come back"…

[deleted]

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#50

Post by darkwater »

mrweasel wrote: post #45
flyinglizard wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see at least five entirely separate units with very little synergy: 1. Search + Maps 2. GSuite + Gmail 3. GCP 4. YouTube 5. Android + Chrome Each can probably support its own P&L sheet, other than perhaps the last (not sure about that one). Such a move would surely limit innovation (I can’t see these smaller entities doing things like mobile ASIC development, although if TPU is under Search it would continue),…

The only two of those I’m pretty sure could survive on their own is search and YouTube. Android and Chrome pretty much doesn’t have a business case. GCP might be big enough at this point, but is still just burning ad money. GSuite/GMail is again a maybe, but can it afford the infratructure? They would at least have to cribble the free tier.

> Android and Chrome pretty much doesn’t have a business case.

The 30% fee on everything Play Store seems a good enough business case to me.

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