An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion • Hacker News Board

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#261

Post by jeffbee » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

throwaway29303 wrote: post #253

jeffbee wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, God forbid anyone would profit from faster software!

There's no problem with profiting from (faster) software. However, there's clearly a HUGE problem profiting from monopolizing the market the way Google is doing. Moreover, it shows that Google's motives were clearly never about the end user but their ad exchange instead. Two birds, one stone. (But leave out the ugly and shameful details to the public until now.)

You think an open standard TCP congestion control algorithm is part of a big conspiracy? Listen to yourself.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#262

Post by darkwater » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

emn13 wrote: post #83

darkwater wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But it's also fragile; that fee might not turn out to be sustainable.

How come? Also they already have a dominant position, producer licensing can go a long way. Nobody is gonna make Android suddenly irrelevant in the next 10 years.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#263

Post by dralley » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #118

tdeck wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always being this up and I think they're right to be skeptical, but the Google office I worked in (SF) was practically dead before 10 AM and after 7 PM. I never saw much evidence that any sizable group was working extra long hours. Some people hung around for dinner at 6:30 but most left before or right after grabbing food. I didn't spend enough time in Mountain View to form an informed opinion but there was d…

People made this up because everyone needed a reason to put down the Google engineers who were suddenly getting better salaries and perks than the rest of the industry at the time. There was never any truth to the whole "employees stay at work all the time". Google has consistently had fantastic work life balance, as do most other similar large companies. It's the mid-tier ones that are sweatshops.

Of course, it helps that Google is, if these documents are accurate, literally stealing from basically everyone else (what company doesn't use Google adsense / AdWords)

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#264

Post by angelzen » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #149

heavyset_go wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Google from 12 to 16 years ago was found guilty[1] in an antitrust suit of colluding with other industry leaders to keep tech employee compensation artificially low. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Wasn't that the beginning of the end of FAANG's reputation? Having your company put billions into the bank every year because they "don't know what to do with it" while you're not even a millionaire is disheartening. I mean, if they were still paying us all handsomely like stock brokers then I bet popular opinion would be on their side.

We'll soon all be millionaires, nothing to worry about.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#265

Post by mrhands556 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:13 PM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #178

throwaway6734 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I mean, if they were still paying us all handsomely like stock brokers then I bet popular opinion would be on their side. Aren't FAANG salaries still absurd?

Faang salaries are pretty good when you are starting out, but they level of pretty quickly. After say twenty years, my friends on Wall Street are mysteriously richer than I am. Of course the ones who didn’t survive the early treadmill aren’t included, but I guess that’s the trade off. Engineering is fairly stable and well paying, but you don’t get million dollar payouts unless you are a founder.

20 years working at FAANG your equity should be outrageous compared to other industry SWE.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#266

Post by mrhands556 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #147

falcor84 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite get why capitalism would reward sociopathy more than any other system in history

To a Capitalist, the only possible deal is a profitable one. However, to be profitable, the arangement between participants has to be unfair. It is only through an unfair exchange of goods and services is a profit produced. So it imperative the other parties believe they are getting a fair deal, otherwise they would not participate. So, it is unmentioned while required that the Capitalist control the information of t…

I pay an electrician a slight premium for knowledge and experience that won’t burn my house down. Sure, I could look it up on YouTube but the probability that I do something wrong probably outweighs the premium I would pay for a qualified electrician.

How is this unfair?

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#267

Post by nemothekid » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #231

If the margins are so high for an ad exchange (~20%), I don't understand why nobody opens a new independent one. Sure, such a thing is hard to get off the ground, but if you have VC backing or contacts with a few classical media sites and industry associations, it seems definitely possible. Also, I don't think the advantages of targeted advertising and ad auctions are as big as people think. Maybe people should start…

I looked into this a long time ago and here’s what I realized.

1. You need to be really well capitalized. AdOps engineers work for the most lucrative business model in these companies and you need large scale to convince publishers to integrate with you. While you are building this out you are burning money so you need to convince VCs to pour millions to fight the darlings of SVs.

2. The publishers don’t have any choice and are already struggling. Not many of them are going to take a chance integrating a new platform that might make them less money so you need to have sellers ready to go. Ultimately it’s in Googles best interest that publishers struggle because it prevents them from experimenting with other exchanges.

3. Sellers are largely unsophisticated. They might have a hunch that GOOG/FB might be bordering on useless but nobody has been fired for spending 10MM on Facebook ads. Trying to get a piece of that spend so you have something to give publishers leads to a chicken and egg problem.

Ultimately, GOOG has a massive moat that lets them protect that 20%

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#268

Post by dls2016 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #28

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…

The Google from 12 to 16 years ago was found guilty[1] in an antitrust suit of colluding with other industry leaders to keep tech employee compensation artificially low. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Also they were giving employees haircuts. Having been in the military and watched enough documentaries on the subject… any group that gives you a haircut is probably a cult.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#269

Post by nemothekid » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #225

p2t2p wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, look at me. I’m an immigrant. My wife’s useful skills would probably give her salary of about 5th of what we need, so she doesn’t work and takes care of the kid, house and engages in her hobbies, like making custom teddy bears. If I were put on a project like that I can easily imagine being quiet about it as I put well being of my family waaaay above any ethics. I can imagine that a lot of people do. So the onl…

above any ethics? You'd kill someone to support your family? Surely not. So there's somewhere you draw the line, you just don't think what Google's doing is that bad.

>You'd kill someone to support your family? Surely not.

I mean, this is America we are talking about. There are thousands if not millions of people who have done the calculus and decided to build systems that kill people overseas everyday

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#270

Post by twobitshifter » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

hcurtiss wrote: post #228

twobitshifter wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits is a myth. It’s something that businesses hide their unethical behavior behind, but there’s no law that requires it according to the US Supreme Court. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

True, but there definitely is a fiduciary duty, and shareholder derivative lawsuits for breach of that duty are definitely a thing. They are usually substantiated by irresponsible decisions producing low returns. The analysis is complicated, but in the end, the more poorly the company you are managing performs due to your deliberate decisions, the more likely you are to elicit a shareholder derivative suit. Generally…

The shareholder lawsuits will go nowhere according to the business judgment rule, unless the board is engaged in illegal behavior. If Google chose not to collude with Facebook or lie to their customers about providing the best price, shareholders would have no cause to sue.

Now that this has come to light, they may be more likely to sue if it’s deemed that information about project Jedi was withheld from shareholder reports and that information was important to understanding Google’s returns in banner ad auctions.