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The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

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Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#11

Post by andsoitis »

prepend wrote: post #7
andsoitis wrote: post #6

> controlling much of our communications Google doesn't control my communication with others.

Google controls mine as search and gmail and chrome are major ways that I communicate with others. It’s difficult not to use them because my employer and many sites require chrome. I’m not sure what the gmail market share is, but chrome and search are over 50% and they’ve used that market position to harm users (showing ads for their own products until you choose chrome) and harm competitors (showing their own ads ab…

Can you communicate anything you want or does Google control what you're able to say (i.e. "control your communications")

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#12

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jitl wrote: post #3
account-5 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is won and followed by similar for all other tech monopolies: Amazon, apple, meta, Microsoft, etc.

Google has 95% of search market, but none of the other examples have 95% of anything. What are Amazon, Apple, Microsoft’s monopolies? They all have substantial competitors across their various verticals. Amazon: Walmart (goods), Netflix (media) Microsoft: Apple (OS), Google, Amazon (enterprise compute) Apple: Microsoft (O, services), Samsung (mobile), Google (mobile, services), Netflix (media)

Platforms are ecosystems with a monopoly intentionally created by copyright. But the copyright monopoly is supposed to be for the copyrighted work. You shouldn't be able to anti-competitively leverage it into a monopoly over everything else it touches, from hardware to app distribution to services.

And there is no inherent reason it has to be that way. Microsoft doesn't have any kind of a monopoly on app distribution for Windows, for example. POSIX applications aren't tied to any specific vendor's proprietary Unix. You don't have to run Windows on most PCs even if that's what it comes with, and the same has been true of many Macs, but not iPhones.

Taking a monopoly you have legitimately and leveraging it into control over some other market is called tying.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#13

Post by prepend »

p_j_w wrote: post #8
jitl wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has 95% of search market, but none of the other examples have 95% of anything. What are Amazon, Apple, Microsoft’s monopolies? They all have substantial competitors across their various verticals. Amazon: Walmart (goods), Netflix (media) Microsoft: Apple (OS), Google, Amazon (enterprise compute) Apple: Microsoft (O, services), Samsung (mobile), Google (mobile, services), Netflix (media)

Microsoft has over 90% of the desktop OS and Office software markets. It’s impossible to come up with a reasonable definition of monopoly that doesn’t include them in those markets.

They don’t have 90% [0]. They have about 70% of just desktop, but there’s lots of competition with devices since desktops have replacements with tablets and phones and other devices.

Also, as the 90s Microsoft case showed, just having a monopoly isn’t bad. It’s the harm caused by having the monopoly. Back in the 90s, Microsoft was found to harm other browsers.

[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#14

Post by tomComb »

jitl wrote: post #3
account-5 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is won and followed by similar for all other tech monopolies: Amazon, apple, meta, Microsoft, etc.

Google has 95% of search market, but none of the other examples have 95% of anything. What are Amazon, Apple, Microsoft’s monopolies? They all have substantial competitors across their various verticals. Amazon: Walmart (goods), Netflix (media) Microsoft: Apple (OS), Google, Amazon (enterprise compute) Apple: Microsoft (O, services), Samsung (mobile), Google (mobile, services), Netflix (media)

Google’s search monopoly is the easiest to escape: the moment I decide Bing or chatGPT are better I can switch with ease. And chatGPT is already replacing many Google searches.

So, it will take care of itself, and I think there are many other competition issues that need government intervention.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#15

Post by prepend »

andsoitis wrote: post #11
prepend wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google controls mine as search and gmail and chrome are major ways that I communicate with others. It’s difficult not to use them because my employer and many sites require chrome. I’m not sure what the gmail market share is, but chrome and search are over 50% and they’ve used that market position to harm users (showing ads for their own products until you choose chrome) and harm competitors (showing their own ads ab…

Can you communicate anything you want or does Google control what you're able to say (i.e. "control your communications")

There’s different levels of control. I think control means affect how I communicate.

I can’t communicate anything I want as chrome blocks certain apps from installing. And gmail blocks some communication. And search filters results from what I want to find. Etc etc.

So yes, google controls what I’m able to say.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#16

Post by dantheman »

prepend wrote: post #7
andsoitis wrote: post #6

> controlling much of our communications Google doesn't control my communication with others.

Google controls mine as search and gmail and chrome are major ways that I communicate with others. It’s difficult not to use them because my employer and many sites require chrome. I’m not sure what the gmail market share is, but chrome and search are over 50% and they’ve used that market position to harm users (showing ads for their own products until you choose chrome) and harm competitors (showing their own ads ab…

It's hard to say google controls your communication.

You: 1. Voluntary use their services 2. There are lots of alternatives 3. The switching cost is minimal

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#17

Post by dantheman »

prepend wrote: post #9
charcircuit wrote: post #5

>Google has maintained this monopoly, the government alleges, not by making a better product, but by locking down everywhere that consumers might be able to find a different search engine option, and making sure they only see Google. Google improves search every year. Internally they have data to back this up. Google doesn't lock down everywhere consumers can learn about a new browser. The most notable being the defa…

> Google improves search every year. I don’t believe this based on my own search experience getting worse year over year. I believe they know how to improve it, but they choose to increase revenue instead. Results seem to be less relevant to me and there are frequently more ad results than organic that display on the page. I think they are able to do this because of lock in with users and vendors. If there was more c…

I think you don't understand how much worse the internet has gotten - there are a large amount of bad actors actively trying to make google worse (junk content, etc) - Even just providing the same level of quality results with decreasing quality source data is an improvement.

If it was easy to extract better results there would be competition with better results.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#19

Post by CoastalCoder »

prepend wrote: post #9
charcircuit wrote: post #5

>Google has maintained this monopoly, the government alleges, not by making a better product, but by locking down everywhere that consumers might be able to find a different search engine option, and making sure they only see Google. Google improves search every year. Internally they have data to back this up. Google doesn't lock down everywhere consumers can learn about a new browser. The most notable being the defa…

> Google improves search every year. I don’t believe this based on my own search experience getting worse year over year. I believe they know how to improve it, but they choose to increase revenue instead. Results seem to be less relevant to me and there are frequently more ad results than organic that display on the page. I think they are able to do this because of lock in with users and vendors. If there was more c…

Perhaps you and Google have different definitions of quality.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#20

Post by lucasfcosta »

I think one argument that’s missing from the article is how that impacts foreign policies.

What about competing with foreign giants, for example? China probably won’t break up their large companies, and, in a global market, those can then use their outsized economic power to impose themselves against the counterparts elsewhere.

I’m not saying that will necessarily happen, just mentioning an argument I’ve heard quite often.

I think the intention here is good, it’s just the side effects that are dangerous if not handled cautiously.

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