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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

#171

Post by why_only_15 »

CPLX wrote: post #161
halflings wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why isn't US govt doing this? Why isn't the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, ... doing this? Because it's a pretty strong form of controlled economy that distorts the market. How would this work for search engines? Would you force people to use a different search engine than the one they want? (e.g. they type Google.com and end up redirected to Bing.com) ; or somehow just funnel revenue to other companies... then wh…

They would just have to divest portions of their product. It’s painfully simple and we’ve done it a million times. Breaking up AT&T is probably the most obvious example. They could split up the search and ads business and maps and Google local search and so on. It would be fine. We’d be fine. Also if you work at Google can you tell us if anyone has noticed that the supposedly “equal/superior service” has degraded so…

Except previously the big breakups (AT&T, Standard Oil) were location-based, which doesn't really make sense for Google. Why do you think splitting of maps and display ads would matter for Google's market share in search?

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#172

Post by jonhohle »

bogwog wrote: post #142
vlovich123 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so much because then, for example, you become Qualcomm and have 50 different customers all asking for different things from your chips and you reach a local optimum where you solve everyone’s issue a little bit but don’t actually do a good job. There’s a reason that Apple’s chips are so much better in terms of performance and energy efficiency. Similarly, it’s why Apple did the W1 first and it took a very long ti…

Apple made better chips than Qualcomm because Qualcomm is a monopolist, and thus doesn’t need to actually compete. The moment a competitor sprung up, they got their ass kicked. Yes, no other company but Apple could have pulled that off, but that’s only because Apple themselves are a monopolist with the market power to fight another monopolist. That’s not a good thing. The solution to monopolies isn’t more monopolies.…

I ask this every time it comes up, but what exactly does Apple have a monopoly in? They don’t control majority of anything in any category that they participate in. They are a major purchaser of high end fab processes, but that doesn’t allow them to control PC, phone, steaming, messaging, audio, home integration, or any other market.

They are one of the most vertically integrated large companies, but they are allowed to monopolize their own products. There is no iPhone market - that’s a product within a huge market of other mobile devices that anyone can join.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#173

Post by barnabee »

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)

I realise its not how current laws work, but I think the threshold for any large/mature market for anti-trust should be more like 33% than near 100%.

There's no need for companies supplying a product en masse to be anywhere near that large.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#174

Post by eitland »

jonex wrote: post #149
lolinder wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi stands to me as proof that search can be better if it isn't run by an ad company. Kagi deliberately downranks sites that are loaded with ads and trackers, and the quality of their results is much higher, with much less SEO blogspam. Unsurprisingly, having a high concentration of ads and trackers is highly correlated with having content that is intended to maximize views rather than provide utility. Google has a…

If Kagi were as popular as Google, you'd quickly see pages appear "without ads", that looks suspiciously like what an ad would say. The problem is SEO, and it affects the mainstream search engine because that's what's worth optimising for. For instance, Google product search results would likely be greatly improved by always showing relevant reddit posts first. But this would last a very short amount of time until re…

In addition to what lolinder writes Kagi already gives me what we have askes for from Google for a decade or two: a way for us to punish creative SEO artists by individually downranking or outright block them.

If they start popping up in Kagis result they will bother me at most two or three times before I hit the downrank or block button and they are gone.

Why Google hasn't managed to create something similar during the last two decades I leave as an exercise for the reader.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#175

Post by highwaylights »

shadowgovt wrote: post #159
dudus wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry you also spent your allotted time on Hacker News and Stack Overflow. Please ask about VPNs on Quora until the end of the month.

You say that like there isn't a big old demographic on this site who has been rate limited in how often they're allowed to post. ;)

Name… checks out?

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#176

Post by stale2002 »

GeekyBear wrote: post #168
satvikpendem wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the whataboutism? They both have flaws. By iMessage blocking, you surely knew that I didn't mean just interoperability via SMS. If Apple adopted RCS or some other such standard, Android users and iPhone users could talk without having a degraded experience on either side. Apple executives literally admitted that not expanding iMessage ensured that people would continue to buy iPhones: > app.)...In the absence of…

> By iMessage blocking, you surely knew that I didn't mean just interoperability via SMS It's not blocking at all, when you explicitly support interoperation. The only example that can obviously be called "blocking" is when Google used it's internet video monopoly as a weapon against Microsoft's competing smart phone platform. Refusing to allow anyone to produce a Youtube app for Windows Phone isn't even in the same…

Since it seems like you are not aware, you should know that the functionality available for iMessage is different on other platforms.

That may be causing your confusing here. You weren't aware of the functionality difference that Apple prevents other platforms from using with their design choices.

I'd recommend that you research which functionality is prevented on other platforms, since you didn't seem to know about it.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#177

Post by eitland »

mertd wrote: post #143
siliconc0w wrote: post #54

It's hard to tell if it's Google's dominance causing search to suck or just the web ecosystem naturally optimizing for clicks. I will say most queries with even vaguely commercial intent do seem to get the max or nearly a full page of sponsored links. I don't recall what it was like years ago but I'm pretty sure it is worse. I also think it's pretty clear the platform take-rate needs to be generally lowered across th…

The old Internet is dead. There used to be people building web pages just because they are passionate about something. Now any imaginable niche subject is drowned by a deluge of blogspam articles. Interesting people moved behind walled gardens because who is going to bother building a webpage when you can just post a pic or 140 characters on a whim and move on with life.

Please try search.marginalia.nu or even Kagi.

I was about to give up but these to have given me hope that search isn't unsolvable.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#178

Post by lordnacho »

CPLX wrote: post #161
halflings wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why isn't US govt doing this? Why isn't the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, ... doing this? Because it's a pretty strong form of controlled economy that distorts the market. How would this work for search engines? Would you force people to use a different search engine than the one they want? (e.g. they type Google.com and end up redirected to Bing.com) ; or somehow just funnel revenue to other companies... then wh…

They would just have to divest portions of their product. It’s painfully simple and we’ve done it a million times. Breaking up AT&T is probably the most obvious example. They could split up the search and ads business and maps and Google local search and so on. It would be fine. We’d be fine. Also if you work at Google can you tell us if anyone has noticed that the supposedly “equal/superior service” has degraded so…

Done it a million times? How often does this happen? AT&T was decades ago, though I suppose you are referring to less well known actions since then?

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#179

Post by _8j50 »

Aurornis wrote: post #146
prakhar897 wrote: post #130

The Indian govt imposed restrictions that a payment provider in India can fulfill max 30% of the total volume of transactions in an year [1]. After that, they have to restrict themselves. This completely avoids monopoly and concentration risks. This can be done for search as well which makes sure at least 4 players stay in the market at all times. Why isn't US govt doing this? 1. https://www.indiatimes.com/worth/news…

> Why isn't US govt doing this? Because it would be incredibly unpopular, for one. Can you imagine being in the middle of some work, Googling a term, only to be hit with "Sorry, we're over the government limit and can't fulfill your search" Hacker News and Stack Overflow would be full of people trading tips about using VPNs to evade the limits. People don't actually like having the government restrict them from using…

You and others replying to GP keep suggesting google users who are the product not the actual customee would be restricted when in fact it would be the real customers: people wanting to place ads on google that would be restricted. The amount of clicks google can monetize would be restricted.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#180

Post by skinkestek »

tomComb wrote: post #14
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)

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.

Google is bigger than that:

IMO Chrome needs to be split out too as does Android.

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