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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

#211

Post by ddingus »

bogwog wrote: post #197
jonhohle wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

These types of discussions on this site are pointless. I can tell that no matter what I say, you’re going to end up moving the goal posts. Why do I know this? Because you non sarcastically are trying to say that Apple doesn’t have a monopoly. The amount of mental gymnastics is takes to frame it that way is only possible if someone cares more about defending the honor of their favorite megacorp than finding any kind o…

I think about this topic often and am also curious, but not an Apple fanboy, unless we end up talking about the 8 and 16 bit 6602, 65816 based computers. :)

The way I see it, Apple has targeted a very specific kind of customer. And these people have a few things in common:

Value privacy

Value great hardware

Willing to recognize and pay for all the ways Apple adds value: packaging, UX, etc...

And there are some more, but I feel listing more won't add value here.

I do like the Apple M1 computer I own. And I like the older 8 and 16 bit ones too. The reasons are very different with the older machines being open and hackable and the M1 being fast with crazy good battery life given the overall performance.

However, I flat out won't own an Apple phone. Too closed down, and the UX is not well aligned with how I prefer to do things.

I disagree strongly with many things Apple does and feel their products often are too restrictive.

But, I do not have to use anything they make either.

Some have argued that Apple has serious lock in on their products. Yep. Except for the computers, I agree! That is why I won't use any of their stuff.

Yet lots of people want it that way and Apple delivers it to them and asks those people to pay right up, and those people do pay up and a whole lot of those people are happy having seen good value for their dollar.

In my view, Apple gets to do that.

And nobody has to like them doing that, right?

How is any of it a monopoly?

Serious question.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#212

Post by salawat »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #201
RubyRidgeRandy wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work (partly) in SEO. One of the main issues that affects search and will get even worse in the future is the post-scarcity environment of the web when it comes to information. Say you had five websites for that each have identical cookie recipes. If you optimize search rankings by click-through rating, eventually all the sites will have similar copy, titles, and page descriptions. If you optimize for bounce rate,…

This expectation that everything can be automatically done by algoryths is the core if the problem. its like a form of insanity, it doesn't work but we keep trying. Why are top 10 results for 'apply for visa to Moldova' a scam? Is it really impossible to give government officials an ability to provide input for official business, like applying for a passport? Could you not hire like 2 people in each makor country to…

...It isn't the algorithm that's the problem. It's people invested in becoming a value extracting diversion for an answer that'll be around.

Lets take your problem. Applying for a visa for Moldova. Let's say that there's a site hosted at visa.moldova.gov with a form to apply.

Eventually, someone is going to integrate a bunch of data broker services to auto-fill that form, then data broker to other tourism related businesses trying to compete to plan your stay.

It is very much in their interest to ensure that no one sees visa.moldova.gov, but instead sees one of their onboarding funnels.

Thus the well around a well known onboarding point to a critical government service is poisoned.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#213

Post by zlg_codes »

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 a way the ads-filled product search results are better, because at least they're honestly trying to sell you the product you are searching for rather than making fake comparison sites pretending to be genuine content.

In what universe can for-profit behavior be trusted or accepted at face value as genuine? Also, maybe I'm using it Wrong™, but I don't use general search engines to look for products. I'm not shopping all the time, so why should we be advertised to all the time? I use a blocker and aggressively eradicate ads from my experiences, precisely because they are useless to me, take up valuable screen real estate and bandwidth, and are security and privacy vulnerabilities.

It wasn't so bad back when it was just a JPG and a link, but the telemetry that gets baked into it is creepy as well. For-profit Internet behavior needs to rein in its snooping if it wants to gain trust.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#214

Post by frays »

huitzitziltzin wrote: post #187

I appreciate the passion Matt Stoller brings to antitrust issues but his analyses are not good on the economics, to say the very least. I agree that some of google’s conduct is very questionable. It’s not obvious to me that paying to be the default search product is pro-competitive. On the other hand, the case that Google is going to make (and which I think is going to be really hard for the government to overcome) i…

I wonder if Google will talk about the rise of AI-powered competitors (ChatGPT, Bing, etc) as part of the search landscape to help defend their case.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#215

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

huitzitziltzin wrote: post #205
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I’m not informed or an expert here, but if it’s being given away for free, then the search itself is not the “product”. The way I understand it, Google’s monopoly is over the ad market. Stoller wrote a book on the subject which I never properly got through in its entirety, but it included a deep dive on what a monopoly is. You are correct - market share is not an anti-trust violation in it’s own. My assumption…

The DoJ is welcome to make a claim on monopolizing the ad market. The case here is about monopolizing the search market.

Isn’t the whole point that they’re tightly intertwined? You pay to advertise in the relevant search results of your customers.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#216

Post by arrosenberg »

huitzitziltzin wrote: post #187

I appreciate the passion Matt Stoller brings to antitrust issues but his analyses are not good on the economics, to say the very least. I agree that some of google’s conduct is very questionable. It’s not obvious to me that paying to be the default search product is pro-competitive. On the other hand, the case that Google is going to make (and which I think is going to be really hard for the government to overcome) i…

As the article and others are pointing out, Google achieves 'free' Search through bundling and predatory pricing, which are both anticompetitive.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#217

Post by shadowgovt »

xcdzvyn wrote: post #202
shadowgovt wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a government creating a search engine as a public service. ... Oh wait, that's actually a great idea and I want to see that happen.

I, personally, am very, _very_ glad my country doesn't oblige me to use a state-sponsored search engine. Baidu "六四事件"[0] to find out more! [0] "June Fourth incident", the Chinese name for the Tiananmen square massacre. Other banned search terms include "candle", "never forget", and the numbers 25 and 64.

I wasn't imagining one would be obliged. Merely that as a demonstrated vital good in modern society, it's something a government could, perhaps, guarantee a minimum standard on.

Ad-free tax-funded search would be kind of neat.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#218

Post by taeric »

huitzitziltzin wrote: post #187

I appreciate the passion Matt Stoller brings to antitrust issues but his analyses are not good on the economics, to say the very least. I agree that some of google’s conduct is very questionable. It’s not obvious to me that paying to be the default search product is pro-competitive. On the other hand, the case that Google is going to make (and which I think is going to be really hard for the government to overcome) i…

But is it free if it costs them billions?

That is, saying that customers /could/ switch is not necessarily relevant. There is evidence that they believe paying for the "default" billing is worth a ton of money. Not just to Apple, but to Mozilla, too.

That they could lose access to revenue streams by losing default billing is very relevant when that is also a large portion of how they are able to make that payment.

Could see it more as collusion with competition, I suppose? It isn't competing on the merits of their search, but more on their ability to afford default status. Which keeps Apple from entering search, and ostensibly keeps it more expensive for Microsoft to keep Bing.

Consider, if Apple could get more from MS to make Bing default, why wouldn't they?

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#219

Post by huitzitziltzin »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #215
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DoJ is welcome to make a claim on monopolizing the ad market. The case here is about monopolizing the search market.

Isn’t the whole point that they’re tightly intertwined? You pay to advertise in the relevant search results of your customers.

That’s not the law, so it’s irrelevant to the legal issues.

Re: The antitrust trial against Google is starting in September

#220

Post by elteto »

gottorf wrote: post #164
nicoburns wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like we ought to have progressive taxation on corporations: the larger you are, the more you get taxed. This would act as a general purpose biasing of the economy in favour of smaller companies and more competition.

What we have currently is the other way around, unfortunately: the larger you are, the more efficient it is for you to be "compliant" with various laws and regulations. The same way that a billionaire wouldn't mind paying half a million dollars to an accounting firm to optimize their taxes another 1-2%, whereas someone making $50k a year would just use the free version of TurboTax and maybe miss out on some deduction…

While I agree with you, people making $50k a year are not missing out on many deductions. Putting its parent company aside, Turbo Tax is not a bad product for simple taxes at that income level.

What they are missing out is alternative investment categories only available to those with more money, or estate planning solutions that are expensive to setup.

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