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Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

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Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#111

Post by lotsofpulp »

brookst wrote: post #86
timmg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has been nothing in my life so disillusioning as working on a Web app for a company that is more or less required to play Google's game. Have you built any iOS apps?

While true and a fair point, iOS is Apple’s platform in a way that the web is most certainly not Google’s.

I hardly use Google, and I use the internet.

DDG/Kagi/ChatGPT/Reddit/HN/etc for searching. Fastmail/myriad order email providers. Openstreetmap/Apple for maps.

YouTube and Chrome Remote Desktop are what I use Google for, but those have alternatives too.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#112

Post by vel0city »

newsclues wrote: post #61
vel0city wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't even own a phone under Ma Bell. Meanwhile just about every product Google has I can use someone else.

Ma Bell didn’t have the power to cut off advertising revenue to YouTubers who say things the company does like, nor the power to shape the global access to information with search, nor did they scan people’s communications

Ma Bell had the power to make it so you couldn't talk on a wire, at all. They owned all the wires. They owned all the phones.

But sure, being de-monetized on a website, that's way worse.

And yes, Ma Bell had the ability to listen in to every conversation had on a wire. Not just some, all. Meanwhile most conversations I have on the internet don't involve Google in the slightest.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#113

Post by tourmalinetaco »

treyd wrote: post #83

I really hope that some portions are turned into public institutions (either directly or in the weird way organizations like USPS is) in some way. They've made themselves so deeply ingrained and essential to using the internet as loss leaders in some areas that it's impossible to imagine those services standing on their own and still making sense. That's what's responsible for their monopolization, and natural monopo…

YouTube should be the main platform the government should form into a public institution. Not only due to its historical and cultural significance, but also due to the fact that it is (almost assuredly) unprofitable and thus at-risk.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#114

Post by lenerdenator »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #99
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google's "search results" are the textbook definition of a monopolized good/service. Defining a market as a specific search engine's search results is wild. Wouldn't every search engine have a monopoly over it's results? A grocery store monopoly over its shelves? Etc.

When you are the only grocery store for 500mi yes you functionally have a “monopoly over your shelves.”

There's Bing and DDG (aka "Bing without tracking").

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#116

Post by AnimalMuppet »

retskrad wrote: post #4

1. Forbid Google from paying Apple and Android OEM’s to be the default search engine. Also, detach Google search from Android and forbid Google from forcing it to be included on every Android phone. 2. Give Google search competitors access to Google’s search data so these new AI search engine companies can compete. Without these huge amounts of data, they have no chance. Done!

The way monopoly law works in the US, it's not illegal to have a monopoly. It's illegal to try to leverage your monopoly to acquire a monopoly on a different line of business. For example, it was found to be illegal for Microsoft to use the Windows monopoly to try to acquire a monopoly on web browsers.

This is kind of going the other way. Google had a monopoly on search (arguably - Bing would like a word). All these other actions are to keep that from being eroded. They didn't do Chrome because they wanted to own the browser market, they did Chrome because they wanted browsers to not be owned by somebody else who could make the default search engine be not-Google. That's entering other businesses to protect your main one. IANAL, but that may not be against antitrust law. It's at least not the main thrust of antitrust law.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#117

Post by oneplane »

bluGill wrote: post #49
fny wrote: post #31

I'm very curious to see what a breakup looks like. Past breakups involved "uniform" businesses: - American Tobacco: Commodity - Standard Oil: Commodity - AT&T: Utility - Northern Securities: Railroads - Swift & Co: Meatpacking - Kodak: Film - Paramount: Movie Theaters Google is more of a synergistic conglomerate. How would spinning off an individual business like Chrome, Android, or AdWords reduce their respective do…

If they break up the ad business it could be helpful. Otherwise search and youtube are like you say synergistic and there is no obvious way to break them up.

Keep in mind that without the Ad business, most of Google's products cannot exist. Search gets paid by Ads, same with YouTube. Most of the free product are just Ad delivery platforms, and they are all pretty much on the verge of losing money as-is. The Ad business itself has margin enough to cover that, and without a set of outlets like those services, it wouldn't be able to exist.

Vimeo has tried a different approach, but it's hardly in the same league as YouTube.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#118

Post by abirch »

jonhohle wrote: post #87
abirch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is this is going to be benefit Microsoft significantly. Much of what Google did Chrome, Android, etc. was to prevent Microsoft from destroying it like Netscape, Novell, Lotus, Wordperfect, ... It's probably no coincidence that Google's first external CEO Eric Schmidt was the CEO of Novell.

By the time Chrome was released, Google was already a behemoth. I can’t think of another .com that was anywhere near their size. Microsoft was only 2x bigger by market cap. They were hardly a small company that Microsoft could push around and had the advantage of not being dependent on anything MS was doing.

Google came out with Chrome in 2008. Prior to that they were dependent on the Mozilla Foundation.

Microsoft came out with Bing in 2009. Some say that Bing is "Bing is not google" Much like Windows NT was rumored to be Novell Terminator.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#119

Post by cma »

jonhohle wrote: post #87
abirch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is this is going to be benefit Microsoft significantly. Much of what Google did Chrome, Android, etc. was to prevent Microsoft from destroying it like Netscape, Novell, Lotus, Wordperfect, ... It's probably no coincidence that Google's first external CEO Eric Schmidt was the CEO of Novell.

By the time Chrome was released, Google was already a behemoth. I can’t think of another .com that was anywhere near their size. Microsoft was only 2x bigger by market cap. They were hardly a small company that Microsoft could push around and had the advantage of not being dependent on anything MS was doing.

Google toolbar came first. Slipped in a Google search box on everyone's browser in exchange for blocking Google's competitors' popup ads (Google didn't use popup ads).

Now Google does invasive popovers within the page, etc., and this time with them in charge of the browser they are ahout to implement a plan to block extension makers from stopping it well.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#120

Post by account42 »

jsheard wrote: post #63
criddell wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the potential remedies is to require Google to open source their crawling data. This should make it easier for others who want to build a competing search engine.

Surely the crawling is the easiest part? The AI goldrush has seen dozens of new players gobbling up the entire internet. The hard part is turning that staggering amount of unstructured data into a useful search engine, and in particular fighting off black-hat SEO.

> Surely the crawling is the easiest part? The AI goldrush has seen dozens of new players gobbling up the entire internet.

The AI goldrush also has sites scrambling to block any crawlers other than a short list of approved search engines. Even before this mess Googlebot running on Google IPs often received special treatment.

Search itself is still a hard problem but one that can be solved independently. Crawling on the other hand requires websites to cooperate and due to Google's size enough won't care to bother with anyone else.

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