US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#161

Post by jsheard » Sat, May 10, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

ayewo wrote: post #144

xyzzy9563 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many other search engine options, why should Google be punished for hiring the best people over decades to make the best one? Many consumers also switch their search to Google when presented with other options or defaults.

> There are many other search engine options, why should Google be punished for hiring the best people over decades to make the best one? I’m guessing this whole court case wouldn’t have been a thing if Google wasn’t bribing Apple, to the tune of $20 billion a year [1], to remain the default search engine on iOS. 1: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/apple-may-add-ai-search-...

Or more recently beginning to throw money at websites to lock out their competitors, which is why Bing and co can't index Reddit anymore.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#162

Post by felineflock » Sat, May 10, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

beambot wrote: post #141

This feels a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face... Unlike Microsoft's antitrust case of the 90s, Google seems much less anti-competitive by nature. Sure, they have unprecedented scale in search... but even that hegemony is being threatened by others in AI. If anything, going after Google with a DoJ kludgel will cause a servere freeze on startup M&A across all of FAANG. With IPO windows (mostly) closed,…

YC should benefit most from an ecosystem where distribution channels (search, ads, etc) are not monopolized.

Startups ideally should compete on merit, not on whether they are eventually allowed access to Google’s platforms or get acquired. Startups can still exit via IPO, PE acquisition, cross-industry buyers or M&A.

From this POV, Google’s control over the adtech stack may be seen as gatekeeping digital advertising, which many YC companies rely on.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#163

Post by throwanem » Sat, May 10, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #147

throwanem wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People act in furtherance of their interests, yes. Was there more you had meant to say?

"People act in furtherance of their interests, yes" [by invoking the power of the State]. There, FTFY. It was implied, was it not? Perhaps that is what should happen here, but let's not quibble about it.

"Invoking the power of the state?" Good heavens, they've only filed an amicus brief. "Begging the presently authorized tenant of a precisely defined and circumscribed aliquot of the delegated power of the state" would be a more accurate way to put it. I appreciate that's not as florid, nor as floridly serviceable to anyone else's interest in pursuing this conversation. As I said before, though...

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#164

Post by KHRZ » Sat, May 10, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

drivebyhooting wrote: post #125

lolinder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which market are you talking about specifically? The outstanding cases against them are in search and in adtech. This amicus brief is for the Search case (this one [0]). In search (the relevant market here), Microsoft does compete in the marketplace, and Microsoft's evidence that Google's anticompetitive practices have prevented them from gaining any meaningful ground in search were a keystone of the government's cas…

Bing has a brand problem.

You have been a bad user. Bing has been a good Bing.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#165

Post by wslh » Sat, May 10, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

ViktorRay wrote: post #153

bloppe wrote: post #31

Google is the reason for the current AI boom. Without the transformer architecture they invented by funding basic research, there would be no modern LLMs. YC is arguing that their incentive for funding that basic research should be taken away in order to spur innovation?

But when AT&T had a monopoly it funded Bell Labs which was responsible for much innovation. Then AT&T was shut down and Bell Labs went away. If we take your argument seriously then AT&T shouldn’t have been dismantled. But it was a good thing AT&T was dismantled. It helped lead to the modern internet. By your logic all Rockefeller had to do in the early 20th century was set up a lab to do basic research and then Stand…

Right, if you look back through the history of ideas, every breakthrough builds on prior research and inventions. In the realm of patents and copyrights, this is acknowledged formally: they expire after a certain time and enter the public domain. This also supports the view that the current state of the world, for better or worse, owes much to the past and those who came before (living or not living elements).

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#166

Post by jeffbee » Sat, May 10, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

bionhoward wrote: post #154

azemetre wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really odd that the trillionaire dollar corporation that prints billions of dollars in pure profit every quarter due to monopolistic and anti-democratic policies is the David, the weak feeble underdog in this story, compared to OpenAI that is wildly unprofitable and has no real strategy outside of burning money. There has been no time in human history where destroying monopolies were a bad thing.

Isn’t Microsoft also a trillion dollar corporation? If we add their 39% market share in foundation models (likely due to enterprise use of Azure OpenAI Service) to OpenAI’s 9% market share, the result is around 48% market share, compared to Google’s 15%, which is less than half of the MSFT/OAI pair…not to mention a cursory comparison of Gemini vs ChatGPT apps. Just because OpenAI isn’t in “extraction mode” yet doesn’…

Yes, Microsoft is one of the world's biggest companies, and it underinvests in research and development, preferring to hoard cash. OpenAI is in effect a client state of Microsoft that Microsoft is using to make Google look flat-footed and force them to enter the chatbot market. Nothing that transpires between Microsoft and OpenAI is really at arms' length. Personally, I don't think this is a positive development for the industry or for humanity in generally. We were doing better before we had sycophantic robots confidently misleading us.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#167

Post by constantcrying » Sat, May 10, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

bloppe wrote: post #31

Google is the reason for the current AI boom. Without the transformer architecture they invented by funding basic research, there would be no modern LLMs. YC is arguing that their incentive for funding that basic research should be taken away in order to spur innovation?

Yes, large monopolistic corporations can spend large amounts of money on, presumably, completely unmonetizable research.

Nevertheless anti-Trust law exists because of the belief that monopolies should not exist and that it is the governments function to dismantle monopolies. The consequence of that is that corporations who can freely spend hundreds of millions on basic research will be dismantled as well, as happened with AT&T, and the funding for the basic research will cease.

>YC is arguing that their incentive for funding that basic research should be taken away in order to spur innovation?

No. That is the stance of the government. YC is arguing that the remedies the government is seeking are appropriate.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#168

Post by snielson » Sat, May 10, 2025, 4:05 PM UTC

The solution proposed by Kagi—separate the search index from the rest of Google—seems to make the most sense. Kagi explains it more here: https://blog.kagi.com/dawn-new-era-search

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#169

Post by BobbyJo » Sat, May 10, 2025, 4:06 PM UTC

redczar wrote: post #146

Workaccount2 wrote: post #76

Meanwhile, YC has happily and excitedly fed it's start-ups to Google over the years. So pretty much "We don't want google to develop new things, we want them to have buy those from us"

Can YC prevent startups from selling to Google? Even if they could why should they? There is nothing wrong with believing Google abuses its monopoly and selling to Google.

They could almost certainly prevent it in most cases, and they likely promote it in some.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#170

Post by nicce » Sat, May 10, 2025, 4:06 PM UTC

jeremyjh wrote: post #133

bionhoward wrote: post #100

Google is David and OpenAI is Goliath, excessively nerfing Google will put us all at the mercy of closed AI. Gemini (the app, not the API or AI studio) is one of the few places where we can use frontier generative AI without a “customer noncompete” (you know, the one where they compete with us and then say we’re not allowed to compete back) … if you use Claude or OpenAI or Grok, you’re prohibited from training on you…

OpenAI is hardly a Goliath. It has no real moat, and is trying to build a business around a feature. But other businesses already have platforms with billions of users to deploy those features to.

As others have pointed out, we should see the forest from the trees. Microsoft is a huge OpenAI redistributor, also Apple. Everyone knows ”ChatGPT”. While the company size might not be monopoly, based on a larger userbase, it is.