301–310 of 1001 posts
AI is the most competitive and healthy large industry I have seen. Having a search index helps just like having tweets for x.ai, but data isn’t the deciding factor.
That remains to be seen. The fear is that Google can leverage its large search index to produce better LLM experiences and win in that market too.
This action comes a bit late, at the end of the "Search engine" era, at a time when AI responses from many sources are largely replacing the "Google Search". Similar action happened against Microsoft Windows around 2000, just as the rise of web-based apps (online email, google docs, etc) largely made the underlying operating system less relevant to how people use their computers and apps. So I read this as the domina…
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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…
“Monopolies should be broken up” doesn’t imply we should disincentivize research though, does it?
This action comes a bit late, at the end of the "Search engine" era, at a time when AI responses from many sources are largely replacing the "Google Search". Similar action happened against Microsoft Windows around 2000, just as the rise of web-based apps (online email, google docs, etc) largely made the underlying operating system less relevant to how people use their computers and apps. So I read this as the domina…
I would be you $1 that in five to ten years there will be zero "AI" players replacing search. But that's a different topic than this one.
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I would be you $1 that in five to ten years there will be zero "AI" players replacing search. But that's a different topic than this one.
I will take that bet Chuck. Maybe not completely replace, but AI will be the defacto search platform. I find myself using Google less and less these days
Key quotes: > "Our experience has been that entrenched monopoly power often deters new entry and chills investment in disruptive innovation." > "independent venture-capital firms like YC often hesitate to fund startups in the “kill zone” —the area of deadened innovation around a monopolist like Google." > "We agree with Plaintiffs' proposal that the remedy package should create pathways for startups and innovators to…
> I think they have a good point with AI. After lagging behind initially, Google really went at it hard. Gemini is great now, and they are building a good set of tooling. > It's easy for Google to suffocate the startups in that area. They already have a massive advantage with all the data they are sitting on. What is the solution, though? Should they not be allowed to compete in the LLM + search space? Should they ha…
Google, for example, bought exclusive access to Reddit's data. No one else can train on Reddit unless you have more money than Google (you don't). So one of the asks is that that sort of exclusive deal be prevented. If everyone is allowed to buy Reddit's data, and Google makes the best model, that wouldn't be a problem.
Google is a "monopoly" because their competitors with massive cash reserves (Microsoft, Apple, Meta) are too risk averse to compete in the marketplace and are hoping that the courtroom will deliver them a win.
These are monopolies. You might not see it because the economy is so _over monopolized_ it's hard to have perspective.
YCombinator loves to pretend it invented the idea of startups and entreprenourism but those have been vigorous and healthy throughout _most_ of America's existence. When they weren't we wrote some of the most comprehensive and consumer friendly anti-trust laws in the entire world. A feat which still stands today.
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Ask anyone who was alive back then and they will tell you stories of how legendarily awful AT&T was to deal with. My father has told me several. The antitrust action made things better for regular people by allowing them to do things like buy their own handsets or haggle over price.
What telecom today will actually haggle
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?
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https://commoncrawl.org/ This is similar to the natural monopoly of root DNS servers (managed as a public good). There is no reason more money couldn't go into either Common Crawl, or something like it. The Internet Archive can persist the data for ~$2/GB in perpetuity (although storing it elsewhere is also fine imho) as the storage system of last resort. How you provide access to this data is, I argue, similar to ho…
The problem with this is in the vein of `Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once` if it's going to replace googlebot. Everyone who only allows googlebot would need to change and allow ccbot instead. It's already the case that googlebot is the common denominator bot that's allowed everywhere, ccbot not so much.
(Cloudflare customer, no other affiliation)