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

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

#541

Post by s1artibartfast »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #391
s1artibartfast wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public goods is an economics term with an actual meaning, and it has nothing to do with public utilities. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/public-good.asp

> it has nothing to do with public utilities. This doesn't follow from the linked article. Taxes can be levied in various ways, oftentimes related to usage. Involving a private entity doesn't suddenly change the nature of the thing. There's a marked difference between a sack of flour and my electric meter. We as a society decide to make certain things into public goods. This is frequently the choice for natural monop…

See my response here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43950097

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

#542

Post by malfist »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #472
malfist wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you see different comments than I do, but I don't see many comments saying it's improved a lot lately. As a Kagi user, I would not say it's improved a lot lately. It's a consistent, specific product for what I need. I like the privacy aspects of it, and the control to block, raise or lower sites in my search results. If that's not something you care about then don't use it. Is it better than Google at finding t…

I don’t understand. The GP of your comment is literally saying that Kagi is better than Google as of late. You’re not helping the “Kagi doesn’t use bots” case by ignore the context 2 comments up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43948385

They said Kagi works "way better" than google, not that Kagi is better as of late (although they do ask if they've tried kagi lately). Which is consistent with my statement that Kagi is a consistent product and not really improving. They keep adding AI features, but I disable those and don't care about them.

You're welcome to check my post history, I'm certainly not a bot. Or if I am, I'm a very convincing one that runs an astrophotography blog.

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

#544

Post by snyp »

dvdhnt wrote: post #532
fsh wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This list is very telling. Instead of a healthy marketplace of companies competing to sell their software and services, we end up with one monopolist who gives away mediocre products and in return taxes everything you buy (in the form of ad spending), and then annoys you with the same ads. How is this a desirable outcome?

This is a very ungrateful and childish perspective. It assumes that these things exist out of thin air rather than things google has created. Products don’t just appear, they’re built. Nothing is stopping someone from usurping google. Ever hear of oracle, intel, xerox, blackberry or Microsoft?

Ungrateful it seems lol. Most of these products are acquisitions.

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

#545

Post by TechDebtDevin »

Hydrocarb0n wrote: post #531

Google is much bigger than a Monopoly, it is a multi-monopoly, Search, web ads, email, video, maps / nav, User data / metrics. If you had told me in early 2000s that google would absolutely dominate all of these fields And it would be allowed to continue for decades, I wouldn't believe you. I'm a free market guy, I believe some small gov is nessasary to regulate monopolies, protect constitutional rights etc, but mult…

Do you think the world benefits from this monopoly though? I think the world would be a worse place without Google, a much worse place. While it would be nice to live in some timeline were lots of choices for search (there actually are, people are just lazy and don't like change), but we built a world with Google and let it get to where its at. We will just be shooting ourselves in our own foot, at least in the short term.

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

#546

Post by TechDebtDevin »

fsh wrote: post #410
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #367

I'm not sure people understand what the consequences of taking away Google's ad revenue is. If a large enough bank goes under, it takes out not just the bank, but huge sectors of the economy, affecting many more businesses and jobs. That's why the government bailed out the banks when they failed. The same will happen when Google loses its ad revenue. Google is an ad company. By opening up all its trade secret data, i…

This list is very telling. Instead of a healthy marketplace of companies competing to sell their software and services, we end up with one monopolist who gives away mediocre products and in return taxes everything you buy (in the form of ad spending), and then annoys you with the same ads. How is this a desirable outcome?

What are you talking about, there are competitors for all these products, they simply just aren't as good...

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

#547

Post by cyberax »

rs186 wrote: post #487
cyberax wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's a small number of things that will die when Google dies. I dispute that. Google Docs/Drive/Mail are supported by enterprise subscriptions. Android Auto is also a commercial product that can live off license fees. Fi/Fiber/Pay/Waymo are also not free services, and can survive on their own. Free GMail/Forms/Groups/Translate can probably survive off ad revenue that they can get from third parties. They are pret…

To be fair, nobody outside the company knows if Fi/Fiber/Pay are viable businesses, or they are on life support but still around because of the unlimited cash Google has. One can guess they are profitable because they have been around for quite a while and still kicking. But nothing says they won't be the next thing in Google graveyard -- plenty of services seemed to be doing ok before a major reorg sent them to deat…

Google Fi is just an MVNO, and there are quite a few competitors in this area (e.g. I'm using US-Mobile). They have comparable prices, so I'd guess that Fi is at least not operating at a loss.

Existing Fiber customers are basically a free money printing press. That's not going to change. But the new area buildouts can slow down.

Honestly, Google has been so un-innovative for so long, that it's hard to make a case for them. They just don't have a lot of products that are really benefiting from being under the umbrella of a large company.

I can definitely see an argument that back in 2006, Google Docs would have been impossible without access to the internal Google infrastructure and the unique expertise of Google engineers. These days? It's just a run-of-the-mill cloud application that can be trivially hosted on commercially available AWS or Google Compute.

Perhaps treating Google as a huge VC company would be more fair.

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

#548

Post by ankit219 »

It's 100% Google saves my data. And gives me an option to delete that data. It uses that data, and while I have some degree of control over it, i don't have full control over it.

As a user it's preposterous that any kind of data generated by me is anonymized (or not) and effectively sold to a third party. First party usage is kind of understandable. What YC and the govt is asking is that Google should be forced to do exactly that? Sell some data points about me generated by my interactions without my consent. That too it seems for no fee. Without even asking for the permission from the users. What kind of clown world are we living in? I dont care if its anonymized.

Presumably, if that data is so useful, why dont all of these companies lining up to pay the users?Take permission from the users, pay them, and then use whatever they want. Data is only useful in the aggregate, pay ln the aggregate too for whatever revenue and market cap they reach. Doing it without the user consent in 2025 is weird.

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

#549

Post by 627467 »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #367

I'm not sure people understand what the consequences of taking away Google's ad revenue is. If a large enough bank goes under, it takes out not just the bank, but huge sectors of the economy, affecting many more businesses and jobs. That's why the government bailed out the banks when they failed. The same will happen when Google loses its ad revenue. Google is an ad company. By opening up all its trade secret data, i…

Isn't it depressing that a single private company wield such influence in society that Stockholm syndrome develops? I don't know about you, but accepting this is true is way worse than loosing gapps

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

#550

Post by dannycastonguay »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #367

I'm not sure people understand what the consequences of taking away Google's ad revenue is. If a large enough bank goes under, it takes out not just the bank, but huge sectors of the economy, affecting many more businesses and jobs. That's why the government bailed out the banks when they failed. The same will happen when Google loses its ad revenue. Google is an ad company. By opening up all its trade secret data, i…

Why do antitrust proposals always suggest breaking up Google by function—Search, Ads, Gmail, etc.? What if, instead, we cloned the whole company?

Start by splitting Google into two identical, full-stack companies, each with all the core products. A year later, split them again. Over time, you get 4 or 8 Googles competing across the board.

Employees could be assigned algorithmically to avoid chaos. This feels more like cell division than amputation—preserving the synergies while creating competition.

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