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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]

#821

Post by fluidcruft »

yegg wrote: post #817
fluidcruft wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I haven't used either of ChatGPT or Perplexity seriously. They haven't performed particularly well when I tested them and dun-dun-dun in my uses Gemini has been growing on me. And another odd thing at the moment is that Google's search has somehow become better at giving me the results I'm looking for and DDG is giving a lot of annoying crap.

Any particular results/examples we can look into? Feel free to email me if preferred (see profile).

Basically when I search for API of a specific function or package docs on DDG I end up with page after page of people blogging about using them and the actual docs don't show up. So I add "!g" and the same crap is there, but the link to reference will be somewhere among the first page of results (although Goggle usually has a link to an old stale version of the docs).

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

#822

Post by Y_Y »

dangrossman wrote: post #664
mrDmrTmrJ wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google maps Gmail Chrome Waymo Were all built within google. For most people (who do not sell software on the internet) we get a great trade from the current state of things!

Gmail is the only product you listed that Google started itself. Google Maps was built on the acquisitions of Where 2 Technologies, Keyhole and ZipDash. Chrome is based on WebKit, built at Apple. Waymo's hardware came from the acquisition of 510 Systems, and the software came from the acquihiring of the team that developed Stanford's self-driving cars for the 2005 and 2007 DARPA challenges, who brought their code wit…

For the record, Apple is playing the same game.

Chrome's renderer (Blink) is indeed a fork of Safari's renderer (WebKit) but that in turn was forked from Konqueror's renderer (KHTML).

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

#823

Post by Zak »

FMecha wrote: post #797
Zak wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A finding that preventing or discouraging installation of apps from anywhere but the first-party store constitutes use of market power to exclude competitors and fix prices in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act sounds like a great solution to me.

Console gaming will probably catch the strays of it, though (not that the sentiment to move to PC gaming is increasingly vocal anyway).

It's my understanding that availability of alternatives is a major factor in determining whether a company has market power. Someone looking for interactive entertainment has a multitude of options beyond gaming consoles, so the manufacturer using technical means to extract a payment from anyone selling games is less likely to be considered anticompetitive. Furthermore, people with gaming consoles often have more than one brand, PC games, and games on mobile devices.

There is no viable alternative to an Android or iOS powered smartphone for most people, and even switching between the two is enough of a challenge that few people do it once they've picked one. That gives their respective vendors substantially more power to fix prices and exclude competitors.

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

#824

Post by yegg »

fluidcruft wrote: post #821
yegg wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any particular results/examples we can look into? Feel free to email me if preferred (see profile).

Basically when I search for API of a specific function or package docs on DDG I end up with page after page of people blogging about using them and the actual docs don't show up. So I add "!g" and the same crap is there, but the link to reference will be somewhere among the first page of results (although Goggle usually has a link to an old stale version of the docs).

Do you have specific examples of this behavior that I can look into? Also, curious if you've tried our Assist function (comes up automatically for some searches or click Assist under search box) or duck.ai for stuff like that?

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

#825

Post by kergonath »

standyro wrote: post #744
lolc wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing mediocre about the search engine I agree. The search index is great, the presentation is shitty. As for maps: The most prominent features on it are ads. The rest is low contrast. For navigation the map is really bad. The satellite view is great. Yeah not mediocre: It's great tech enshittified.

The iPod has less space than a Nomad. Lame.

The most infuriating is that Google Maps used to be much better. But yeah, it’s crap.

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

#826

Post by sitkack »

ezfe wrote: post #736
xyzzy9563 wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they have the money and Apple wants them to pay. Why should Google let a competitor pay a lesser amount to be the default?

Because $25 billion is a large amount of money and you just made the claim that people would use Google regardless

Thanks for putting up the good fight, but parent is not arguing from a place of logic.

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

#827

Post by agolsme »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #711
WesBrownSQL wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what you don't get. You aren't just watching ads. You are giving them data about you, a lot of data. That data is used to heavily manipulate you. This isn't like the old days of broadcast TV where ads air and you aren't directly tracked. If you ever find a product that is free, it isn't. You are the product that is being sold.

I do get that, and I’m fine with it.

if you think a bit harder, you shouldn't be. the data on you isn't just used to manipulate your choices on the market, it also ends up being used to manipulate your choices as a citizen -- politically, socially. You might think you're above such psychological tactics (and perhaps you are, but many many people are not, and whether you believe the democrats accusations of electoral fraud in 2016 or the many accusations on both sides since, there is absolutely no doubt that the corporatization of the internet has played a giant part in the most repugnant aspects of american and world politics since 2016)

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

#828

Post by mrybczyn »

harrison_clarke wrote: post #816
jmatthews wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You essentially outline why it should be broken up. I'm not convinced making the ad tech sector more competitive would prompt that outcome but, "It would disrupt mature products" isn't a compelling argument to allow the existence of a monopoly. Google is a monopoly, they exert monopoly power and enjoy monopoly pricing. I think the more likely outcome would be more dynamic products under smaller bannerheads.

i like an ad monopoly. it makes ads cost more

that's an interesting perspective.

are expensive ads higher quality? but are they therefore pushed more to justify the cost?

does the higher cost improve the information conveyed?

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

#829

Post by kergonath »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #633
jorvi wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I feel like people are subconsciously aware that Google is trying to bludgeon them into getting YouTube premium, and they're simply sticking it to Google rather than giving in. Google's gone through: - one skippable 5s ad - two skippable 5s ads - one unskippable 5s and one skippable 15s ads - aforementioned or two 15s ads, one skippable - two 15s unskippable ads - removed the prerenderer 'skip' button to ma…

Everytime someone blocks an ad, someone else has to watch it. It's crazy to me how entitled people are and how completely blind they are to how the ad supported model works. Then these same people complain that youtube has no competitors. Yeah, no shit, who in their right mind would invest in a customer base like youtubes? Oh, that's right, Vid.me, and they went bankrupt in a year. Wonder why...

> Everytime someone blocks an ad, someone else has to watch it.

No, that’s not how it works, at all.

I give money to some people on Patreon, I pay for Nebula, but I am never going to give Google a single euro willingly. I’ll leave YouTube in a heartbeat the moment the people I follow (whom I am already giving money otherwise) make their content available elsewhere.

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

#830

Post by trealira »

agolsme wrote: post #827
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do get that, and I’m fine with it.

if you think a bit harder, you shouldn't be. the data on you isn't just used to manipulate your choices on the market, it also ends up being used to manipulate your choices as a citizen -- politically, socially. You might think you're above such psychological tactics (and perhaps you are, but many many people are not, and whether you believe the democrats accusations of electoral fraud in 2016 or the many accusations…

Democrats didn't say there was election fraud in 2016. It was that the Russian government had workers on social media posing as Americans supporting Trump's campaign, and that they also got access to thousands of DNC emails due to a spearphishing campaign targeting DNC employees.
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