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DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

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Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#121

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ehutch79 wrote: post #116
sunshowers wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would browsers turn to "shit"? The web platform is quite capable these days. I think Chrome on Android is already pretty "shit" these days, because it doesn't support ad blocking at all.

*Points at firefox*

Alternative browsers raise money in proportion to how many people use them. Google funds Chromium development and advertises to get people to use Chrome, so Firefox market share is eroded until they don't have enough to sustain themselves. Meanwhile Google pushes through changes to web standards at a rapid pace which consumes smaller competitors' resources implementing them. Also, Mozilla in particular is a mismanaged organization.

If you take Google out of it, Chromium gets to be its own thing. Then Chromium and Firefox compete with each other on equal footing and people use whichever one is better, but they're both actually open source instead of "Chromium is open source but everybody actually uses Chrome" and the latter isn't controlled by the company trying to break ad blocking and push DRM.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#122

Post by marcosdumay »

bsimpson wrote: post #20
bobajeff wrote: post #10

I think Google should just be split up into baby Google's that each have to cooperate with each other. Like we did with Bell. Also we should do the same thing to Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. In fact I think we should do it again to AT&T and also Comcast. This should probably be done every so often as maintenance.

I don't understand how this worldview coexists with countries like Russia and China. If the feds kneecap US companies, it's not going to make the next generation of US companies stronger, just cede influence to worse jurisdictions.

> If the feds kneecap US companies, it's not going to make the next generation of US companies stronger

Worked pretty well when they broke AT&T and not only got an extremely innovative lab full of small projects, but also kickstarted the internet era.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#123

Post by AnthonyMouse »

creato wrote: post #39
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So competition isn’t actually good for free market economics?

A level playing field is good. The playing field includes other countries.

Why wouldn't antitrust laws apply to companies from other countries? If you ban tying app stores to phone platforms and then China creates a phone platform and wants to tie an app store to it, they're not any less banned from selling that into your market than a domestic company.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#124

Post by AnthonyMouse »

martinsnow wrote: post #111
azemetre wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me break out my violin for the trillion dollar transnational corporation.

Given that the likes of workspace and zoho were born out of Microsofts monopoly. I guess you should.

If your only reason for not breaking up a megacorp is that you want it it to compete with another megacorp...

¿Por qué no los dos?

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#125

Post by jonny_eh »

selykg wrote: post #45
jonny_eh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would kill xbox

Xbox has killed Xbox... have you not seen the sad state of affairs there for, I don't know, the past generation or two of consoles?

I don't disagree with your sentiment, other than the fact that it isn't literally dead… yet.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#126

Post by [deleted] »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #87
pcl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s sort of the point, right? The monopoly laws are designed to go after companies that are using their monopoly position in one market to subsidize other product lines to keep out competition.

Whats weird is that nobody has tried to sell browsers for a very long time. It's not like they gave away Chrome to drive some other browser out of the market. They developed Chrome because their business was web based and they wanted a solid platform for their apps. And we all benefited from that stable platform. And it's mostly open source in Chromium. And they are paying Mozilla to stay in the game - an arms length…

[deleted]

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#127

Post by VladStanimir »

alt227 wrote: post #88
jmyeet wrote: post #33

I have no idea how a for-profit company can exist that solely produces a browser. There's only one model that can work long-term here: collective ownership. The closest model is probably the Wikimedia Foundation. Firefox and the Mozilla Foundation are here, obviously, but they've tried to act like a corporation with rising costs and lower earnings going over years. The money Google pays them is basically poison. Linu…

A Browser with 65% share of the worlds web access can be leveraged to do a lot of things.

The big question is, would it keep that market share without Google. The big selling point of Google Chrome is the seamless integration with all the other Google services.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#128

Post by jay_kyburz »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #118
jay_kyburz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of smashing up successful businesses, you should tax them, and use the tax revenue to improve deficiencies in the market. If the government thinks there should be more browsers, (or mobile os's) they should tax the existing ones and pay folks to improve the open source alternatives. You _should_ outlaw behavior that creates monopolies, like predatory pricing etc

> Instead of smashing up successful businesses, you should tax them, and use the tax revenue to improve deficiencies in the market. The deficiency in the market is that laws exist that allow market concentration. Should we tax them to fund regulatory reform? > If the government thinks there should be more browsers, (or mobile os's) they should tax the existing ones and pay folks to improve the open source alternative…

You've twisted the argument to be about DRM. That's a completely separate issue. The only people to blame for DRM are the people who use it on their content, not the platforms that are forced to implement it.

The _cause_ of monopolies are successful businesses. I don't have a problem with successful businesses. I also don't have a problem with monopolies per se. If I invent some cool thing and I'm the only person in the world doing it, I have a monopoly - good for me. If I can deliver a product better than everybody else, and everybody else chooses to not compete with me any more, also good for me.

The crime is when you use your power "unfairly" to drive others out of business. (So that you can create or maintain a monopoly). Predatory pricing or agreements that restrict who can use your product, or what others can do.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#130

Post by azemetre »

martinsnow wrote: post #111
azemetre wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me break out my violin for the trillion dollar transnational corporation.

Given that the likes of workspace and zoho were born out of Microsofts monopoly. I guess you should.

That's fine with me. Let's do it so we can establish precedent then hopefully legislate this in Congress.

Baby steps bro, they will all have their moment in the sun soon enough.

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