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US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

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Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#161

Post by asdff »

ripped_britches wrote: post #32

It will be really ironic if this kills Mozilla / Firefox

I don't understand where all the money goes for mozilla. Here is the revenue line from wikipedia for 2022:

total revenue | percent from google | total expenses |software dev expenses

$593 million | 81% ($480 million) | $425 million | $220 million

so basically 168 million in the bank in 2022. the math has been basically this the last 10 years. in 2018 they lost 1 million but in 2019 they gained 330 million. a lot of their software expenses probably comes from the busywork features they saddled upon themselves like pocket or whatever, since it was only $63 million in 2010 and has only gone up by a couple hundred million from there.

So just over the last 10 years from my back of the envelope map from that table on wikipedia, they should have a good 1.5 billion in the war chest by today assuming the mozilla foundation did not make investments with it, which they probably have this entire time so probably even more valuable. At a certain point, maybe already, the org should have enough cash socked away in investment to just pay for operating expenses out of dividends alone.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#162

Post by mc32 »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #120
whiplash451 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because search is an extremely hard problem and requires hundreds of millions (if not billions) of investment to remain competitive?

Also: There is a MASSIVE incentive for foul play from everyone being searched. Every single business wants their results at the top. Everyone is grasping for every single advertiser's cents. The monetary encouragement to game the system is so incredibly strong. Google has to fight that uphill battle 24/7. I have a lot of issues with Google as a company, but I do not envy their position when it comes to the web search…

If they only divided it into information search ("library" knowledge) and business search (Yelp/YP) where you can tweak your preferences.

When you search for "vacuum cleaner", you either want online stores or you may want a local store. In either case it's a business query rather than looking for reviews or specs.

What's really polluting search, including Google, is the on-demand content generation based on your query. It's a sea of flotsam.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#163

Post by idle_zealot »

dvngnt_ wrote: post #142
idle_zealot wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, I did. That's what the whole "surveillance system" part of the post was. Also I think advertisements in general are harmful.

how do people learn of products?

At a time of their choosing they can subject themselves to marketing material (yellow pages) or simple word-of-mouth amplified by the Internet. Treating "knowledge of your product/service" as a market commodity is bizarre and has overall negative effects on competition (more money buys more awareness equals more sales).

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#164

Post by mvdtnz »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #149
geor9e wrote: post #113

HN is a special place but among the average folk, I get why 90% of people use google. I'm no google fan, but it still baffles me how bad the alternatives still are. Especially with so many companies scraping the whole web for AI data, and so many GPUs chugging on that data. I suppose they are all focused on replacing the concept of search results with LLM prose. Ironically bing is down at the moment https://downdetec…

HN isn't that special a place considering nerds think about Google as a "search engine" lol. Google/Alphabet, first and foremost, is the largest online advertiser via its acquisitions of YouTube, DoubleClick, and others, in addition to selling ad placement on Google Search via AdWords, plus a growing number of consumer portals for price comparisons etc. integrated with Google Search (leaving out tracking your activit…

google.com is a search engine, regardless of what drives Google's revenue. Weird to say it's not.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#165

Post by ruthmarx »

idle_zealot wrote: post #105
ruthmarx wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would happen if you replaced Google with a perfect functional equivalent? Well, nothing. You don't happen to know where one could find these magical perfectly compatible and functional drop in replacements, do you?

The closest thing to a unique offering that they have is YouTube. What other services don't have perfectly reasonable replacements ready and waiting?

> What other services don't have perfectly reasonable replacements ready and waiting?

How about which single reasonable replacement offers the same services with the same level of integration?

Using Yahoo Mail and Amazon Cloud and Office Online and whatever other products isn't quite the same offering as what Google offers.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#167

Post by asdff »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #152
asdff wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What might deep mind have looked like today if it were given the same resources in an academic or national lab setting and no ultimate profit motive?

Sans access to the worlds top supercomputer infra.

Used to be the worlds top supercomputer infra was in national labs or such places and not private companies. Some of the largest are still there. In my hypothetical that would be the case "assuming same resources."

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#169

Post by zer8k »

dtquad wrote: post #39

Hilariously shortsighted. Big Tech companies have been a GDP-doubling runaway success for the US economy. It would be like if we here in Denmark started breaking up Novo Nordisk. Our economists would probably do a public lynching of any government official who suggested doing that. However as a European I can't help but welcoming the US shooting themselves in the foot like this. Something tells me we will see more of…

The point is to not allow a company to be able to buy out the entire country. Maybe Novo Nordisk is a good steward but historically companies like Google and Amazon act only their own best interests. Breaking up these massive companies ends up doing the better thing anyway - a surge of competition emerges and offers better and often cheaper services. Look at the break up of Bell. The short term was marginally negative (higher long distance costs) but the market was better for it.

Google has a substantial amount of control over the flow of information in the United States. To the point it can literally redefine truth. This is a problem - and one that is easily solved by breaking up a de-facto monopoly. Moreover, the acquire-and-kill strategy stifles innovation. Imagine what we would have if Google didnt have the capital to buy and kill so many small companies.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#170

Post by labcomputer »

shiroiushi wrote: post #53
ripped_britches wrote: post #32

It will be really ironic if this kills Mozilla / Firefox

That's one of several scary scenarios. What if it kills Android, and everyone has to buy an iPhone? (Yeah, I know, Android is OSS and the phone makers could just maintain/improve it as a consortium without Google, but looking at how these companies operate I don't think they're capable of doing this.) (And no, I don't think the USG will break up Apple if this happens. They're already showing highly preferential treat…

Google Maps isn’t going anywhere. They are a profit center from all the search ads within the map.
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