I bet Google doesn't know why either...
Yeah. And they've now milked the whole web for AI and couldn't care less about the mess they made.
Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why
171–180 of 199 posts
Re: Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Decisions are efficient if they need to be taken only once. In other words, open source decentralized systems are the most efficient because you don't have to reduplicate a competitor's effort when you can just use the same code. > Obviously because they were more efficient than the competition and network effects took care of the rest. In most cases it's just the network effect, and whether it was a proprietary or…
> just use the same code This is the great lie. Approximately zero end consumers care about code, the product they consume is the service, and if the marginal cost of switching the service provider is zero, it's enough to be 1% better to take 99% of the market.
> Approximately zero end consumers care about code
Most people don't care about reading it. They very much care about what it does.
Also, it's not "approximately zero" at all. It's millions or tens of millions of people out of billions, and when a small minority of people improve the code -- because they have the ability to -- it improves the code for all the rest too. Which is why they should have a preference for the ability to do it even if they're not going to be the one to exercise it themselves.
> if the marginal cost of switching the service provider is zero, it's enough to be 1% better to take 99% of the market.
Except that you'd then need to be 1% better across all dimensions for different people to not have different preferences, and everyone else is trying to carve out a share of the market too. Meanwhile if you were doing something that actually did cause 99% of people to prefer a service that does that then everybody else would start doing it.
There are two main things that cause monopolies. The first is a network effect, which is why those things all need to be open systems. The second is that one company gets a monopoly somewhere (often because of the first, sometimes through anti-competitive practices like dumping) and then leverages it in order to monopolize the supply chain before and after that thing, so that competing with them now requires not just competing with the original monopoly but also reproducing the rest of the supply chain which is now no longer available as independent commodities.
This is why we need antitrust laws, but also why we need to recognize that antitrust laws are never perfect and do everything possible to stamp out anything that starts to look like one of those markets through development of open systems and promoting consumer aversion to products that are inevitably going to ensnare them.
"People don't want X" based on observed behavior is a bunch of nonsense. People's preferences depend on their level of information. If they don't realize they're walking into a trap then they're going to step right into it. That isn't the same thing as "people prefer walking into a trap". They need to be educated about what a trap looks like so they don't keep ending up hanging upside down by their ankles as all the money gets shaken out of their pockets.
Re: Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's entirely possible to have utility-importance non-monopoly gatekeepers, which is part of the legal issue. The US regulates monopolies. The US regulates utilities, defined by ~1910 industries. It doesn't generally regulate non-monopoly companies that are gatekeepers. Hence, Apple/Google/Facebook et al. have been able to avoid regulation by avoiding being classed as monopolies. Imho, the EU is taking the right appr…
Sure, we agree there though I'd add that while the US regulates monopolies we don't always enforce that, we also allow state-sponsored monopolies for many regional utilities. With Google and SEO I see it more in the monopoly camp though. The existence of other big tech companies doesn't break the monopoly Google has by owning search, ads, analytics, et al under the same umbrella.
The nice thing about regulatory bucketing by market share is that it's harder to evade.
We've seen the legal gymnastics around market definition for monopoly purposes.
But it's harder for Google to make the case that it doesn't own at least a big chunk of {mobile OS} or {mobile app store} market share.
They can argue +/- a few percent over methods, but "We don't have a substantial market share" won't fly.
Re: Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, we agree there though I'd add that while the US regulates monopolies we don't always enforce that, we also allow state-sponsored monopolies for many regional utilities. With Google and SEO I see it more in the monopoly camp though. The existence of other big tech companies doesn't break the monopoly Google has by owning search, ads, analytics, et al under the same umbrella.
The nice thing about regulatory bucketing by market share is that it's harder to evade. We've seen the legal gymnastics around market definition for monopoly purposes. But it's harder for Google to make the case that it doesn't own at least a big chunk of {mobile OS} or {mobile app store} market share. They can argue +/- a few percent over methods, but "We don't have a substantial market share" won't fly.
No argument there either, I do agree sometimes market monopolies need to be felt with though the bar is high in my opinion. If it were me I'd want to see proof of collusion, its easy for a market with only a few actors to independently make similar choices based on similar market incentives and data.
In this case though, it still seems like a more simple monopoly only with google. You don't need to consider other companies when the issue is related to the black box of search rankings.
Re: Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's entirely possible to have utility-importance non-monopoly gatekeepers, which is part of the legal issue. The US regulates monopolies. The US regulates utilities, defined by ~1910 industries. It doesn't generally regulate non-monopoly companies that are gatekeepers. Hence, Apple/Google/Facebook et al. have been able to avoid regulation by avoiding being classed as monopolies. Imho, the EU is taking the right appr…
I’m really hoping the pendulum swings back to sanity in the US rather than becoming a Russia-like mafia business state. It’s possible the only hope is a painful one: a major market crash caused by greed and excessive consolidation, the kind of crash that would trigger a 21st century new deal.
I think the standard hyperbole is supposed to imply the US is fascist, not is becoming. Mention of mafias and post-soviet Russia is also non-standard.
Re: Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why
#176I never really use it but there is a lot in the Yahoo index that google refuses to index. https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=blog.james-zhan.com&fr=yfp...
I thought Yahoo! was just Bing now. The real Yahoo! died ages ago.
I don't know and don't doubt it but the results don't match. (For me at least)
Re: Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
The nice thing about regulatory bucketing by market share is that it's harder to evade. We've seen the legal gymnastics around market definition for monopoly purposes. But it's harder for Google to make the case that it doesn't own at least a big chunk of {mobile OS} or {mobile app store} market share. They can argue +/- a few percent over methods, but "We don't have a substantial market share" won't fly.
No argument there either, I do agree sometimes market monopolies need to be felt with though the bar is high in my opinion. If it were me I'd want to see proof of collusion, its easy for a market with only a few actors to independently make similar choices based on similar market incentives and data. In this case though, it still seems like a more simple monopoly only with google. You don't need to consider other com…
That's part of my preference though: I'd rather government regulation of larger market share companies be a gradient rather than a binary.
If a few actors control the bulk of a market... wouldn't the same redresses be appropriate whether or not they're colluding?
We should make companies want to stay at a competitive market share instead of taking over their markets.
Re: Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why
#178This is a known Google soft penalty in order to contain spam contents and domains, but unfortunately, this thing penalized a lot of good, clean, and legit blogs, and when you caught this penalty, in 99% cases, you will never recovered.
It will only shows 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11, or simialr numbers when you site:yourdomain on Google.
I found this thing around 2019, and it still exists till today.
A way to identify this: first post more than 20-30 articles on your blog, and if after several months, it still shows only several pages when you site: your domain, then it mostly caught this thing.
More info: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/anyone-site-only-4-results...
Re: Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's entirely possible to have utility-importance non-monopoly gatekeepers, which is part of the legal issue. The US regulates monopolies. The US regulates utilities, defined by ~1910 industries. It doesn't generally regulate non-monopoly companies that are gatekeepers. Hence, Apple/Google/Facebook et al. have been able to avoid regulation by avoiding being classed as monopolies. Imho, the EU is taking the right appr…
I’m really hoping the pendulum swings back to sanity in the US rather than becoming a Russia-like mafia business state. It’s possible the only hope is a painful one: a major market crash caused by greed and excessive consolidation, the kind of crash that would trigger a 21st century new deal.
I wouldn't personally put much hope in a new deal approach.
The consolidation of power in the US government is the root of many of our problems, I don't expect that same government to solve it by grabbing even more power a la the new deal.
Re: Google de-indexed Bear Blog and I don't know why
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
No argument there either, I do agree sometimes market monopolies need to be felt with though the bar is high in my opinion. If it were me I'd want to see proof of collusion, its easy for a market with only a few actors to independently make similar choices based on similar market incentives and data. In this case though, it still seems like a more simple monopoly only with google. You don't need to consider other com…
That's part of my preference though: I'd rather government regulation of larger market share companies be a gradient rather than a binary. If a few actors control the bulk of a market... wouldn't the same redresses be appropriate whether or not they're colluding? We should make companies want to stay at a competitive market share instead of taking over their markets.
I wouldn't personally want companies to be punished without evidence of collusion. A company isn't doing anything wrong by earning market share, and companies aren't doing anything wrong if they happen to move in a similar direction based on market incentives.
If we think free markets are generally going to move in the right direction, we should just want companies to want to fill market gap and outcompete. I don't agree we should make companies do anything though, at most governments should be tweaking incentives to attempt to push companies down a path without directly making them go there (even them I'm not sold that approach is worth it).