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Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

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Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#181

Post by jlarocco »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #104
jondubois wrote: post #14

I agree they should be regulated. The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. These big companies turn regular people into corporate livestock to serve the wealthy. If you were to analyze Facebook as if it were a country, the wealth gap among employees would be atrocious - The top 1% would own maybe 99% of the wealth of the country and everyone else would earn a minuscule fraction of the total value t…

Disclaimer: I work at Google > The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. [citation needed] A lot of things Google does -- a lot of the things people actually like about Google -- are possible only because it's a huge monolith. Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, y…

> A lot of things Google does -- a lot of the things people actually like about Google -- are possible only because it's a huge monolith. Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, youtube, drive, waze, where do you think the money for this stuff all comes from?

That's not true. Google is using their ad money to subsidize those services and kill off competition. If Google weren't offering ad-supported, "good enough" services then even more people would pay for the alternatives.

Even with Google's anti-competitive behavior, people still pay for Dropbox, Fastmail, SmugMug, etc.

You're also assuming people understand and accept the level of privacy invasion that goes on when they use Google services. If people knew just how much information Google collects about them, and how they use it, I don't think they would be okay with it. Of course only Google can disclose that information, and you won't.

> Of course, if you're one of the uber technerds that thinks that Google is unabashedly evil and Linux is going to take over the desktop any day now, that probably sounds great to you. I just think the average consumer would have a different take on it.

That's great. Keep "average consumers" totally in the dark about the creepy ways your company is tracking their every move online, and then portray people who don't drink the koolaid as wacky conspiracy theorists and "uber technerds".

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#182

Post by anth1988 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #104
jondubois wrote: post #14

I agree they should be regulated. The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. These big companies turn regular people into corporate livestock to serve the wealthy. If you were to analyze Facebook as if it were a country, the wealth gap among employees would be atrocious - The top 1% would own maybe 99% of the wealth of the country and everyone else would earn a minuscule fraction of the total value t…

Disclaimer: I work at Google > The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. [citation needed] A lot of things Google does -- a lot of the things people actually like about Google -- are possible only because it's a huge monolith. Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, y…

I won't really miss any of those things when they are gone, because others will come and take their place.

> if you're one of the uber technerds that thinks that Google is unabashedly evil

as opposed to the people who worship at their altar?

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#183

Post by [deleted] »

friedman23 wrote: post #133
weirdstuff wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, youtube, drive, waze, where do you think the money for this stuff all comes from? This needs a citation, as well. This is assuming Google hasn't starved out potential competitors who would have provided the same service, or better service, had…

Congrats on your degree in econ. You would think that someone with a degree in econ would believe it wise to first establish what the negative externalities are and what externalities regulating away the existence of large business would produce before defending the idea of doing so. We already know that with the existence of Google we get free products like search, mail, video, etc. Do you have evidence that when we…

[deleted]

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#184

Post by 0x737368 »

friedman23 wrote: post #153
0x737368 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we assume that allowing Google to exist as a monopoly does bring better services, that's a small price to pay for not having to be subjugated by a conglomerate. Countries can already barely withstand pressure from big companies, by allowing them grow even further everything would just turn in a way that would allow such companies to make even more money, whilst increasing the gap between the rich and the poor…

> Even if we assume that allowing Google to exist as a monopoly does bring better services How is google even a monopoly? Bing exists, yahoo still exists. In Asia Google isn't even the most popular search engine. Want me to show you how google is not a monopoly? A company with monopoly power would be able to raise the price of its service to the price the market can bear . If google put search behind a pay wall, Bing…

> First you felt the need to off hand mention your (clearly undergraduate) degree in economics which had absolutely zero relevance to the discussion.

That was a different person.

>There is absolutely zero evidence of this. None of your arguments are based on evidence. The US just fined Volkswagen billions of dollars. The EU is ready to fine Google billions of dollars. Apple paid japan hundreds millions of dollars in fines. All the banks responsible for the financial crisis in America and the EU paid hundreds of billions

Precisely, EU, USA and China(ones that I know, there might be more) are the ones who can actually fight back from the pressure. Once they're able to pay enough politicians even more to coax them into bringing laws that help them further, we won't even have that(like that hasn't happened before).

Additionally, you need to consider if the fines are actually painful enough. Sure, sometimes it's enough to make them stop doing offences, but sometimes the companies are left with a net profit from illegal actions.

> Again you have no evidence of this. If smaller businesses were able to provide better services people would be using dedicated email providers, not gmail. They would be using flickr instead of google and apple photos.

Look up Linux. Whilst big companies did have a hand in making it, it's still driven a lot by the community. Compare how Linux performs against Windows(fast, no intentional backdoors, free, almost limitless customisability) and MacOS(no upgrades that make your completely fine hardware useless in 3-4 years after purchase).

I neither use flickr not google/apple photos so can't judge the discrepancy in quality. But I do a lot of messengers, text editors, email clients and so on, and they're completely fine. You need to consider that perhaps people are using them because they didn't bother to look up alternatives and just went with what the company offered them because "hey! it's 'free'! and it's right here."

You seem to be giving off some belligerent vibes, so I'm not going to argue much further, all I'm asking is that you consider that companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft and so on are not in the business of making people happy, but in the business of making money. And if that means the best path to that is to manipulate governments and try to control every aspect of people's lives for their own profit - they'll do it. If you break them apart you give them much less power to do that.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#185

Post by [deleted] »

friedman23 wrote: post #133
weirdstuff wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, youtube, drive, waze, where do you think the money for this stuff all comes from? This needs a citation, as well. This is assuming Google hasn't starved out potential competitors who would have provided the same service, or better service, had…

Congrats on your degree in econ. You would think that someone with a degree in econ would believe it wise to first establish what the negative externalities are and what externalities regulating away the existence of large business would produce before defending the idea of doing so. We already know that with the existence of Google we get free products like search, mail, video, etc. Do you have evidence that when we…

[deleted]

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#186

Post by anth1988 »

friedman23 wrote: post #153
0x737368 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we assume that allowing Google to exist as a monopoly does bring better services, that's a small price to pay for not having to be subjugated by a conglomerate. Countries can already barely withstand pressure from big companies, by allowing them grow even further everything would just turn in a way that would allow such companies to make even more money, whilst increasing the gap between the rich and the poor…

> Even if we assume that allowing Google to exist as a monopoly does bring better services How is google even a monopoly? Bing exists, yahoo still exists. In Asia Google isn't even the most popular search engine. Want me to show you how google is not a monopoly? A company with monopoly power would be able to raise the price of its service to the price the market can bear . If google put search behind a pay wall, Bing…

> How is google even a monopoly? Bing exists, yahoo still exists. In Asia Google isn't even the most popular search engine.

Not a monopoly is not a high enough bar. They are dominant in search, browser, and mobile.

> Try using evidence

Evidence like using their position in search to shove Chrome in our faces, then using that position to help shove DRM on us.

Evidence like their ridiculous plans with the ad blocker?

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#187

Post by lumost »

closeparen wrote: post #135
rdlecler1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google doesn't have an effective monopoly then I don't think I understand the word. The only search engine relavant to my search results is Google and I don't here to many people talking about optimizing their SEO for bing.

It's not necessarily illegal to be a monopoly, it's illegal to behave in certain anti-competitive ways. For example: - Rockefeller made deals with the railroads that shipped Standard Oil to charge higher prices to other prospective oil shippers. - Rockefeller bought any competitor that was undercutting him and raised its prices so it stopped being a threat. - "Competing" firms met and drew up an agreement that neithe…

Carnegie wasn't involved in Standard Oil that was John D. Rockefeller's company.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#188

Post by anth1988 »

tajen wrote: post #149
weirdstuff wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, youtube, drive, waze, where do you think the money for this stuff all comes from? This needs a citation, as well. This is assuming Google hasn't starved out potential competitors who would have provided the same service, or better service, had…

Skyrocketing acquisitions by big companies also justify half VC economy (the other half being AirBnb-style dominance over a sector). It would be interesting to know, if the exit events were smaller, whether the seed/VC capital eould redirect to more conservative positions like old industries or emerging markets.

Or you could see a bunch more smaller companies that still make acquisitions, and a whole lot of smaller IPOs that return a decent profit.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#189

Post by aaron-lebo »

oneshot908 wrote: post #173
jondubois wrote: post #14

I agree they should be regulated. The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. These big companies turn regular people into corporate livestock to serve the wealthy. If you were to analyze Facebook as if it were a country, the wealth gap among employees would be atrocious - The top 1% would own maybe 99% of the wealth of the country and everyone else would earn a minuscule fraction of the total value t…

IMO breaking up Google or Amazon makes as much sense as breaking up a tumor in the body without removing any of its cells and declaring victory. Go ahead, make some arbitrary cuts between Amazon, Lab 126 and AWS. Or go split Google into Android, Search and Cloud. That's a huge buying opportunity in both cases IMO. But if you really want to talk about a current monopoly in the valley, look no further than NVIDIA's 100…

The thing is, there's a lot of us who don't want to join the 1% in the valley. We don't want to join these parasitic companies which are turning the industry into a boring clone-the-other-big-co greedfest.

So for a lot of us, just work hard and join the crowd isn't really a solution. Not to mention, if you find Trump a true threat, please realize he is a threat made possible through the echo chambers of SV tech, which is either so incompetent as to not anticipate it or too greedy to stop it.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#190

Post by thesagan »

friedman23 wrote: post #153
0x737368 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we assume that allowing Google to exist as a monopoly does bring better services, that's a small price to pay for not having to be subjugated by a conglomerate. Countries can already barely withstand pressure from big companies, by allowing them grow even further everything would just turn in a way that would allow such companies to make even more money, whilst increasing the gap between the rich and the poor…

> Even if we assume that allowing Google to exist as a monopoly does bring better services How is google even a monopoly? Bing exists, yahoo still exists. In Asia Google isn't even the most popular search engine. Want me to show you how google is not a monopoly? A company with monopoly power would be able to raise the price of its service to the price the market can bear . If google put search behind a pay wall, Bing…

A pattern I notice on this site, and reddit: that it's far easier to ask left-and-right for evidence than it is producing your own or going on a limb to make a point in your own words. Is open discussion discouraged on HN?

Now, I don't provide a lot of hard evidence on HN, if only because this probably isn't the right type of forum for a courtroom. I like to keep it a bit more casual.

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