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Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

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Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#191

If what comes after is not better, then we waited too long to break this monopoly up. We either start ripping this band-aids off or we will just continually have a worse and worse internet.

Hard to imagine it getting worse. Browsing search engine results these days reminds me of post apocalyptic movie scenery.

I'm not sure Search is the most important product (for users) at this point. It should be, but Gmail and YouTube come to mind as much more important services for end-users. People haven't really been 'browsing the web' for over a decade now. Search hasn't felt good for years, but Gmail for example has been pretty good for a long time.

Say the Search product is split off, it would instantly collapse as without the crutches of the Ad business it has no way to support itself. Maybe if we normalise paying for web products, and have some sort of "10 searches for free per day" starting point. That could open the door for a sustainable product that actually does what it needs to do. Perhaps the classic (and not in-line) ad sidebar with clear markings (and different markup) could provide some coverage there as well. But others have tried that (from scratch, with no brand recognition) and haven't really become a household name so far...

Google has essentially built a software Ouroboros, and if you try to take any of the critical (the most well-known) parts out, it fails and everyone is left with nothing.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#192
post #31

I'm very curious to see what a breakup looks like. Past breakups involved "uniform" businesses: - American Tobacco: Commodity - Standard Oil: Commodity - AT&T: Utility - Northern Securities: Railroads - Swift & Co: Meatpacking - Kodak: Film - Paramount: Movie Theaters Google is more of a synergistic conglomerate. How would spinning off an individual business like Chrome, Android, or AdWords reduce their respective do…

Ads and search are the two businesses that most directly collude and which could both survive and thrive independently. If the search business worked with other ad networks to maximize their revenue, while the ad business worked with other search engines, we’d likely see higher quality search results, less confusion about what’s an ad versus a result, and better as rates for buyers. That said I don’t support that rem…

Splitting ads and search is a nonstarter. Ads on the search page are very different from ads on other pages since search ads can leverage information retrieved during the search. Ads on other pages have to use contextual or remarketing signals, with much poorer results.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#193

If what comes after is not better, then we waited too long to break this monopoly up. We either start ripping this band-aids off or we will just continually have a worse and worse internet.

Hard to imagine it getting worse. Browsing search engine results these days reminds me of post apocalyptic movie scenery.

There are alternatives. You don't have to use Google.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#194
It’s true. If you look at the history, breaking up companies often results in each division doing well and maybe not an improvement as Youtube/Android/Search/Gmail/Adwords/Chrome all need to earn a profit independently.

At a minimum, not having Google paying Firefox/Apple to promote them as the default is a good thing. It’s super annoying that Safari doesn’t allow me to switch to Kagi easily.

I understand a reason they do this is to protect users like my father from adware/spyware companies putting in fake search engines, but I’m sure not getting money from Google to force a default has something to do with it as well.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#195

While we're at it, we need to break Microsoft and Amazon asap. I don't know how Microsoft is not up for discussion when it's a behemoth (GitHub, LinkedIn, Azure, Windows, Office, etc.). The same applies for Amazon.

> I don't know how Microsoft is not up for discussion when it's a behemoth Because we think interfering with the free market is necessary when a company misuses market power, not solely when it is a behemoth.

Public companies exist to enrich shareholders. If you are in a position to abuse your market power, you're sorta obligated to.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Microsoft?

In these types of discussions, people love bringing out the "But what about $OTHER_OBVIOUS_MONOPOLY?". The solution is simple (the word simple here is doing a lot of work, I know); Meta, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple and any other similarly sized behemoth should be nuked, and not just in the tech world. Microsoft should've been properly nuked 30 years ago with the original anti-trust, yet alone now, same goes for…

Not to mention that Microsoft wasn't broken up because Bush intervened: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/sep/07/microsoft...

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#197
post #31

I'm very curious to see what a breakup looks like. Past breakups involved "uniform" businesses: - American Tobacco: Commodity - Standard Oil: Commodity - AT&T: Utility - Northern Securities: Railroads - Swift & Co: Meatpacking - Kodak: Film - Paramount: Movie Theaters Google is more of a synergistic conglomerate. How would spinning off an individual business like Chrome, Android, or AdWords reduce their respective do…

There are probably only a small number of services that could successfully spin off on their own, but a lot of the value is in integration, which as others point out is also how some things seem 'free'. An easier example would be Microsoft and Office; you could spin off an application like that quite successfully, the same might apply to their ERP. But those examples only stem from the fact that they used to be isola…

Microsoft for a good long while made money on two things: Office and Windows. You could break them up into "Office", "Windows", and any combination of "everything else", and for the most part what would happen is that the Office and Windows parts would make more money proportionally, and most if not all of the "everything else" would die. Even products that could nominally have survived on their own if they had grown up on their own would die because by the time the corporate culture adapted to the new realities they'd mostly already be dead.

Given that monopoly-breakups are supposed to be in the public interest, it is a complicated argument to make in court that the public is advantaged by all those ancillary services getting killed. Now, I'm happy to declare that; I think the "culture of free" is corrosive, to probably an even greater degree than most other HN users. I'm outright willing to call it morally corrosive, for both the companies and the consumers. You, dear $READER, may not be inclined to go that far, especially perhaps on the consumer side. I'm just putting down my cards so that you can see that when I point out that in court that's going to be a difficult argument, it's an admission against my interests and biases.

Google is similar. They make money on ads and everything else is a distant second. Even search might have trouble standing on its own because it is funded on ad revenue; split them up that way and how is search getting funded? Google Cloud could certainly survive on its own for a time, but if it had to reduce investment it could go into an uncompetitive death spiral of having to match investment resources to profits over the years. Gmail could in principle make radically more money if they charged $5/month or something, but how many customers will do that?

And how on Earth would you even break up Android? You can't just hack it out as its own thing; it integrates with a lot of Google things and there's no way they'd all end up in the same entity.

I'm willing to just hack them to pieces and let the market figure it out. I think in the long term we'd come out stronger. But I'm arguing here in a relatively friendly forum for that and probably a lot of you still disagree with me. I'd hate to be arguing this in court.

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#198

It’s true. If you look at the history, breaking up companies often results in each division doing well and maybe not an improvement as Youtube/Android/Search/Gmail/Adwords/Chrome all need to earn a profit independently. At a minimum, not having Google paying Firefox/Apple to promote them as the default is a good thing. It’s super annoying that Safari doesn’t allow me to switch to Kagi easily. I understand a reason th…

> super annoying that Safari doesn’t allow me to switch to Kagi

What does Apple not allowing you to set a custom search engine on iOS have to do with Google?

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#199
post #142
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true and a fair point, iOS is Apple’s platform in a way that the web is most certainly not Google’s.

Just following this thought then the remedy will be forcing Apple to allow alternative OS and firmware on their devices, allowing consumers to choose what they do with the device hardware they purchased?

No, it would be buying an android phone

Re: Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

#200

I'm flumuxed that Google is the first tech company to be ruled a monopoly. I would put them fourth on the tech monopoly list, behind Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, in that order. I don't think there would be much benefit to society by breaking up google. Whereas I do think there would be great benefit to breaking up Apple or MS.

In their defense:

- Microsoft's biggest monopoly candidate is Windows, and outside of business the PC space is too small for this to be as problematic as it once was

- Apple's devices have competitors, although they are really bad about sucking people into their ecosystem and mistreating the outsiders

- No one is forced to use Amazon, although they do have scummy tactics for their sellers I believe (you're not allowed to sell it cheaper elsewhere or something like that?).

I'm sure similar arguments could be made for Google though.

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