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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

#211

Post by CivBase »

jonhohle wrote: post #139
brookst wrote: 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.

It’s odd how this is lost on people. Want to develop a game for PlayStation, Sony will need to approve. Want to develop a Facebook app, FB will gatekeep. If you wanted to make apps for the Danger Hiptop, you published through Danger. iOS is Apple’s consolized OS for their own hardware. It’s not a PC platform that anyone can put on whatever device they want. For better or worse.

When you're a part of a duopoly on a product that is necessary for participating in the modern economy with as much friction as iOS has for switching to the only viable competitor... what makes it so fundamentally different from the web?

IMO they can either keep the duopoly and deal with regulation or they can keep full control of their platform. One or the other. Same goes for Android.

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

#212

Post by taeric »

at_a_remove wrote: post #208
taeric wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly, breaking it up may give some items a better chance at living? Ostensibly, one of the main drivers of that graveyard is the monorepo nature of how they rollout changes, combined with them moving people off of projects. Splitting them directly addresses both of those?

Again, which items? Google Sets? Ain't nobody gonna pay for that! Chromecast? Google Domains? I am scrolling through the list and not seeing much that would stand on its own two feet. Stadia? Google+? I'm just not seeing much that can stand on its own, that people will pay for without it resorting to an ad model to support it.

I mean, some of the items that have been killed were actively used while they were getting killed? Such that they may not pay a lot, but that does not mean they won't pay.

The problem with a lot of Google services is that they have to generate enough ad revenue to offset the high cost of development and maintenance that Google's operating style leads to. Ostensibly, you could have some of these stand on cheaper practices?

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

#213

Post by lmpdev »

Someone wrote: post #176
elforce002 wrote: post #160

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.

That’s not my understanding

The Gilded Age Trusts were brought down regardless as to whether they misused their power. It wasn’t just oil.

Monopolies are like a positive feedback loop which causes the market to diverge into a barely functional state

It doesn’t matter if they abused their market position, monopolies are to be corrected, mens rea present or not

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

#214

Post by abduhl »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #162
shadowgovt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting hypothesis, but it's entirely possible that separated from Google, Chrome is either not a viable business model (browsers don't make money on their own) or is incentivized to get into bed with some other ad company to make money, to effectively the same result.

Aren't you pointing out the exact problem with Google? If Chrome wasn't a viable business without Google's ads subsidizing it, isn't its existence in its current form exactly the kind of anti-competitive outcome we would be better off without? Without Google subsidizing Chrome, a real competitive market for browsers might emerge, with more vendors investing more effort into competing for users, without having to comp…

What possible browser competition can exist? The market price for a browser from a consumer perspective is $0. I will never pay for a browser. All that will happen is new ad placements from smaller companies, directly in the browser.

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

#215

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

bearjaws wrote: post #30

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.

The housing and finance markets seem like a fitting example. Under and over investment respectively fueled bubbles that fed each other until their inevitable pop took the entire economy down and required a decade of artificially suppressed rates backed by trillions in debt setting us for bigger problems when an actual economic crisis occurs (Covid). We’re still weathering this storm of financial mismanagement on a national scale. Narrowing in, housing is now being over invested in fueling a bubble while the communities houses exist in are victims of underinvestment.

Zooming back out, whatever pain comes from breaking Google up today will be less than the pain of doing so in a decade. Even more broadly, the pain of breaking up any monopoly (a matter how small) today will be less than when their breakup is as or more pressing than any of the historical antitrust cases.

As Senator John Sherman put it, "If we will not endure a king as a political power we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life."

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, ATT/Verizon/Tmobile, and hoards of smaller but similarly situated companies behave as kings shaping markets, acting without accountability or culpability, and shaking down the public at their whims. The gospel of the stock market has paralyzed our legislators from taking action to put these corrupt, wasteful, polluting and abusive businesses in their place or out of operation.

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

#216

Post by cptskippy »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #151

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.

Microsoft was arguably the first, the case fell apart and ended up a settlement because the Judge presiding over the case violated the court code of conduct by discussing the case with the media. Something laughable in 2024.

That being said, the trial is the basis for the action taken against Google:

> However, the Circuit Court did not overturn Jackson's findings of fact, and held that traditional antitrust analysis was not equipped to consider software-related practices like browser tie-ins.

Another interesting outcome of the trail was that it established a playbook that others, namely Google, could follow to avoid antitrust litigation. I would argue that Google's ability to operate as a monopoly for so long was largely a result of the outcomes of the Microsoft trial.

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

#217

Post by datadrivenangel »

IX-103 wrote: post #168
deepsquirrelnet wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger problem is that by conglomerating all of these businesses that are operating in different industries, Google has cut out competition from companies that would provide those services. Why does Google search use Google adwords? Is it because adwords has given them the better terms than their competition or because they have no choice by virtue of being the same company?

Or because AdWords was designed and specifically optimized for search and then only later released (in a modified form) as a separate product.

AdWords was primarily built by purchasing the biggest competitor, DoubleClick.

Google intentionally built the best ad serving engine, in large part by buying the competition out.

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

#218

Post by EasyMark »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #111
brookst wrote: 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.

I hardly use Google, and I use the internet. DDG/Kagi/ChatGPT/Reddit/HN/etc for searching. Fastmail/myriad order email providers. Openstreetmap/Apple for maps. YouTube and Chrome Remote Desktop are what I use Google for, but those have alternatives too.

It’s not just monopoly it’s googles abuse. How many times have they been sued successfully and fined by the government for abusing the position as a large corporation, I’d say it’s legion. I wish the government was more vigilant in using their power to kill corporations outright after so many abuses of power

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

#219

Post by jonhohle »

CivBase wrote: post #211
jonhohle wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s odd how this is lost on people. Want to develop a game for PlayStation, Sony will need to approve. Want to develop a Facebook app, FB will gatekeep. If you wanted to make apps for the Danger Hiptop, you published through Danger. iOS is Apple’s consolized OS for their own hardware. It’s not a PC platform that anyone can put on whatever device they want. For better or worse.

When you're a part of a duopoly on a product that is necessary for participating in the modern economy with as much friction as iOS has for switching to the only viable competitor... what makes it so fundamentally different from the web? IMO they can either keep the duopoly and deal with regulation or they can keep full control of their platform. One or the other. Same goes for Android.

So if a business mode is successful, regardless of whether it’s actively thwarted competition or acted anticompetitively, it should be regulated?

It’s not the web. It’s not a PC. It’s a sandboxed console.

> MO they can either keep the duopoly and deal with regulation or they can keep full control of their platform.

Then they’ll keep they’re platform and not be regulated ;-) (I know what you meant).

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

#220

Post by EasyMark »

shadowgovt wrote: post #79
uptownJimmy wrote: post #39

Google's "search results" are the textbook definition of a monopolized good/service. The whole thing is almost a casino, rigged to the point of absurdity. There has been nothing in my life so disillusioning as working on a Web app for a company that is more or less required to play Google's game.

Your problem isn't Google, your problem is capitalism and the limited attention economy. If you were in a position where you could just put things online and they may or may not be useful to people, you wouldn't be having this problem. But you're not; you're working for a taskmaster that demands attention or they can't justify their existence. If Google evaporates tomorrow, there's no guarantee that your product gets…

I’ll take capitalism controlling the internet any day over a communist dictatorship who will censor everything that doesn’t support the regime
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