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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

#231

Post by consteval »

abduhl wrote: post #214
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> All that will happen is new ad placements from smaller companies, directly in the browser.

I don't think this is going to be the case. This seems like an extreme conclusion with virtually no precedent.

Since an ad browser is such an important piece of software, I imagine it will receive many donations. The reason Chrome doesn't is because it doesn't need them. I think that will change.

Also, I think it's possible you will pay for a browser at some point. Ultimately software costs money to make and we've become desensitized to that because we've exchanged that cost for advertising. But advertising sucks. For example, I pay double for HBO Max just so I don't see ads, and I'm not alone in that.

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

#232

Post by consteval »

nordsieck wrote: post #123
brookst wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Ads and search are the two businesses that most directly collude and which could both survive and thrive independently. I'm skeptical that search is viable as an independent business at scale. I know DDG is making a go of it, but the business only has to pay a single salary.

Personally, I think Search should be a public, not private, effort. Indexing the internet should be a global endeavor beneficial to world governments in unison. The issue is that the potential for censorship is rife, but I think including many govs on a board might solve this.

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

#233

Post by brookst »

isodev wrote: post #142
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.

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?

I’m not a subscriber to the “if I choose to buy a product, I get to dictate product design decisions for the company” school of thought. Buy it or don’t. If you want X there is no right do demand Y turn into X.

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

#234

Post by dosinga »

safety1st wrote: post #40
dosinga wrote: post #11

Part of the problem is that tech products tend to be natural monopolies. If you split android off Google, it will probably just lose out against iOS in the West and some Chinese Android version elsewhere. As the article says, that's not necessarily better.

People say this but there's nothing "natural" about Google's monopoly, to get to where they are today, they had to make a dozen major acquisitions, and if the last few administrations hadn't been bought and paid for, the FTC could have said no to any of them. In particular they should have looked very very hard at Doubleclick. I mean who are we kidding, they should have said no to Doubleclick. So we are in a world to…

If the marginal cost of delivering your product is close to zero, markets will tend to monopoly. A search/ads company that has 10% of the market share that Google does (and no one gets even to that), has roughly the same costs but only 10% of the income (and only that if they are as good as Google is in making on money off search). On top of that, having access to the query stream is really important keeping search quality up.

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

#235

Post by lotsofpulp »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #178
tgv wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't match the description of a monopoly, as far as I can see. Amazon might. But Google is dominant. You could add Facebook to the monopolies, unless you think it shares the same space as Twitter.

You generally cannot have friends as an American under 25 without owning an iPhone. Outside of HN tech heads, regular young Americans use phones that "can send pictures that don't look like garbage!". I consider Apple by far the most insidious, since they leverage your friends and family against you to put heavy social penalties on not submitting. They then use this dominance to bend devs to their will, and take an e…

WhatsApp offers very simple high quality image/video sharing. If you are being excluded by your friends, it’s not because the image quality is bad. It’s because they want to exclude you.

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

#236

Post by InsideOutSanta »

abduhl wrote: post #214
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"I will never pay for a browser"

...in the current market, which was created by companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google, who subsidized their browsers through other income.

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

#237

Post by wil421 »

isodev wrote: post #142
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.

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?

Why should they have to allow it? My smart TVs and video game consoles never allowed it, except that short lived Linux PlayStation. Nintendo is pretty hostile about reverse engineering the switch.

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

#238

Post by nolist_policy »

EasyMark wrote: post #225
IX-103 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your premise, but you're example is unfortunate. The manifest v3 thing was due to an API change to improve performance by pulling the renderer out of the critical path for network requests. Adblockers can still block ads (as in not show them), but they can't throttle or block requests. It would be better to point out that Chrome is the only browser not getting rid of third party cookies. Chrome promised…

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s a duck. They used the “improved security” as an excuse while leaving other just as big holes in their security. Show me how AdGuard or ublock origin abused the current system in v2

> Show me how AdGuard or ublock origin abused the current system in v2

They didn't, but other malicious extensions did.

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

#239

Post by nolist_policy »

IX-103 wrote: post #184
mcpar-land wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking up their individual businesses can cause each business to have incentives that line up better with their customers / users. Example: if Chrome was separated from Google, they won't have as much of an incentive to push back against adblockers with things like Manifest V3. Or include APIs that are only available to google websites (Which it has! https://x.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018 )

I agree with your premise, but you're example is unfortunate. The manifest v3 thing was due to an API change to improve performance by pulling the renderer out of the critical path for network requests. Adblockers can still block ads (as in not show them), but they can't throttle or block requests. It would be better to point out that Chrome is the only browser not getting rid of third party cookies. Chrome promised…

I think the third party cookie thing is due to their other antitrust lawsuite in advertising.

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

#240

Post by jasode »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #217
IX-103 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Your timeline is not right. Google was created in 1998. DoubleClick was acquired by Google +9 years later in 2008.

AdWords was a homegrown Google project starting around 2000. AdWords was an internally built auction-based system selling keywords using some ideas from Goto/Overture.

In contrast, Doubleclick was an ad-exchange-network marketplace for publishers and advertisers. This was a different market from AdWords that Google wanted to expand into.

Today, yes, both products are more integrated with each other.

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