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United States vs. Google

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Re: United States vs. Google

#241

Post by Siira »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #167
wwwdonohue wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of agree, but part of me also thinks that if a company builds the world's best mobile OS and search engine and ad platform and video streaming service and internet browser and mapping service... well, good for them! They built the best products and it seems like it would ultimately be anti-consumer to do anything about it. It's different if a company like Google establishes its dominance via one great product…

The power that Google used to build those other lines of business was not artificial, but it was very effective. The existence of that power is anti-consumer because no one else can afford to build anything better, because Google makes more money than your hypothetical new world's best product ever by charging absolutely nothing for their competing product. Step 1, in 1997, was to build the world's best search engine…

> charging absolutely nothing for their competing product.

Most people prefer this. What you're suggesting is to subsidize the rich by removing free products thus making everyone share the costs for the premium services.

I.e., this is not a local maximum preventing the global utopia of premium services for the rich. The current design serves the world better than that exclusionary, elitist dream. (Though the market is actually open for such elite products as well, when the rich actually want to pay their own fees; Hey.com is a thing.)

Re: United States vs. Google

#242

Post by wizardforhire »

nunez wrote: post #194
mdoms wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think most Americans are unhappy with this situation. But we feel powerless to change it. BS. Americans will happily send half their disposable income to Amazon in the name of convenience.

Name another company _that is not Walmart_ that can deliver most of the items I want or need (or, hell, anything that I can think of) next day without paying exorbitant shipping fees and I'll switch to them right now.

This thread exploded and took me minutes before I could circle around to find this comment so, sorry for the delay.

Grainger. Especially if you're doing commercial shopping and need stuff to actually idk maybe do what it says and not be counterfeit.

I know i know they seem like a dinosaur, their catalog is a disaster and it seems impossible to find a real price. Thats all true, but theres a reason they obfuscate themselves. They’re a walled garden but once you're in its living in the future where this whole amazon problem has already been solved going on decades now!!! Its kinda like walmart to sams or target to costco. But grainger isnt owned by amazon, theyre direct competition and I’d wager if the hn crowd had our way and put consumer pressure on them to expand their market and made them know of our capabilities in helping them expand that vision, that grainger would pivot in a heartbeat to be more common consumer friendly. ... and then maybe we could have a little bit of peace.

But seriously their worth checking out.

Re: United States vs. Google

#243

Post by Siira »

cvwright wrote: post #230
closetohome wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do like to point out that whatever shenanigans YouTube is doing with their discoverability and promotion features, they still provide unlimited lifetime 8K video hosting for free . And that's a pretty good deal.

Yes, it’s called dumping, and it’s illegal to do this to expand a monopoly.

Dumping is only bad if it is temporary. Otherwise, it's called a natural monopoly.

Re: United States vs. Google

#244

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

dsabanin wrote: post #47

I think Google is the best search engine. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with them being the best search engine, top online ad platform and a developer of the top mobile OS, top video streaming service, top internet browser, top mapping/navigation service, among other things, at the SAME time. Their assets give them undue and unsupervised influence over a very big chunk of what's happening onli…

Scope and scale don't transition into being a problem until they begin to behave with a political (or religious, or...) bias and work to influence their customers in ways outside of providing value. Your phone company, auto manufacturer or favorite restaurant chain should want to provide value regardless of their customers' politics.

It's definitely crossing a line for them to covertly influence the political leanings of their customers.

Re: United States vs. Google

#245

Post by Siira »

crazygringo wrote: post #6

Most interesting part IMO is at the end (emphasis mine): > That, though, is why it is a mistake to read the report as some sort of technocratic document... it is exceptionally difficult to make the case that any of these companies are causing consumer harm, which is the de facto standard for antitrust in the United States. Indeed, what makes Google’s contention that “The competition is only a click away” so infuriati…

Isn't the government the ultimate monopoly though? Wouldn't big companies be some sort of (admittedly twisted) competition for it?

Re: United States vs. Google

#246

Post by tehjoker »

Aunche wrote: post #214
tehjoker wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just blaming individual consumers for the fact that there is concentrated power that benefits from minor choices people make in mass, the kinds of choices that are easily manipulable by adding or removing friction to various choices. We don't have strong enough democratic social and labor movements that can move the needle yet. If we abandon the individualistic frame, we begin to see the necessity of joining…

Nobody is "blaming" individual consumers. They're just respecting their free agency. Most people who purchase from Amazon prefer it to brick and mortar stores and other e-commerce websites. Most people who work at Amazon fulfillment centers willingly accept higher expectations in exchange for better pay. You don't get to decide whether someone is being coerced or manipulated.

You're always "free" to take whatever crumbs the master drops from the table. You're also free to organize a rebellion for a better world.

Re: United States vs. Google

#247

Post by vermilingua »

sudosysgen wrote: post #135
ankit219 wrote: post #25

One key insight I found from the article is the distinction between European Commission and US approach when it comes to innovation and investment in tech. > Third, Google will argue that its deals for Android distribution and the tying of search defaults to Google Play Services (including the Play Store) (...) but is also Google’s just reward for having invested in the creation of Android. This last argument didn’t…

They would only be able to do it if they get rid of any code at all that they didn't develop themselves, and then accordingly followed the rest of the licenses. I'd imagine this would be a huge clusterfuck.

Is that not the whole premise of Fuscia/Zircon?

Re: United States vs. Google

#248

Post by munk-a »

d1zzy wrote: post #157
munk-a wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak to all of the points but when it comes to video hosting - no you don't. Content creators can't move off of youtube since it's more of a discovery service than a hosting service and it has locked viewers into its platform - it doesn't offer any way for dailymotion, vimeo, nebula, acorn, amazon, netflix, twitch or dlive to promote videos on their home page and due to their enormous market share content cr…

Twitch, however, seems to be doing great without being able to advertise their videos on Youtube. This is more of a discussion of walled gardens than typical monopoly abuse.

From what I've heard from most streamers - Twitch is not competitive. The account banning rules are a lot less clear and the monetization isn't up to the level streamers can usually pull in from YT super chats. Additionally I think there's a bit of an issue in the fact that a lot of creators (streamers as well) will end up posting highlight videos or stand-alone video content to supplement their channel (i.e. someone playing fortnite might put together a guide on how to scavenge efficiently for newbies) and that video can end up driving traffic to their regular steams - but it'll only do that if the streams and the video are on the same platform (so a stream highlight on twitch will get twitch stream viewers while a video on youtube will get youtube stream viewers) - with the discoverability of regular videos being much higher on youtube it puts youtube in a stronger position.

Re: United States vs. Google

#249

Post by zepto »

genidoi wrote: post #193
zepto wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The divisions are arbitrary. A search engine is a number of components - e.g. a crawler, an index, and a user interface. Why should one company be able to own all three of these? Why not just one? Perhaps crawling should only be able to be sold as a wholesale commodity.

What is the exact point that a crawler needs to be decoupled (at the corporate level) from it's front end? Is it measured by MAUs? Pages scraped? Or is it going by "it can be decoupled, so it should". The extreme version of your argument would have companies own the IP to a particular for loop's iterator variable name.

Indeed.

“My” argument is a generalization of the argument people are making that Google should only be allowed to operate “one” service.

Re: United States vs. Google

#250

Post by zepto »

deelowe wrote: post #115
aloisdg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets say 1.

So the ad business, which generates all the revenue is split off from everything else. All the various services including search die b/c they can't self sustain and all that's left is an ad platform akin to the former double click scenario. Now what?

Bing becomes the number one search engine.
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