251–260 of 353 posts
Google monopolized search with the great product they developed, and then tied it to an ever increasingly aggressive ad product which in turn makes all of the web practically unusable without filtering.
There’s noting inherently expensive about serving http, and it should be getting ever cheaper as Moore’s Law progress along its merry way, but for this middle man we’ve all gotten addicted to.
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Nobody is stopping anyone from doing this, and people are doing this. Whenever I lock my screen on Windows, I get an unremovable ad from Microsoft that says I can earn money for every search if I just switch to Bing. When you click "help" in Windows, it doesn't give you help -- it opens your a browser for a Bing search for something vaguely related to the problem, and the search returns no useful results. (It doesn't…
You can hide the Windows 10 lock screen ads: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-remove-advertising-window... Not sure if it works on all Windows 10 editions though.
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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…
It sounds like you want to punish them for being successful. I still haven't seen the harm to the consumers. They build search and ad networks and email and android. I use them all the time. I now have access to youtube and infinite amount of information on it on my fingertips.
Also, there's the issue of public trust. We have no choice but to trust Google not to skew its search results. It's not obvious this trust is justified.
Google can literally make individuals, companies, and events disappear from the Internet. You can put up your site or your business and if Google removes you from search you might as well not exist.
A moment's thought will suggest that this is exactly the same as the YouTube problem, but on a larger scale. And that's an unhealthy amount of power for a corporation that isn't subject to any oversight or accountability.
> At the same time, whatever an Aggregator chooses to do on its own site or app is less important, because users and third parties can always go elsewhere, and if they don’t, that is because they are satisfied. This always strikes me as a weak argument. Facebook users can't go elsewhere because their friends aren't on other platforms. It doesn't matter if there's a more privacy-focused social network out there that p…
Friends' choices to use Facebook are also consumers' choices. What is the alternative? Either persuade your friends to move, or remove their choice via legislative action. Are there other options?
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 leaning…
So if every phone/browser etc. asked you to pick your default browser at setup time - would that placate the DOJ? Wouldn't most people stick pick Google?
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?
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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…
It sounds like you want to punish them for being successful. I still haven't seen the harm to the consumers. They build search and ad networks and email and android. I use them all the time. I now have access to youtube and infinite amount of information on it on my fingertips.
IMO the main problem is the existence of an institution that is (arguably) more powerful than any government in the world.
That's not necessarily a problem on its own.
It becomes a problem when those same institutions have a very small number of people with specially concocted classes of shares that give people like Zuckerberg majority control of the company despite owning I don't want to live in a world where 1 person can have such immense and unchecked power. Especially when that 1 person is immune from, for example, being removed as CEO.
I'm not sure if it's still the case today, but I believe Sergy / Larry had 51%+ control of the company despite only owning ~10% of shares.
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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.
Youtube is attempting to move into Twitch’s space with live-streaming, but Twitch is certainly not competing with youtube as a video hosting product. Vimeo is the primary competitor there, and I have no idea how good a job they’re doing really.
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…
But you're not cornered in. You might think they have a large influence over what is happening online (and they do), but you as an individual have a choice if you want to use the services they provide. Also this large influence is additionally strengthened by the fact that no other company can offer services (above mentioned) that match the quality of the product Google is giving.
This is somewhat similar to TikTok's situation. There's currently no other company that can offer services that match the quality of the product TikTok is giving. The US government's solution? Force ByteDance to divest unless it wants to get banned. This is Big Tech protectionism, perfected.
In the same vein, the US is going to force Google to break itself into fragments. This can also be seen as a Big Tech protectionist measure, because Google has no incentive to improve its monopolistic byproducts. In fact, it routinely kills them. Spinoff companies of Google will compete with each other and undoubtedly yield much better (and pro-consumer) products, no matter which way you look at it.