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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

#251

Post by CamperBob2 »

nolist_policy wrote: post #222
mouse_ wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ownership and security are at odds. The only remedy would be forcing Apple to allow the owner of the device to run whatever they would like on it, unfortunately this does include malware.

This is a false dilemma thought. The secure solution is to treat every app as malicious and put it in a sandbox where it can not cause harm. See also Android and ChromeOS.

In the broadest sense, an app that "can not cause harm" can't do anything useful. To the industry's dominant players, "causing harm" means empowering the user to venture outside their walled gardens... or even to see outside them.

So, no, sandboxing everything in sight isn't a useful solution. Your sandbox will just imprison us all.

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

#252

Post by CivBase »

fny wrote: 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…

Chrome and Android are particularly interesting to me. What would splitting those projects off from Google possibly look like?

Both are open source projects with "ungoogled" options available, but those options are nowhere near as successful as the Google flavors. Would they just forbid Google from offering their own flavor of Chromium?

Even though Android itself is open source, Google Play services really are what allow Google to have so much influence on the Android platform. So what happens to Google Play? Would they be forced to split that off with Android? Would they be forced to continue offering their services for free, but with no strings attached? Would Android have to offer a middleware that lets you choose which services to use a la carte? Would Android device manufacturers have to ship their devices with an open source alternative to Google Play like microG?

How do you separate Google from Android without driving everyone to the other side of the smartphone duopoly, iOS?

If a breakup does happen, it's going to be wild. I wish I had more faith in our government to come up with the best solution. But something has to be done.

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

#253

Post by chipdart »

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.

> If what comes after is not better, then we waited too long to break this monopoly up.

I don't follow your logic, because it does not have any logic.

Can you clarify your line of reasoning? I mean, if breaking up a company creates more problems than the ones it solves, what leads you to believe that anticipating the breakup would have any impact whatsoever in the fact that breaking up the company creates more problems than the ones it solves?

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

#254

Post by chipdart »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #215
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 na…

> artificially suppressed rates

I don't follow your point. All rates are set arbitrarily according to the monetary policy followed on any specific moment.

What leads you to believe that arbitrarily setting a rate one way is natural, but arbitrarily setting it another way is more natural?

> Zooming back out, whatever pain comes from breaking Google up today will be less than the pain of doing so in a decade.

Will it, though? Think about the problem for a second. Do you think it would be more painful to break up Yahoo now than it would have been a decade ago? What about Intel? What about IBM? I mean,do you think Google of all companies is doing great?

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

#255

Post by merlindru »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #235
Workaccount2 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Everyone already uses iMessage. It's like getting everyone in the EU to switch to Signal because Meta owns WhatsApp: it's impossible. There's not enough incentive to switch off of the current solution because the hurdles to doing so is getting everyone else to do so.

If your family & friends use WhatsApp, they'll eventually be "pressured" by others to use iMessage, simply because the people that they know don't use WhatsApp.

This effect cascades, and now everyone is back to since the "pain" that solution inflicts on a couple individuals is not nearly big enough to make everyone switch.

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

#256

Post by thehappypm »

bentice wrote: post #126
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.

To exist on the internet you need to pay Google. Google is essentially the government of the open web. The problem is that government like monopolies do arise especially when there are network effects. We need to regulate search and app stores like it is a public utility. Pricing should be dutch auction or something provably fair. 20-30% for in-app purchases is obviously insane when credit cards do 1.5-3.5%. I worry…

What are you even talking about? you actually do not need to pay Google a dime to be on the Internet, if you have good SEO you can be on the top of the page

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

#257

Post by labcomputer »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #149
kmmlng wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be in support of the parent's point. So breaking up Google would have resulted in worse outcomes for consumers 10 years ago, but it would be even worse today? Then it wouldn't have made sense to break them up 10 years ago and it would make even less sense today. I'm not claiming there aren't any good reasons to break up Google (I don't know), but this line of argumentation doesn't work as far as I can s…

If your of the opinion that Google should not be broken up at all, ever, then your point is valid.

If you are neutral on whether Google should be broken up, and breaking up the company results in consumer harm, then breaking up the company makes no sense.

Your argument only makes sense if you start from the premise that Google should be broken up, and then try to back into an argument supporting that premise.

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

#258

Post by labcomputer »

Cyph0n wrote: post #245
wil421 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But those are gaming and entertainment devices, not general-purpose computing devices that everyone relies on for day-to-day work and life. A good way to think about it is this: if Windows was as closed down as iOS, and took a 30% cut on every application purchase, would regulators have intervened?

What physical attributes make them not general purpose computers?

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

#259

Post by dmonitor »

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.

Let’s be real: Windows is practically a monopoly. They use it to push their online services in ridiculous ways. I doubt >10% of the current Edge userbase is through conscious decision. Teams obviously cannot compete on its own terms with any competitors, its prevalence only comes from being part of Microsoft’s all in one office suite package that no individual company can compete with.

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

#260

Post by mjevans »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #108
mjevans wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple deal had two sides engaged in monopolistic behavior. One was Google buying out that default provider option. The other was Apple, having that default option.

> The other was Apple, having that default option. What UI are you imagining? Perhaps no search engine at all in the browser but the first time a user goes to "search" you present them with a list of random-sorted search engines? Maybe the problem was that Apple has "that default option for sale ."

Search without a setting configured should open the Settings dialog to the page which configures search.

On that page should be a list of the current well known / trusted providers (this can be a cached copy for offline config), maybe a refresh button (check for an updated version of that list), and a method of providing an end user installed search option.

In short: Empower the End User.

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