“Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″

Post by amelius » Wed, May 10, 2017, 4:37 PM UTC

warcher wrote: post #29

jessaustin wrote: post #14

Ma Bell's monopoly has never been "natural". It has been enforced by FCC, ever since FCC was formed for that specific purpose in 1934. Even before that, ICC through the Kingsbury Commitment had adopted an ill-considered and unjustified hands-off policy with respect to Ma Bell's anticompetitive actions.

Jesus, yes, how did I have to scroll down this far before I read "ATT was a government monopoly"? Google doesn't have a monopoly on anything. They have the best search engine, but I can switch in seconds. Likewise the rest of their products all have very well established and really quite functional competitors. That I don't use, cause I like the big G, but I could if they annoyed me too much.

Post by ng12 » Wed, May 10, 2017, 4:40 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #26

panabee wrote: post #15

It would be great to see more balanced discourse on monopolies, especially in a software-dominated world. Most analyses and articles fixate on the costs of monopolies. Let's assume the worst of Google and conclude they abused their search monopoly. Innovation in search was stifled. Competitors were damaged and achieved only a fraction of their potential. For instance, Yelp might be worth $15B instead of $3B in a worl…

>But Google's search monopoly and concomitant cash flows also gave society free worldwide communication, self-driving cars, cheaper smartphones, free digital maps, and countless other benefits. To be clear you can't be sure those things wouldn't be around if google hadn't had a search monopoly. Maybe we would have even better digital maps for example had there been way more firms competing. Monopolies can't just be m…

Post by blfr » Wed, May 10, 2017, 4:44 PM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #9

Omnius wrote: post #5

Google has a ton of competition across all of its products. It's dominating in some of them but being better then your competition is a lot different then there not being any.

Google beats the competition in some markets because they have so much power in other markets. If you start a startup even in cloud photo storage, and suddenly Google Photos comes along, you’re dead. No one will fund you anymore, and you’ve basically lost. Google has such an immense amount of network effect, and of knowledge they can gain from dominating in other markets, that if Google enters a market – unless there…

Post by abraham » Wed, May 10, 2017, 4:45 PM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #9

Omnius wrote: post #5

Google has a ton of competition across all of its products. It's dominating in some of them but being better then your competition is a lot different then there not being any.

Google beats the competition in some markets because they have so much power in other markets. If you start a startup even in cloud photo storage, and suddenly Google Photos comes along, you’re dead. No one will fund you anymore, and you’ve basically lost. Google has such an immense amount of network effect, and of knowledge they can gain from dominating in other markets, that if Google enters a market – unless there…

Post by dkarapetyan » Wed, May 10, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

panabee wrote: post #15

It would be great to see more balanced discourse on monopolies, especially in a software-dominated world. Most analyses and articles fixate on the costs of monopolies. Let's assume the worst of Google and conclude they abused their search monopoly. Innovation in search was stifled. Competitors were damaged and achieved only a fraction of their potential. For instance, Yelp might be worth $15B instead of $3B in a worl…