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Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

theregister.com

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

#301

Post by antihipocrat »

chipdart wrote: post #271
diffeomorphism wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"buy it or don't" does not work with oligopolies. If you had a free market, I would agree, but you very much don't in this case.

> "buy it or don't" does not work with oligopolies. If you had a free market, I would agree, but you very much don't in this case. Why do you believe there is no free market on mobile phones? I mean, what exactly forces you to pick an iPhone over anything?

That's not quite what the parent meant. There is a choice between very few phone manufacturers, and even less mobile operating systems.

Don't want to sign up to one multinational behemoth? Well, your choice is to sign up to one other multinational behemoth.

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

#302

Post by epolanski »

shadowgovt wrote: post #91
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 )

It's an interesting hypothesis, but it's entirely possible that separated from Google, Chrome is either not a viable business model (browsers don't make money on their own) or is incentivized to get into bed with some other ad company to make money, to effectively the same result.

The more I think about your example the more it is a viable business model as you have the incentive to make people bid for the data, rather than defaulting it to Google, which is the point of the monopoly issue.

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

#303

Post by epolanski »

brookst wrote: post #102
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…

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…

I really don't see how is it too late, the incentives are so huge that competition will bid for the ads.

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

#304

Post by epolanski »

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.

GitHub isn't making me use Azure, Azure isn't making me use Office, Teams isn't making me use Bing.

See the point here? All of Google pieces are a giant machine to collude in the same direction: their ad engine.

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

#306

Post by epolanski »

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.

All Androids out there are essentially major forks, all huge mobile vendors have their Android flavor.

There are giant incentives to keep the ecosystem as it is.

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

#307

Post by graeme »

Chabsff wrote: post #296
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…

The original value-proposal for Chrome was: The more people browse the web in general, the more Google profits. So the mere existence of a good free, fast, and safe browser would inherently benefit Google at large in general. And that rationale is why we get to have Chromium at all. Obviously things have evolved quite a bit since then, but I think the general pitch that Chrome is primarily a value-multiplier for the…

That's likely not the real rationale. If people browse with Chrome, then google is the default. That is immensely valuable to google, as google's payments to apple, mozilla and android manufacturer's show.

In theory Chrome could exist as an independent business if it were allowed to take bids for search default from google. But if the US govt broke up google they would likely also ban the sort of deal that would let Chrome be a viable business on its own.

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

#308

Post by layer8 »

cactusplant7374 wrote: post #138

> The Chocolate Factory has appealed the Epic verdict and also plans to challenge the DoJ's victory. Is "Chocolate Factory" a typo?

Maybe try a Google search? ;)

http://wikibin.org/articles/mountain-view-chocolate-factory....

https://www.theregister.com/2008/11/24/dziuba_on_yang/

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

#309

Post by nox101 »

mcpar-land wrote: post #65
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…

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 )

Users are not Chrome's customers. Even if Chrome is separated into a separate company that would still be true. Users are unlikely to pay for a browser when every OS comes with a free one.

Some companies that want to be the default search (unless the gov bans that) or, some companies that want to be the default new tab page, would likely be the actual customers

An exception might be Chromebook users. It's not clear how that would break out. Especially in light of ChromeOS being cancelled for Android

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

#310

Post by dekhn »

epolanski wrote: post #304
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.

GitHub isn't making me use Azure, Azure isn't making me use Office, Teams isn't making me use Bing. See the point here? All of Google pieces are a giant machine to collude in the same direction: their ad engine.

How does Google Cloud (I mean GCP, not Workspace) fit in to that idea?

It's not particularly bundled to the ad engine.

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