Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is a monopoly – the fix isn't obvious

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 524 posts

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

#351

Post by hbn »

tyree731 wrote: post #319
Someone wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But Microsoft has misused their market power plenty of times, such as when they bundled Microsoft Teams with their enterprise contract at zero cost, destroying Slack's market value overnight.

Or how about the fact that basically no one uses Windows by choice, they use it because they need to for some app, and because of that Microsoft makes the entire OS constantly harass everyone to try and trick them into signing up for Microsoft services.

Regularly I get an OS update that walks me through "setting up" my "new" PC I've had for 3 years, and it involves dodging dark pattern UIs to not sign up for Office or Xbox Game Pass or set Edge as my default browser. And even if I succeed, they'll probably have taught my computer a new way to try to sell me something.

One update they added their horrible Copilot chatbot as an app to my taskbar, which I promptly unpinned. Then the next update they removed my "show desktop" button - which has been a consistent part of Windows for 15 years - and replaced it with ANOTHER COPILOT BUTTON. I had to look up online how to restore a basic navigation button that was replaced with an ad for their terrible new AI product.

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

#352

Post by pretext-1 »

safety1st wrote: post #40
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.

People say this but there's nothing "natural" about Google's monopoly, to get to where they are today, they had to make a dozen major acquisitions, and if the last few administrations hadn't been bought and paid for, the FTC could have said no to any of them. In particular they should have looked very very hard at Doubleclick. I mean who are we kidding, they should have said no to Doubleclick. So we are in a world to…

As a European I’m still mad at the regulators for allowing Facebook to buy WhatsApp.

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

#353

Post by pretext-1 »

summerlight wrote: post #312

The problem of so-called "break-up" option is that there are not many buyers who can afford operating those services (those costs at least billions every year even if those could be purchased for free) and those who can afford are already serious monopolists. Imagine MS buying Chrome, Meta buying AdWords, Apple buying Android etc etc. You probably don't want that. Other feasible way to avoid this would be keeping Goo…

It’s a publicity traded company they don’t need to be sold to be broken up. Each division retains its own value and shareholders get proportionate shares for the new stocks.

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

#354

Post by somastoma »

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…

I don't know... Would you call the Kodak "moment" a breakup? Or a failure to move quickly into digital photography...

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

#355

Post by warkdarrior »

hilbert42 wrote: post #249
ekianjo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are alternatives. You don't have to use Google.

Right. I don't use Google and don't have a Google account, and I've no problem finding alternatives. I even have an Android phone, it still works fine with all the Google crap nuked.

Android is a Google product.

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

#356

Post by pretext-1 »

dceddia wrote: post #32

Yeah I don’t know how this will go, but I’m not too optimistic. It feels like one of those situations where we “get exactly what we asked for”. Like those movies with an Evil Genie who delivers on their wishes in the sneakiest way possible. “You wished for $1M, so I burned your house down - but look at all the insurance money you got!” Or maybe a bit like how everyone wanted their cable bills to be cheaper (“just let…

Well so far we tried doing nothing and that didn’t work either.

We should have at least prevented them from growing so fast via acquisitions but it’s too late for that now.

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

#357

Post by carlosjobim »

trueismywork wrote: post #330
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #122

It is so easy to switch away from Google I just can't take any break up attempt seriously. ATT WAS phone service in the U.S. 90% of the U.S used ATT when it was broken up, and much of that 90% had no alternative. With Google if another better search engine did appear you could switch in minutes. And if you consider Android a monopoly then you'd have to consider iOS one too, and that's one much more obvious in it's us…

ATTs customers were phone users, hence it was difficult for them. Google's customers are ad companies, and for them, switching away from Google is impossible. By thinking of how easy it is for you to switch, you are not considering the correct customers. And this shows in your statement about better search engine, better search engine cannot come without customers (not you) having option to switch.

> Google's customers are ad companies, and for them, switching away from Google is impossible.

Billions (probably trillions) of dollars are spent every year on advertising through other channels than Google, including online. Let's stick to reality.

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

#358

Post by somastoma »

b112 wrote: post #325
shadowgovt wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The precedent is that every browser out there currently has one of: - integration to ad infrastructure - integration to the vendor's other service infrastructure - a cost of more than $0 Given that the market is full of people who will only bear $0, the likely conclusion is that a Chrome separated from the ability to integrate to vendor infrastructure will turn to integrating to someone's ad infrastructure (more poor…

No one pays $0. All that slurping of user data is used by other corps to maximize their profits. They're paying for that data, and then believe they're making more from consumers as a result. But no matter what, the cost of collecting that data, the infra, and then corp x or y buying it, comes out of the bottom line. It's like points credit cards. Where does that cash back come from, magical fairies? It comes from re…

well, I know that the free cash I get IS from fairies. Yours doesn't?

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

#359

Post by carlosjobim »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #113
treyd wrote: post #83

I really hope that some portions are turned into public institutions (either directly or in the weird way organizations like USPS is) in some way. They've made themselves so deeply ingrained and essential to using the internet as loss leaders in some areas that it's impossible to imagine those services standing on their own and still making sense. That's what's responsible for their monopolization, and natural monopo…

YouTube should be the main platform the government should form into a public institution. Not only due to its historical and cultural significance, but also due to the fact that it is (almost assuredly) unprofitable and thus at-risk.

Looking forward to only being able to stream government approved video. It was a success in the last century, I've heard.

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

#360

Post by danielmarkbruce »

ossyrial wrote: post #337
missedthecue wrote: post #334

I think we need a better term than monopoly, that separates it from what people usually mean which is 'the best product'. I literally cannot think of any sort of product or service with lower switching costs than internet search. Typing bing.com takes 0.8 seconds and costs $0. Hundreds of orders of magnitude easier than switching to a different railroad if only one goes through your town. Google is a big ass company…

> Google is a big ass company and enjoys outsized market share because people choose to use it. If this were true, Google could make the immediate and easy decision to increase their annual profits by $26 billion , by simply stopping to pay browser vendors to make Google the default search engine. https://untested.sonnet.io/Defaults+Matter%2C+Don't+Assume+C...

The person didn't say "all people choose it no matter what".

The statement is true as written.

Post reply on HN