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

Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

dispatch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 748 posts

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#381

Post by bumby »

mdoms wrote: post #356
genericuser314 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're making a category error in your analogy. DuckDuckGo is much more like Google than "dig a well" is like municipal water.

I am on my own rainwater tanks. I don't see any reason it's not a viable alternative considering how many of us use it.

You can also go buy books and search for information without using electrons but the analogy is flawed. Your rainwater tanks do not have the economy of scale necessary to produce a natural monopoly until you build a tank and distribution system large enough to supply fresh water to an entire town, at which point it makes it difficult or impractical to compete.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#382

Post by slenk »

pcmoney wrote: post #117
adrr wrote: post #95

But I have multiple choices for email, search, video hosting and browsers. I don’t have any choice for water, electricity, sewer, on any other public utility. I am sure there are a bunch of people on here that don’t use any Google products and are using DuckDuckGo, Firefox, ProtonMail, Vimeo. There are many choices.

You have multiple choices for water, dig a well, buy it from the local grocery store. Same for sewage because self composting toilets exist. Also electricity isn't a utility just use a stationary bike as a generator or buy solar panels... Just because you have multiple choices doesn't mean something is/isn't a utility. Its pretty arbitrary. They also aren't talking about Google products (most of which are completely…

Not necessarily. I know cities where you HAVE to use their water if you want running water. No digging a well.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#383

Post by SilverRed »

ipaddr wrote: post #260
satellite2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try finding a smartphone under 250$, try advertising any small business on the internet, try avoiding meets meeting when you apply for a job

These are things that are done locally. You can find a smartphone for under 250 at any phone store. Or by calling a number. I got one by text the other day through my carrier. I can't find an iphone 12 for that online or locally legally and I would have better luck getting a stolen phone cheaper locally. Small business are finding success through facebook and other social platforms. Not sure google is a player here.…

>You can find a smartphone for under 250 at any phone store.

These phones all run android or have no features which are required in the modern age. The OP point is that avoiding google is a privilege many do not have.

>Small business are finding success through facebook

Your competitors are advertising on facebook and google. If you want to compete you have no choice but to do both.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#384

Post by missedthecue »

gumby wrote: post #48
ping_pong wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a direct result of their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Because they have such a huge monopoly, they can afford to ignore customers and have a draconian approach to people, and can get away with it. If there were better competition, they wouldn't have been able to ignore their customers. Breaking them up will alleviate this by ensuring that each company needs to be able to survive on their…

> ...their monopoly, which is why Google should be broken up. Not denying their monopoly position, but how could Google meaningfully be broken up? It's really just a single business (advertising) with a gaggle of loss leaders adding up to less than 20% of revenue. Even pushing advertising down to 80% took a huge amount of effort. It's not like Standard Oil which was a vertically integrated trust of several points in…

Even for Facebook, I don't think forcing them to sell whatsapp or Instagram would stop the fury at them on this forum and others.

Most people are angry at Facebook for reasons like not understanding their business model (they sell my data! is one I hear often) or because Facebook allows a platform where average people can speak their thoughts.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#385

Post by ngngngng »

BooneJS wrote: post #188
pcmoney wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have multiple choices for water, dig a well, buy it from the local grocery store. Same for sewage because self composting toilets exist. Also electricity isn't a utility just use a stationary bike as a generator or buy solar panels... Just because you have multiple choices doesn't mean something is/isn't a utility. Its pretty arbitrary. They also aren't talking about Google products (most of which are completely…

It’s actually illegal to drill a well in a municipality that provides water service. You’d have to move to a rural area.

Even if you do move to alternatives to public utilities, many areas will not allow you to disconnect from them and have a required minimum bill.

For example, If I got many solar panels and backup batteries to power my house, I would still be required to pay $5 a month to the local electric company and would not be allowed to disconnect from them.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#386

Post by SilverRed »

jrockway wrote: post #194
quadrifoliate wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do when you have a job interview that is scheduled as a Google Meet meeting? Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures? I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account.

I think you can just talk to the person at the other end and ask for accomodation. I use Zoom for interviews, but if someone emailed me and was like "can we use Google Meet" I would be happy to change. Similarly, if someone texts me "I can't open that link to the photos you sent", I can just email them the photos. It's not really a big deal, and I don't think that your unwillingness to talk with your friends or busin…

>just talk to the person at the other end and ask for accomodation.

And for almost every job position. They will tell you Meet is what they use and if that doesn't work for you, they are happy to cancel the interview.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#388

Post by SilverRed »

ipaddr wrote: post #315
caslon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google-avoider checking in! It's actually really easy to avoid it. DuckDuckGo's search quality is better, Firefox is deteriorating daily but still looks and feels better than Chrome does, email should really be avoided but there are dozens of really good email services, and their ad service doesn't need a replacement for obvious reasons (just block it).

Firefiox: I remember the first few versions since the rewrite. It was very fast. Fast forward to today and it's so slow. What is the reason? Are the privacy changes affecting this by using more resources or pages are requesting domains that hang for too long? It gives rust a bad name because this is one of the bigger rust products I know.

Hardly any of firefox is using rust. Servo was abandoned. I think the only rust part of FF right now is the CSS engine.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#389

Post by ivanstame »

adrr wrote: post #95

But I have multiple choices for email, search, video hosting and browsers. I don’t have any choice for water, electricity, sewer, on any other public utility. I am sure there are a bunch of people on here that don’t use any Google products and are using DuckDuckGo, Firefox, ProtonMail, Vimeo. There are many choices.

Only people like us, developers, geeks uses those kind of services. The majority uses google.

Re: Ohio sues Google, seeks to declare the internet company a public utility

#390

Post by seanmcdirmid »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #162
genericuser314 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're making a category error in your analogy. DuckDuckGo is much more like Google than "dig a well" is like municipal water.

There are at least a dozen companies you can buy water from and have it delivered to a giant storage tank made by at least 5 different companies. Or you could use a number of companies to dig a well for you. Many people don't have access to municipal water and when I didn't, this is what I did.

Most apartment buildings won't let you store large amounts of water on property.
Post reply on HN