381–390 of 524 posts
I don't see how a Google breakup can be operationalized. There's just no way the company's stack can support it without decades of work. It'd be like dismembering a person and expecting all the pieces to go off and thrive.
Amusing to me that we have a $3.5T company, and the solution is to break up it's only competitor to make it weaker and that company an even bigger monopoly.
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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…
By the time Chrome came out Google already was in the position where everyone knew to set their default homepage to Google in IE in the same way they automatically go to install Chrome now. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the pseudo-control Chrome gives them over web standards. They can implement experimental APIs in Chrome and immediately use them in their webapps.
Chrome was a business risk mitigation move.
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> and costs $0. But then you're not the customer, you're the product, as they say. What is the cost to the actual customer to transition to an alternative?
0. The transition to bing from google costs 0.
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…
This is how you sound.
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> I'm flumuxed that Google is the first tech company to be ruled a monopoly. Hum... I'm sure you've heard about that famous one called AT&T. Or Microsoft a decade later.
If the US government didn't have the muscle to break up Microsoft, which had a pretty evident monopoly in the 90s, I am willing to bet they won't manage to put a dent to Google. Particularly given how more "friendlier" has turned for corporations in the last 30 years.
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…
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> The index itself is a textbook natural monopoly. I would argue that because of this, the index itself should be something operated by the public rather than privately. This is especially true because it's within the best interests of the public to have an archive of the internet. The wayback machine currently supports that and it's on its last legs. Index the internet with a public search API, then let future searc…
The idea that we'd want any type of government entity running search is absurd on several dimensions.
It's not as if the gov doesn't already employ in several sectors skilled software developers. It only goes haywire when Reagan/Clinton style "Send it to the private businesses" policies get in the way.
When you start talking about a constrained resource like this, it only makes sense to move it to the only entity without profit as its primary motivation.
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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 h…
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What possible browser competition can exist? The market price for a browser from a consumer perspective is $0. I will never pay for a browser. All that will happen is new ad placements from smaller companies, directly in the browser.
I absolutely would have donated large sums of money to Firefox development if they had allowed me to do so. Sadly you can only donate to the Mozilla Foundation which does a lot of other stuff. Wikipedia shows that projects can get very stable funding through donations. Browsers offer incredible value. If there is need people will pony up the money. Many corporations have an business interest in keeping the web free a…