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US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

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Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#381

Post by someluccc »

christhecaribou wrote: post #324
someluccc wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do tell us how Google is a burden to the whole country. Is it the free maps? free mobile OS? free email? free cloud storage? free video service? free office suite? free desktop OS? free AI chat?

Read a book on tech entrepreneurship. The “goal” of most startups is to get purchased by a big tech company. That’s utterly fucked, and tacitly demonstrates the problem.

It’s fucked that people start companies because they have the safety net of possibly being acquired even if the business doesn’t work out?

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#382

Post by apercu »

ta1243 wrote: post #308
apercu wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"search technology" Google is an advertising company, search is a by-product and has been for a long time.

About 20 years ago it wasn't, and Google's pagerank stuff was revolutionary and potentially nobel prize worthy (no idea, I'm not a scientist)

It was better search than other search options at the time, but was quickly an advertising company. It's also too bad that that it was so dominant early, because there used to be 4-5 search Enginess and their results were very different and you could find things in non-google results that you couldn't get from google (and vice versa).

You're not wrong, but it didn't last. Google jumped the shark in its first decade. I remember giving an internal presentation in 2010 or 2012 about how little of the screen real estate in a Google search result was actually search results.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#383

Post by j2kun »

anon291 wrote: post #206

I wish that instead of wasting time on antitrust cases, that the government would just directly fund competition by incentivizing it. I.e, the first company to reach x% browser market share will receive $x million (billion?) in prize money or, the first company to build an LLM-based search engine with x% market share will receive $n million Or structure as a direct investment or heavy tax breaks. Always better to inc…

They're not punishing success, they're punishing illegal behavior.

Breaking up monopolies has a long, successful track record.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#384

Post by rurp »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #325
svara wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of playing devil's advocate here, but well run companies with near monopolies have on many occasions provided massive benefits that would not have been possible at smaller scale. Think of Bell Labs. Google has a number of Bell Labs style projects ongoing that massively benefit scientific research. Transformers, AlphaFold, etc. It's hard to see how a smaller, more focused company would be able to justify that typ…

Why can't that be right? I see the sentiment a lot, but it strikes me as reality denialism. People are willing to pay for one thing but not the other.

Capital markets don't perfectly account for all positive and negative externalities in the world, not even close. For example think of a company that invents a miracle drug that only costs $1 to produce. The net benefit to humanity would be to open up production and sell it to everyone who needs it for a few bucks, but of course the company will do everything it can to maintain a monopoly and sell the drug for $X0000/dose, even if relatively few people can obtain it. Lawyers and lobbyists will get paid a lot of money to get the second outcome, even though they're producing negative value overall.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#385

Post by mucle6 »

internet101010 wrote: post #346
stego-tech wrote: post #188

Loving the discourse in the comments here. Speaking as someone who grew up alongside Google in a sense, I fall on the side of the "break it up" camp. It was novel at the time to have a single company so nicely provide us with everything digitally that we could need - G Suite, YouTube, Search, Maps, Advertising, Books, Reader, etc - but in hindsight, we gave too much power to too unaccountable an entity, who in turn u…

I have always thought the reason they became alphabet was because of the expectation that they would eventually get broken up and wanted a company for each letter.

I think they already had a company for each letter when they became alphabet

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#386

Post by LunaSea »

svara wrote: post #339
s1artibartfast wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't that be right? I see the sentiment a lot, but it strikes me as reality denialism. People are willing to pay for one thing but not the other.

Exactly, it's "just" the market setting the price. The issue is that these are near monopolies, so the market isn't efficient. In other words, if those companies didn't have monopoly power, other businesses (or non-commercial entities) might be able to afford to hire some of these people as well, which might be beneficial overall for innovation. That's the economic argument and it's pretty clean imo. But as far as I'…

The market is shit at making long term risky bets that require a lot of R&D.

That's the reason why quantum computing and projects of this type would not exist if you didn't have behemoth companies with extra cash lying around.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#387

Post by christhecaribou »

someluccc wrote: post #381
christhecaribou wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read a book on tech entrepreneurship. The “goal” of most startups is to get purchased by a big tech company. That’s utterly fucked, and tacitly demonstrates the problem.

It’s fucked that people start companies because they have the safety net of possibly being acquired even if the business doesn’t work out?

It’s suspicious that long term growth into an independent business isn’t realistically discussed as an option.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#388

Post by someluccc »

braabe wrote: post #326
someluccc wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) Do you pay them? - No: then yes it is free “But my data” Have your ever sold your data? Would the value you could ever possibly receive for your data ever equate to the value you get from the free services? Likely No and No. Is the free ad supported city newspaper free? Yes it is in fact free, just like FM radio is free, and broadcast television is free, and sidewalks next to billboards are free Someone creating s…

All of these examples are probably in part or fully paid for with some sort of taxes. So it is less "no payments" and more "deferred payments". I would argue that the question of "Is it free?" should not be restricted to monetary payments. If I offer you dinner for an hour of yardwork - are you receiving the food for free? If I would offer you that same dinner in exchange for letting me watch you use your computer fo…

#1. Would I have used the computer at the same time/place/duration? Then yes it is free. It literally cost me nothing.

#2. You can pay? Also is the argument somehow that the free thing isn’t free because the ad in it makes the UX worse?

Also curious to know how many ads exactly do you get while using google workspace? drive? android? maps?

Finally: You can literally use Chrome, Workspace, Drive, Android and Maps without seeing a single ad, without an ad blocker, without EVER using google search, for free.

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#389

Post by BurningFrog »

internet101010 wrote: post #346
stego-tech wrote: post #188

Loving the discourse in the comments here. Speaking as someone who grew up alongside Google in a sense, I fall on the side of the "break it up" camp. It was novel at the time to have a single company so nicely provide us with everything digitally that we could need - G Suite, YouTube, Search, Maps, Advertising, Books, Reader, etc - but in hindsight, we gave too much power to too unaccountable an entity, who in turn u…

I have always thought the reason they became alphabet was because of the expectation that they would eventually get broken up and wanted a company for each letter.

They were also betting on Alpha!

Re: US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case

#390

Post by someluccc »

nosianu wrote: post #327
someluccc wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I build a movie theater and give away the tickets knowing that I can make money on ads before a movie that does not mean that 5 minutes of your eyesight is now worth something

> that does not mean that 5 minutes of your eyesight is now worth something The advertisers paying to get their ads placed in front of those eyes disagree. And ye, since another comment questions this, data or "eye-time are similar - they can be broken down to the individual. The advertisers pay some price expecting a certain number of people to see the ad, and even if data about people is sold in bulk (too) there is…

You can literally use Chrome, Workspace, Drive, Android and Maps without seeing a single ad, without an ad blocker, without EVER using google search, for free.
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