I bet the Trump people will stop such an effort immediately
DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
391–400 of 1001 posts
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#392I'm totally fine with this, but I wish they would do the same thing with Apple. Google's platform, at the very least is open and I can run my own apps. One could ask, "How is Apple a Monopoly, and do they abuse that position?". In my view it is, since you can't have a business or build connected hardware without an iOS app. And as for abusing that position for gaining market share, there are just too many examples st…
The App Store is one consideration, and the hardware ecosystem another. I personally think both are problems. The ability to cast audio from my device to another is less supported now than they were back when things had audio auxiliary jacks.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is Chrome or Google a monopoly?
Allow me to break this down: * Google effectively holds a monopoly of the browser market (Chrome). Apple (Safari) only exists because of vendor lock-in, and Mozilla (Firefox) is a vassal state; all "other" browsers are Chrome. * Google shares a duopoly of the mobile OS market with Apple (Android vs. iOS). * Google holds a monopoly of the video streaming market (Youtube). * Google holds a monopoly of the malvertising…
Thanks. The summary seems to be: Google is a big player in many markets, but not a monopoly.
You mentioned some as 'monopolies'. Let's go through them:
Browsers: as far as I can tell, the other browsers that 'are Chrome' are Chromium at most. Eg Microsoft is surely capable of forking Chromium, if Google does anything untoward.
Video streaming: I hear TikTok and Instagram and Netflix etc are popular for streaming videos, too? People also seem to be getting a lot of videos via telegram channels? (I don't know the exact numbers here. So I can't say anything definite.)
Web search: Google used to be really dominant, but they are arguably on a downward trend without any government interference: more and more people are using the likes of ChatGPT to fill the same niche in their lives.
> Why the hell should Google not be split and cut apart nine ways to Sunday?
Presumably because there's a presumption of non-interference in the markets? The same reason the government doesn't just lock you and me up for no good reason, or confiscates our property.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#394I'm very surprised by the number of people in this thread who don't seem to understand that monopolies are _very_ bad for consumers.
Splitting off Chrome doesn't make any sense as a stand alone business. Anyone who could buy Chrome would immediately cause other anti-trust issues. This solution for Google is probably bad for consumers. What the DoJ should be pursuing is having Google divest YouTube. Now we're talking real change.
Firefox is massively profitable. Why couldn't Chrome be?
Goggle would compete with other search engines for being the default search. So this would have knock on effects on search as well.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#395I'm very surprised by the number of people in this thread who don't seem to understand that monopolies are _very_ bad for consumers.
Splitting monopolies is good. On other hand splitting "free" product is somewhat questionable. When the competitor don't have exactly viable business model. Pushing for something that will clearly in not too distant future kill the split product is not helpful.
This exactly. An independent Chrome’s best path toward financial sustainability is closing down the source code and selling everyone’s browsing data to the highest bidder.
We all like to have a high minded ideal of some kind of wonderful fully independent for-the-good-of-society entity stewarding Chrome, but history has shown us that’s not what will happen.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#396I'm very surprised by the number of people in this thread who don't seem to understand that monopolies are _very_ bad for consumers.
Splitting monopolies is good. On other hand splitting "free" product is somewhat questionable. When the competitor don't have exactly viable business model. Pushing for something that will clearly in not too distant future kill the split product is not helpful.
Most of Google is "free" products that feed into its surveillance advertising platform. That's the problem. How are you supposed to break that sort of thing up without destroying most of the products? They were never designed to work independently from the network.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
Monopolies are bad. Splitting up monopolies is good for the consumer. That doesn't mean this makes any sense. How are they going to separate Chrome from Chromium? If they do, what incentive does Google have to keep maintaining Chromium? Can Google make another new fork of Chromium and start yet another browser? Or are they now banned from making browsers? What company has the resources to maintain Chrome's massive co…
in general, I find a little bit distasteful that the only way to build a browser is as a loss leading project for the largest advertising company on the planet No wonder nobody can compete, loss leaders tend to kill competition as they can be maintained without direct business revenue at all. The same issue plagues domesticated cats, they don’t need to hunt for food since they have an abundance at home so instead wit…
and televisions. Now you can't get a television that doesn't spy on you because of unhealthy funding driving the price down.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#398I'm very surprised by the number of people in this thread who don't seem to understand that monopolies are _very_ bad for consumers.
Splitting monopolies is good. On other hand splitting "free" product is somewhat questionable. When the competitor don't have exactly viable business model. Pushing for something that will clearly in not too distant future kill the split product is not helpful.
Chrome is like a service not a product it is effectively Google installing a window so you can see it's fresh baked goods. It isn't something they should break up because it isn't something that inherently makes money and nor should it.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
Monopolies are bad. Splitting up monopolies is good for the consumer. That doesn't mean this makes any sense. How are they going to separate Chrome from Chromium? If they do, what incentive does Google have to keep maintaining Chromium? Can Google make another new fork of Chromium and start yet another browser? Or are they now banned from making browsers? What company has the resources to maintain Chrome's massive co…
Firefox is massively profitable at a fraction of Chrome's marketshare.
With 81% [1] of their revenue in 2022 provided by Google...
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[1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202...
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is Chrome or Google a monopoly?
Not sure if this is an innocent comment or not but I'll answer earnestly. They're not, technically. They're hegemons , which doesn't make them much better. In fact, I'd argue the situation is worse. Chrome predominantly owns the web at this point. There are few contenders, and making a new browser is a lot of work (see the Verso browser). Google has the arguably unearned luxury of dictating what APIs and protocols th…
> Chrome predominantly owns the web at this point. There are few contenders, and making a new browser is a lot of work (see the Verso browser). Google has the arguably unearned luxury of dictating what APIs and protocols the nebulous "web" should use, can throw a bunch of money at adding them quickly, and leave competitors struggling to keep up, effectively buying chrome's guaranteed superiority.
As an example: Microsoft is building Edge on open source Chromium. Are you sure Microsoft is the little guy that needs protection? I'm fairly sure they have enough heft that they can fork Chromium and do their own thing, if Google does anything sinister.
But in any case, there's still Safari with a substantial market share, too.
> "But there are standards committees!" [...]
I agree with you here: commercial standards are more important than whatever a standards committee says.
I agree that Google has a large share in many markets. I just don't see the monopoly.