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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

#501

Post by ledauphin »

IX-103 wrote: post #493
T-Winsnes wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the value of controlling the platform that you base all your revenue from. Chrome controls the internet and android has a huge market share on mobile. The latest changes to chrome that breaks plugins like ublock origin allows them to keep maximising their advertising revenue. I think these two being open source is a major reason why they have been so successfully adopted. It isn’t direct rev…

People keep bringing up Manifest v3 like it's some evil plot to show people ads. Nevermind that Chrome already ships with its own adblocker which blocks bad ads. The fact is that with the Spectre mitigations added to Chrome, the performance of networking with manifest v2 was bad. Having to keep sending every network request through 3 different processes just in case there is a plugin (uses by the minority of users) t…

it's at the very least an evil plot to stop users (and extension authors) from _making their own decisions_ about the efficiency trade-off.

which is really just absurd when you think about it. I don't care about another hour of battery life, but even if I did, I'd be perfectly happy if Chrome just told me "hey these extensions aren't very battery-efficient!" and I got to make my own decision about that.

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

#502

Post by shiroiushi »

T-Winsnes wrote: post #462
hzia wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people do not understand that Google funnels a lot of their profits to make Chrome and Android into OSS. Youtube may be the only viable company that can come out of Google. Rest will either have to charge a lot of money or die. And we will be left with an even more profitable ad giant, that sends back all profits to it's share holders.

I think you underestimate the value of controlling the platform that you base all your revenue from. Chrome controls the internet and android has a huge market share on mobile. The latest changes to chrome that breaks plugins like ublock origin allows them to keep maximising their advertising revenue. I think these two being open source is a major reason why they have been so successfully adopted. It isn’t direct rev…

>android has a huge market share on mobile.

Not in the US they don't; it's a minority share, split across many different manufacturers who all have their own flavor of Android, their own (crappy) app stores and pre-loaded crapware apps, etc. Apple has a clear majority of the US smartphone market (and it's a vertical monopoly, with Apple controlling the phone hardware and the app store and not allowing any alternatives), but no one's looking at breaking them up.

>I think these two being open source is a major reason why they have been so successfully adopted.

iOS isn't open-source, and it has a commanding majority of the US smartphone market.

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

#503

Post by tqi »

tensor wrote: post #191
eagerpace wrote: post #178

Anywhere there are eyeballs, there will be ads. And wherever there are ads there are privacy concerns. Netflix waited until they had sufficiently killed off cable TV, then went back to creating the same problem it fixed. No ads in ChatGPT today, but soon as it (or a competitor) gains meaningful marketshare, there will be ads.

What I'd love to see is regulation forcing companies to provide reasonably priced ad-free options. There should be a right to opt out of ads.

> There should be a right to opt out of ads.

What does that even look like, practically speaking? Is sponsored segment an ad? Is wearing branded apparel an ad? Is doing a press junket for a new movie an ad?

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

#504

Post by shiroiushi »

ledauphin wrote: post #501
IX-103 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep bringing up Manifest v3 like it's some evil plot to show people ads. Nevermind that Chrome already ships with its own adblocker which blocks bad ads. The fact is that with the Spectre mitigations added to Chrome, the performance of networking with manifest v2 was bad. Having to keep sending every network request through 3 different processes just in case there is a plugin (uses by the minority of users) t…

it's at the very least an evil plot to stop users (and extension authors) from _making their own decisions_ about the efficiency trade-off. which is really just absurd when you think about it. I don't care about another hour of battery life, but even if I did, I'd be perfectly happy if Chrome just told me "hey these extensions aren't very battery-efficient!" and I got to make my own decision about that.

>I don't care about another hour of battery life

If you're stuck having to run a ton of shitty JS code with ad malware in it, because your web browser doesn't allow you to effectively block it, that's probably going to cost you more in battery life than the overhead needed by MV2 to block that stuff.

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

#505

Post by s1artibartfast »

rurp wrote: post #384
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.

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…

Im not saying they do. I am saying that claims of inefficiency or failure need to be compared to a possible and realistic counterfactual.

You might think it is is inefficient to have a miracle cure for cancer tied up on patent for 20 years, but what are you comparing it to.

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

#506

Post by shiroiushi »

hluska wrote: post #483
adventured wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech is very good for the US. They're far more difficult to compete with in terms of scale and the resources they can deploy, than small companies. It more easily enables the US to suffocate the tech efforts of other competing nations. Giving this advantage up is extraordinarily moronic by the US. There is no benefit to the US by making it easier for the rest of the world to compete with the US golden geese. The…

Do you actually believe that the United States should permit a monopoly because it “enables the US to suffocate the tech efforts of other countries”? You would rather ruin everyone else than have a functional economy? That says a lot about you.

I think his idea is that if other competing countries (namely China) won't break up their big tech companies, so with US companies broken up, they won't be able to compete against the foreign behemoths. The US already can't compete at all with China in electronic hardware and manufacturing.

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

#507

Post by esbranson »

Clubber wrote: post #256
esbranson wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That thought may be comforting, but no. Don't mistake the limited-purpose US Government for your state government. Colorado does quite a bit, from healthcare to environment to policing. And so does the US, for those subjects it has jurisdiction, and has been doing so for hundreds of years.

>>The US government has been working solely for their donors for the last 40+ years. Any benefit the voters get from lawmaking is coincidental. >That thought may be comforting, but no. Why would that be comforting?

Not sure. The US Government has accrued a couple hundred years of unbroken political agitprop directed at it. From my observations, many people are comforted when anything tends to validate it, and otherwise ambivalent or oblivious to anything else. Underlying that is legal information that is inaccessible for most; the only books you can't check out of a library, a multitude of websites that never quite work. Newstainment that profits from attention does not help.

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

#508

Post by ensignavenger »

whatever1 wrote: post #476
ensignavenger wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the advertisers weren't winning, they would stop using those platforms.

Many times it's just the fear of losing. Aka if you are hp you are paying for the printer keywords out of fear that Epson might take them instead

Then they must be valuable enough for what you are paying. If they weren't, you would let Epson have them knowing they were losing money on them, and you would spend your money on better valued things.

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

#509

Post by sadeshmukh »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #414
mmastrac wrote: post #185

Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon -- the US could easily break all of these up. There's a huge risk to stagnation and over-optimization once these companies get as big as they do.

I'm curious as to why you included Apple. All of the other companies bought up a bunch of potential competitors so they wouldn't get outcompeted, e.g: Facebook: Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus Google: DoubleClick, YouTube, Android, Waze, Deep mind Amazon: Whole Foods, Audible, Zappos, Ring, One Medical Arguably, I think things would be better if a bunch of these acquisitions were never allowed in the first place. But mos…

What completed or competes with YouTube?

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

#510

Post by elzbardico »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #464
WalterBright wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cisco reputedly avoided an anti-trust action by wining and dining DoJ lawyers. Microsoft, in comparison, said rude things about the DoJ. Of course, I wish things did not work this way. But isn't it a bit naive to think it doesn't?

> Cisco reputedly avoided an anti-trust action by wining and dining DoJ lawyers Source? (They settled with Multiven.) > isn't it a bit naive to think it doesn't No, it's naïve to think that level of influence can be bought. Not an uncommon mistake. Bankman-Fried made it, and it's increasingly looking like Bytedance did too. But D.C. is a town obsessed with power over money. People regularly toss aside lobbyists and t…

Well, you don't simply walk into a Patek Phillipe store and ask to see the watches. Enzo Ferrari refused to sell ferraris for people he didn't think were deserving of having a ferrari.

Corruption on the highest levels is very similar. Not everyone is on the buyers club.

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