US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case • Hacker News Board

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

#531

Post by shiroiushi » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:44 AM UTC

ta1243 wrote: post #298

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just a lesson that capitalism is insatiable. Early on, Google didn't have personalized ads and they were still making money hand over fist just because search queries are an excellent signal into stuff you may want to buy. But in "line must always go up" fashion, there is even more money to be squeezed out if they surveille everything you do to personalize ads. Same thing happened with Facebook. They had a ton…

The adverts were better too. When I'm seaching for "vacuum cleaner reviews", there are adverts for vacuum cleaners. After I make my decision and buy one (online, or in person), I no longer search for "vacuum cleaner reviews", but I search instead for "skiing in January" and I no longer get adverts for vacuum cleaners, I get it for ski resorts.

Yeah, those were better days: if you googled for some problem you were having with, say, a piece of equipment, you'd get ads from obscure little stores selling parts for that equipment, or special solutions for that problem. The ads were actually for things you might want, related to whatever you were searching for at that moment. And they were simple little text ads, next to the search results, so you knew they were ads, but they weren't in the way or stealing your attention.

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

#532

Post by goryramsy » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:45 AM UTC

JasserInicide wrote: post #417

geor9e wrote: post #113

HN is a special place but among the average folk, I get why 90% of people use google. I'm no google fan, but it still baffles me how bad the alternatives still are. Especially with so many companies scraping the whole web for AI data, and so many GPUs chugging on that data. I suppose they are all focused on replacing the concept of search results with LLM prose. Ironically bing is down at the moment https://downdetec…

Unironically Yandex, especially if you're searching for politically sensitive stuff. It is wild how much Google censors.

Care to elaborate?

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

#533

Post by hzia » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:45 AM UTC

sciurus wrote: post #529

shiroiushi wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 alternative…

If these measurements are correct, iOS has about 11% more of the US market share than Android. This is very different from the global market share, where Android has 45% more. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ios-vs-android-market-s...

Majority of revenue base lives on iOS globally (due to being a monopoly in the US)

That's why Apple has higher profits than all other mobile operators combined!

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

#534

Post by whatever1 » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:45 AM UTC

ensignavenger wrote: post #508

whatever1 wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't get your point. There is certainly demand lift from Google ads, I am not disputing this.

But because it is a monopoly currently businesses pay way more than the value of the actual conversions Google ads achieve.

Nobody should be willing to pay above, yet they do because the competition is willing to speculate on the value of these and take extreme positions.

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

#535

Post by shiroiushi » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:47 AM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #451

nox101 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Company A has no ads because they care about user experience Company B has ads. Company B makes more money and can therefore provide more features / more content. Company B ends up providing more of what users want.

Except company A will eat company B’s lunch. CX is a competitive advantage. See Netflix vs cable TV or Uber vs taxis.

Uber won versus taxis because Uber provided a fraud-free experience, and the taxis were acting fraudulently. Uber would tell you how much a trip would cost, and let you pay for it through your phone (through your saved credit card); a taxi would drive in circles to run up the fare, perhaps even just turn off the taximeter altogether and make up a charge on the spot, and claim their credit-card reader is broken.

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

#536

Post by typewithrhythm » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:50 AM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #523

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.

The ideological blindness that causes people to speak past each other is this. Innovation requires reliable funding, such as monopoly profits or government funding. Monopoly leads to undemocratic concentrations of power and various private taxes on the public (e.g. in the case of Google, your personal information). Bell Labs was funded by monopoly funding with a law directing a certain amount to research. Competition…

This is a completely strange idea to me... You are seemingly measuring innovation within a specific product and forgetting that the product itself is a new creation that came without any monopoly as it built.

People eventually recognise a good idea, you don't need a well funded research group to have one. You need an environment where it's plausible for the new thing to work and be profitable.

Breaking up a giant like google seems that it would make it easier to promote an new idea, as it has less risk of being crushed by the interests of a tangentially related company.

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

#537

Post by wpm » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:55 AM UTC

feelandcoffee wrote: post #270

ryandrake wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And wherever there are ads there are privacy concerns. Not necessarily true. Physical billboards are ads but (mostly) without privacy concerns, until they start putting cameras on them watching who walks by and looks.

I miss old contextual advertising. Like you read a sports website, you see ads for matches, sports gear, etc, all based on the content not the user preferences.

I wish all this data mining seemed to be worth a damn to me. Sponsored ads I see are either directly related to my search term, which is hardly a difficult problem, or based on my purchase history, which is baffling and frankly kinda stupid.

Hey! You just bought a filter for your air purifier! Want to buy a new one! For a different purifier you don't own!

No, talk to me in six months.

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

#538

Post by shiroiushi » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:58 AM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #460

gerash wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Epic vs Apple and Epic vs Google ruling shows how inconsistent the ruling are on such a common sense situation. So I don't want Google to be broken up and lose business only for MS, Apple, Amazon and Facebook to gobble up its business

A lot of people think it's common sense, but plenty of them disagree on what that common sense approach actually is.

I think it should be common sense that both Google and Apple should be treated equally on this issue, regardless of what you think about the actual issue. Instead, we have two virtually identical cases, and they were decided in completely opposite fashions.

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

#539

Post by animal_spirits » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 3:02 AM UTC

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 problem with your ideals is that every one has different ideas on what "human flourishing" looks like. One way or the other, if it is Government that is in charge of "human flourishing", then some group of people are going to benefit at the expense of another group of people, at the discretion of whoever currently has the most political clout.

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

#540

Post by tehjoker » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 3:03 AM UTC

typewithrhythm wrote: post #536

tehjoker wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ideological blindness that causes people to speak past each other is this. Innovation requires reliable funding, such as monopoly profits or government funding. Monopoly leads to undemocratic concentrations of power and various private taxes on the public (e.g. in the case of Google, your personal information). Bell Labs was funded by monopoly funding with a law directing a certain amount to research. Competition…

This is a completely strange idea to me... You are seemingly measuring innovation within a specific product and forgetting that the product itself is a new creation that came without any monopoly as it built. People eventually recognise a good idea, you don't need a well funded research group to have one. You need an environment where it's plausible for the new thing to work and be profitable. Breaking up a giant lik…

The idea behind nationalization is that it takes Google out of the market economy and the profit motive. It's then possible to rationally design supports for new ideas, and removes one of the biggest reasons for fighting new ideas.