Google/IAC/Expedia (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: Google/IAC/Expedia (2019)

#61

Post by passion__desire » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

born2discover wrote: post #34

passion__desire wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the idea for commercial search engine a bad idea? Where only e-commerce websites are tracked instead of the whole web? I don't understand this idea of intent tracking, guessing and suggestions. I explicitly want good results for my query, I have already made my mind to buy something. For this reason, I despise that Facebook guesses my intent when I visit an e-commerce website through Google search and starts sugge…

Your comment is based on the premises that Meta/Google... are there to help you shop/find the best result once you've made your mind. For that purpose, an optimised search engine is indeed very useful. But I don't think that's why intent profiling exists. What if, instead of helping you find quickly what you are looking for, they forced you through a less perfect system that, while leading you to your result, suggest…

I was talking about Facebook's not so subtle nudge when they have already guessed your intent. It's already known that they do that. Then they show ads on their online properties few minutes later, people have already sensed this deception and their are reels made on this behaviour. How about facebook lets me search through the catalogue of websites who have opted to advertise with them. Maybe once it is well known that facebook also allows for normal search within their apps, other e-commerce website would be willing to pay a nominal fee to be included in search results.

Re: Google/IAC/Expedia (2019)

#62

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #49

kubb wrote: post #21

In my impression, a lot of people here hold a surprisingly contradictory set of beliefs. They're huge fans of the current economic system, where the main actors are publicly owned companies, and where we rely on profits growing YOY to generate wealth for everyone (who owns the stocks). And, on the other hand, they're critical of Google which is operating precisely as such a company, and doing exactly what it needs fo…

Also the elephant in the headline - facilitating mass air travel is of course facilitating the climate catastrophe. Watching megaorps debate about the market rules of how to optimize this harmful activity is its own special kind of grotesque.

[deleted]

Re: Google/IAC/Expedia (2019)

#63

Post by BitPolice » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:13 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #9

bomewish wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate to say it but this is where we get the state to step in and simply dismember the company.

Dismember into what? Except for a lot of ranting and stamping of feet on HN, I don't see a lot of HNers jumping in and providing free alternative services for Google services? There is a lot of DEMAND for free services for sure, but doesn't seem a lot of people are putting their money where their mouth is? Kagi hasn't grown all that much, neither have services like Nebula?

I don't have the answers here any more than anyone; but I notice that most approaches tend to cut along the existing verticals (e.g. the product areas).

The break-up of AT&T provides another perhaps more viable arena for thought...

There the breakup resulted in multiple, independent competing companies cleaved from AT&T. Three organically produced combinations now remain of the original 7: 1. Verizon is what was the north eastern region (Bell Atlantic + NYNEX). 2. The now reunited trademark AT&T started as the western ones (Pacific Telesis and Ameritech) then added the southwest (Southwestern Bell/SBC) in 2005 and the southern states' one (BellSouth) in 2006. 3. The midwestern region was Qwest which is still around in some form as CenturyLink/Lumen.

From one massive company which did everything you got a bunch of companies that actually competed with each other in the main and market dominant sector. The market continued to evolve and real market forces forced combinations among them; IMO this is a good and natural thing.

Remember MCI and Sprint? Did you know they were already around pre-breakup as starving competitors of the monopoly? Suddenly they became national brands and introduced their own leaderships' priorities into the consumer marketplace (MCI in particular was early in seeing the importance of several early Internet packet-based technologies and in consumer email).

Prior to the breakup did you know that the domestic television networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, there wasn't Fox yet) had long-term contracts to send their signals over AT&T's terrestrial network? Almost immediately after the breakup (this is not a causal thing, but there is a lot of correlation) they all switched almost immediately thereafter to sattelite distribution (which had been available for nearly a decade).

-- The point I'm making is that you don't have to just draw inside the preexisting lines. The goal isn't the punish Alphabet, but to maximize competition in the market to the benefit of the nation (externalities positive and negative) and its consumers (first-order real good). Promoting competition may result in 2 search companies that can't reunite or something equally unthinkable...

Re: Google/IAC/Expedia (2019)

#64

Post by wuschel » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 7:23 PM UTC

fdw wrote: post #43

avidiax wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android -- a cost center. No viable business model. Maybe Samsung would fork AOSP for their phones. Cloud -- has to run at a loss in the immediate future to capture marketshare Email -- nobody pays for email. Get ready for a much smaller mailbox and ads targeted by email contents. Get "sponsored" emails in your feed. YouTube -- was a separate company before Maps -- will become a free tourist map, may have to pay to u…

But isn't that the very problem? The market for these loss-leading services is skewed because Google subsidizes their free offerings so that they improve their ads branch. Because it is hard to compete with a free (actually money-losing) service, it is very hard for competitors to spring up. And thus the whole thing is anti-competitive. If they were separate companies and had to compete on their own merit, not subsid…

You cut off one head ...

How would the market change in the wake of such a move? I can imagine that other companies will try to rebuild what Google was in other form. And these companies might not be US entities.

Re: Google/IAC/Expedia (2019)

#65

Post by 3np » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 10:45 PM UTC

eloisant wrote: post #46

epolanski wrote: post #3

Between Android, App Store, Chrome and Search Google has a very big stronghold over how people access and consume the internet. Google has an insane competitive advantage over most of the internet into knowing exactly what are people looking for and being the first to provide it. This isn't any different to what Amazon does on their shop. They know what sells and for how better than any of their sellers, and they wil…

Yes, we can't blame Google for making as much money as possible. But we can blame regulators for letting them.

We actually can and should hold people and companies responsible for doing unethical stuff.

Re: Google/IAC/Expedia (2019)

#66

Post by throwaway4good » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 10:42 AM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #57

throwaway4good wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is a US company but the "welfare loss" its monopoly create is on the whole (western) world and not just the US economy. That is why it won't be regulated out of existance. That and national security.

Care to explain how is it better for "national security" that some of Google's division have to be sold/spun off into different companies? What is exactly the threat of YouTube becoming an independent company again, e.g.? The only thing I see is a loss for Google in revenue and in YouTube in the "quality" of their ads. None of this has any implication on national security.

It is better for (US) national security that Google keeps its (global) monopoly. (Non-US) competitors to Google would hamper the US's ability to surveil and gather data globally.