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Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

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Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#621

Post by crazygringo »

keeda wrote: post #617
crazygringo wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that Google Search is so good because it gets so much search traffic and, critically, user interaction data If Bing's market share is 4%, then Bing still gets tons of user interaction data. Bing gets something like 100M queries per day . That's more than enough data. Microsoft has all the choice. They have the money. They can invest, like Google has invested and continues to invest . You don't get these things for…

> That's more than enough data. Is it? I'm no expert, but while it may seem enough in absolute numbers, I can imagine more nuanced criteria like diversity of queries, results and users may matter more than just volume, and that kind of signal only comes from truly ubiquitious data collection (like say being default on the most popular browser AND on the duopoly of mobile platforms -- which, by the way, also collect t…

I don't know what your point is.

Maybe it's not enough data to make search results 100% as good as Google's, but enough to make them 95% as good? And everyone on HN complains about the quality of Google results, so surely there are algorithmic opportunities for MS to do better, right?

All we know is that Microsoft has decided not to compete seriously in search, but compete at a minimal level. There are a hundred different strategic reasons why they might have chosen this. But this in no way indicates it would be somehow impossible for Microsoft to compete there if they wanted. They could spend the tens of billions in traffic acquisition just like Google does. The fact that they aren't doesn't mean they couldn't.

There are no "realities about the search market" that mean Microsoft could never become a serious competitor. Your unfunded startup can't, but Microsoft could. Microsoft has all the data and money required.

They've just chosen not to, the same way Apple has chosen not to enter AAA gaming, Google hasn't entered general-purpose desktop operating systems, and Amazon hasn't entered VR headsets.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#622

Post by lazide »

harmmonica wrote: post #611
lazide wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course - but if you’ve gone behind 99% of people doing their own electrical, you’ll also understand why I’m saying what I’m saying. Everyone thinks they are the exception. Occasionally, one of them is even right, eh?

Think I've done that and I'll raise you an "and yet barely any houses burn down due to their electrical!" I actually jest. But electrical is one of those things that anyone can do, but ought to be done with the utmost care (and in the US many jurisdictions allow DIY electrical if you're doing the work for your own place). And just to clarify I don't think I'm the exception. I was actually making the opposite argument…

Eh, I’ve dealt with enough people to say nah - people really should not be doing their own structural engineering, or electrical.

It isn’t due to ‘complexity’ either - rather indifference, laziness, or just plain stupidity.

I’ve seen people almost burn down their places multiple times - and at least one family actually die from an electrical fire. Also, partial building collapses.

The reason you don’t see it more often is because people generally don’t actually try.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#623

Post by shivasaxena »

p3rls wrote: post #566
tyingq wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting example, as Google used to link to Wikipedia much more prominently, then stopped doing that, which dropped Wikipedia's visitor counts a lot. A very large percentage of Wikipedia's visits are Google referrals. Google shifted views that used to go to Wikipedia first to their in-house knowledge graph (high percentages of which are just Wikipedia content), then to the AI produced snippets. All to say, yes...W…

In my niche these links are all going to indian scam sites for years and years. Right now can google "taehyung" one of the largest kpop idols and see it live. Count the indian links that have been dominating without any particular expertise thanks to google's changes (indian scammer site kickbacks etc)

[dead]

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#624

Post by Ray20 »

komali2 wrote: post #615
Ray20 wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's wrong with that? The absence of a clear objective boundary of what can be taken and what cannot. And without such a boundary, such a practice could be quite widespread, with the poorest and smallest actors being the first to be subjected to it, simply because it is easier to take from them and they do not have sufficient influence on the distributing bodies. This is like theory of building socialism 101

> The absence of a clear objective boundary of what can be taken and what cannot. I don't understand why this is an obstacle - this issue already exists with writing laws and various countries have different solutions, all of which seem to be working kinda ok. There's the USA's constitution which isn't working so well in most cases but working great in others (free speech for example, though this is now failing), whe…

>free speech for example, though this is now failing

I don't quite understand what you mean.

The great advantage of the American constitution in terms of freedom of speech is that it sets a relatively clear boundary. And it is obvious that in this regard the constitution copes with its task perfectly: freedom of speech in the USA is currently protected better than in any other country.

It is so well protected that Americans were able to elect Trump as their leader, despite the fact that more than 80 percent of the mainstream media openly opposed him, and the government tried to shut the mouths of all his supporters under the guise of fighting dis- and misinformation (regardless of how we feel about his personality and presidency).

So if we look at the freedom of speech in the current US on a historical scale, we see exactly the opposite of what you saying: we see how freedom of speech in the US has once again stood firm despite the strongest opposition.

> Of course this would require removing the ability of capital to influence politics

You describe it as if it is something ordinary, not something catastrophic. Just to understand, if the government gets enough power to deprive capital of ability to influence politics - we get Nazi Germany or Russia. In the best case. At worst - the USSR, North Korea or Kampuchea

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#625

Post by harrisi »

shadowgovt wrote: post #572
BrenBarn wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which I believe to be a net negative to the US, and world, some may disagree though Yes, I disagree. If we can't have Google without monopolism then we should have neither. Treating Google as essential in this situation is like a druggie saying he "needs" his next hit. People only "need" Google because Google has used its monopoly position to try to make people addicted to it. It should never have been allowed to h…

Or, perhaps, it should be nationalized. If it's such a critical piece of infrastructure that dissolving it would be unthinkable, but it also can't be competed with in the marketplace... It could be removed from the marketplace. This isn't unheard of for communications technology. Postal service in England was exclusively a Crown privilege, then the monarchy realized there were benefits to the Empire if everyone could…

It's not only not unheard of, this just happened with US Steel in June. The president currently has essentially full control over the board and veto rights to just about any decision that the company makes, which effectively nationalizes it.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#626

Post by rockskon »

adam_arthur wrote: post #209
jonas21 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not see ChatGPT and Claude as viable alternatives to search? They've certainly replaced a fair chunk of my queries.

Google Search has AI responses at the top of the fold. Eventually those answers will be sufficient for most and give people no reason to move to alternatives. Allowing them to pay to be default seems to mostly guarantee this outcome

Those answers with the awful model they're using are frequently wrong and aggravating to have displace search results.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#627

Post by keeda »

crazygringo wrote: post #621
keeda wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's more than enough data. Is it? I'm no expert, but while it may seem enough in absolute numbers, I can imagine more nuanced criteria like diversity of queries, results and users may matter more than just volume, and that kind of signal only comes from truly ubiquitious data collection (like say being default on the most popular browser AND on the duopoly of mobile platforms -- which, by the way, also collect t…

I don't know what your point is. Maybe it's not enough data to make search results 100% as good as Google's, but enough to make them 95% as good? And everyone on HN complains about the quality of Google results, so surely there are algorithmic opportunities for MS to do better, right? All we know is that Microsoft has decided not to compete seriously in search, but compete at a minimal level. There are a hundred diff…

My point is they did choose to compete, and still are. Bing is literally the only real competitor to Google Search. Your point seems to be they didn't spend enough money to be competitive. My point is, it simply did not make business sense to do so. Let's put some simplified numbers out there to illustrate.

MSFT has spent 100 billion over the years on Bing.

And Google spent more than half of that amount in 2024 alone on traffic acquisition costs. Which it can afford to do because it has a monopoly. Which it has because it produces better results. Which it does because they have all the data. Which they ensure only they can get because they pay for it (and the cycle repeats.)

For comparison, Microsoft's cash reserves are 96 billion. So their choice really was to spend more than half of their cash reserves in one year just to compete only on traffic acquisition costs in the distant hope of getting enough data to break that cycle. Which is likely still not enough data because they don't have the browser monopoly or mobile presence to harvest user data on an industrial scale.

So, no: Microsoft does not have all the money or data required.

I would say the more realistic story is that Microsoft knew, as proven by the trial, that the deck was anti-competitively stacked against them (and who would know better than Microsoft?) and simply did the best they could to compete to the point of positive ROI.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#628

Post by nwienert »

lnenad wrote: post #522
nwienert wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari has been better for going on 5 years now, funny thing is it was worse for long enough that it seems everyone, even to this day, refuses to believe it. Faster in basically every dimension. Supporting way more than FF in terms of specs. Way more efficient on battery. Better feeling scroll, better UI.

Any source for that? https://www.browserating.com/ doesn't put it in top5 on any non-ios platform?

Chrome caught up in the last year or so, but also speedometer is also fairly arbitrary. Open/close, tab open/close, tab switch, scroll, initial load, resizing all still far better. Actual app performance depends on the app but for a few years Safari was clearly better.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#629

Post by blinding-streak »

matthewfcarlson wrote: post #254
IshKebab wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is a competitor. You know how StackOverflow is dead because AI provided an alternative? That's happening in search too. You might think "but ChatGPT isn't a search engine", and that's true. It can't handle all queries you might use a search engine for, e.g. if you want to find a particular website. But there are many many queries that it can handle. Here's just a few from my recent history: * How do I load a share…

AI has a huge advantage over search. It gets to the question you want answered rather than adjacent search terms. I honestly trust the congealed LLM slop over the piecemeal SEO optimized AI slop for many questions. How long is the rear seat room is the 2018 XX Yy car? What is the best hotel to stay at in this city? I’m interested in these things and not interested in these amenities. I have leftovers that I didn’t li…

Have you noticed that Google has AI answers built into search results?

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#630

Post by blinding-streak »

whycome wrote: post #105
bediger4000 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not. I prefer to read the primary sources, LLM summaries are, after all, probabilistic, and based on syntax. I'm often looking for semantics, and an LLM really really is not going to give me that.

Since when does google give your primary sources for simple queries? You have to wade through all the garbage. At least an LLM will give you the general path and provide sources.

Google's AI responses cite primary sources.
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