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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

#661

Post by youngtaff »

hzia wrote: post #446
stego-tech wrote: post #188

Loving the discourse in the comments here. Speaking as someone who grew up alongside Google in a sense, I fall on the side of the "break it up" camp. It was novel at the time to have a single company so nicely provide us with everything digitally that we could need - G Suite, YouTube, Search, Maps, Advertising, Books, Reader, etc - but in hindsight, we gave too much power to too unaccountable an entity, who in turn u…

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.

Youtube, Search, Display Ads, and Cloud Compute are probably the four profitable business units

GTM and GA probably live with Display Ads

Chrome and Android probably live with Search

Who knows where ChromeOS, and all the hardware devices go

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

#662

Post by account42 »

nomat wrote: post #279
loumaciel wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online advertising has leveled the playing field, allowing smaller brands to compete with big names. Platforms like Google make it easy to capture attention, which is why even giants like Nike are losing market share to newer players. This shift spans all non-regulated industries. Without online ads, launching a nationwide brand would require enormous budgets, leaving us stuck with the same old monopolies.

> allowing smaller brands to compete to name a few: LISEN, Qifutan, Loncaster, YKYI, Holikme and SXhyf. And who could forget VWMYQ?

This is doubly funny because the one really profiting here is Amazon, aka a big corp.

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

#663

Post by bobviolier »

nl wrote: post #578
hzia wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s revenue not profits. Majority goes to app devs. Profits are all that matter

Profits are not all that matters. The money Google spends internally either on development or on cross subsidies is no profit and is what most of the issues in this discussion are addressing. Profits is just money they couldn't find a place to spend on growth. (Also a maximum of 30% goes to app devs which isn't a majority any way you measure it)

70% goed to app devs (right?)

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

#664

Post by account42 »

WalterBright wrote: post #379
trgn wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how did this happen before advertising? trade shows, trade magazines, word of mouth, window-dressing in the THING-quarter, ... why are personalized ads on a website indispensable?

[flagged]

The same way that the sumerians had computers, yes.

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

#665

Post by account42 »

idle_zealot wrote: post #567
BurningFrog wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll try to explain to the young people how bad things used to be. Google ads was (and is) incredibly good for niche companies, since it makes it possible to advertise to people who are interested in your product instead of the general public. So if you sell Warhammer paraphernalia, you can buy ads to be shown only to people who have searched for Warhammer related words, rather than "everyone in Wisconsin". This lowe…

> if you sell Warhammer paraphernalia, you can buy ads to be shown only to people who have searched for Warhammer related words, rather than "everyone in Wisconsin". Tracking people and shoving your wares in their faces is not the only way to reach interested parties. You could go to a Warhammer convention, join a Warhammer forum and offer to send members samples, or just post images of your stuff in a sharing thread…

Yes and you also don't need to reach all your customers directly. If you make a good product word of it will spread naturally. Ads actually inhibit that by taking over people's attention and pre-empting any interested customers from finding you by showing them your competitors first. So you end up paying for the reach that the advertisement industry took away from you in the first place.

Of course, word of mouth requires you to actually make a good product whereas with advertisment it's enough if your product looks good.

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

#666

Post by rqtwteye »

tlss wrote: post #576
rqtwteye wrote: post #457

I think as a general principle it would be best to break up companies automatically from a certain size on. We need more competition and less powerful corporations. I don’t see any benefit that these trillion dollar companies are providing for society. Only downside

Doesn’t that create an adverse incentive for companies to not grow (invest to make more money) even if they could? YouTube for example might still be stuck in the 480p era if Google hasn’t laid all those Ocean cables on its own dime...

Depends on where you set the limit. A 500 billion dollar company can get a lot done.

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

#667

Post by Ntrails »

shiroiushi wrote: post #527
sensanaty wrote: post #487

I'm fully onboard, but only if it's not only Google being broken up here. M$, Apple, Meta (!!!!!!!!) and all the other big tech companies all need to be nuked from orbit. I'm worried that what's actually going to happen is Google getting broken up and M$ just swooping in to feast on the carcass, leaving us in an even shittier position. Out of all the evils coming from the FAANG world, M$ and Meta are by far the worst…

You're forgetting Apple. What happens if breaking Google up ends up destroying Android?

How would that even work? (I'm not being difficult here, I just don't understand).

Assume Google is split up, Android is not maintained because doing so is not profitable. Each handset manufacture still needs an OS, and will just make custom forks or whole OS. They're not going to wind down operations because Android stops being a thing

I don't think it meaningfully increases IOS market share?

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

#668

Post by account42 »

WalterBright wrote: post #378
hightrix wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nicely provide us with everything digitally that we could need... Advertising Sorry for the snark, but no one anywhere needs advertising. Advertising in it's current form is a plague on humanity.

I am in the market for a new scanner. I looked at advertisements for them.

And without advertisements you would not have found a scanner to buy? Or are you conflating product listings with advertisements?

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

#669

Post by account42 »

WalterBright wrote: post #423
hightrix wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searching the internet and not rendering any promoted links or ads in my browser.

[flagged]

> And why do you think that vendors create search-friendly pages? Advertising!

No, Marketing. Advertising is only one form and the most antisocial one. There is a huge difference between making it possible for people interested in your product to find you versus going out of your way to shove your product in front of the eyes of people who are doing something at best tangentially related.

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