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

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

#691

Post by api » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:42 PM UTC

jamesy0ung wrote: post #472

api wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a huge fan of governments doing Internet services, but the identity layer is something that actually fits within their sphere. Governments already provide the canonical identity layer for society and have since, like, ancient Egypt. Your drivers' license could have a chip in it capable of FIDO2 etc. and it could be linked with an OAuth provider. I know login.gov already exists but it's not built to be used ev…

I'd rather my real identity not be linked to any/all online accounts.

Me too but I fail to see how Google, Apple, etc are any better here. If they decide you are a fake account they can just randomly lock your account with no recourse.

If a site has no login options other than designated OIDC providers then I’d say they de facto don’t allow anonymity.

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

#692

Post by bluGill » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:53 PM UTC

loumaciel wrote: post #255

bluGill wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you rely on advertising you should not be outsourcing it to google anyway. You should have more control over that part of your business which means it needs to be at least partially in house. Even if you do take some google ads, make sure you have other partners and make sure that ads meet your standards (not a scam, not for your competitors).

You don't rely on Google to handle everything, it's self-service. Whether you use Google or another platform depends entirely on where your audience is. For example, my father runs a small construction company, and 90% of his leads come from Google search. That’s where people are looking for services like his.

I was speaking about places other than google that accept advertisements.

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

#693

Post by causal » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:55 PM UTC

anon291 wrote: post #206

I wish that instead of wasting time on antitrust cases, that the government would just directly fund competition by incentivizing it. I.e, the first company to reach x% browser market share will receive $x million (billion?) in prize money or, the first company to build an LLM-based search engine with x% market share will receive $n million Or structure as a direct investment or heavy tax breaks. Always better to inc…

The government does a lot to fund and incentivize startups. It can do more than one thing at a time.

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

#694

Post by thurnderbong » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:56 PM UTC

hug wrote: post #478

someluccc wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#1. Would I have used the computer at the same time/place/duration? Then yes it is free. It literally cost me nothing. #2. You can pay? Also is the argument somehow that the free thing isn’t free because the ad in it makes the UX worse? Also curious to know how many ads exactly do you get while using google workspace? drive? android? maps? Finally: You can literally use Chrome, Workspace, Drive, Android and Maps with…

There are costs other than monetary associated with doing things. Just because you are not giving someone cash directly does not mean it is "free". Those semantics aside: - Maps has ads in the form of sponsored results all over the map. - Android is only a decently functional platform with Play services installed, which includes ads. I don't have an Android phone handy but I'm pretty sure there's up-sells included in…

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

#695

Post by causal » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:56 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #373

What country wouldn't love to have a Google? And the US wants to break its good fortune up. Like all dominant companies, Google will eventually fall via strangulation by its internal bureaucracy. There's no reason to hand the market over to another country.

Nobody's proposing killing Google. You think this is bad because you cannot imagine an alternative history with better competition between multiple Googles

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

#696

Post by dartos » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:57 PM UTC

alt227 wrote: post #684

someluccc wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can literally use Chrome, Workspace, Drive, Android and Maps without seeing a single ad, without an ad blocker, without EVER using google search, for free.

Do you realise that as soon as you go to any of those websites, your details are scraped and sold? The second you put any data in drive or worksdpace, that is scraped into LLMs and sold? Theres a reason that you have to log into a Google account to use those services, which means agreeing to their rather large TOS. Buying something doesnt necessarily mean you have to pay money for it. Your time and information is wor…

I don’t think they realize just how large the google data collection operation is…

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

#697

Post by lom » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:57 PM UTC

hkand wrote: post #512

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

To say you can't see any benefit at all is probably an overstatement. These trillion dollar companies were often able to invest into big money-losing moonshot projects that benefited consumers massively - in Google's case, GMail and Google Maps - which were truly unimaginable at the time even though they're taken for granted today, so there's clearly some benefit in the form of innovation. Who else can afford to buil…

Google maps was launched 7 years after google was founded. If you look up the market share of google at that time (less than half of the search engine market) I think you’re more proving the need for breaking the company up.

Maps was created because it allowed google to be more competitive, not because they were already on top of their game and could just pour billions into any product.

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

#698

Post by dartos » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 1:02 PM UTC

someluccc wrote: post #307

dartos wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My data, sure, but the data of my entire age/racial/economic group is worth a lot to marketing firms. There’s a ton of that information in emails. That’s literally google’s business model. You think Gmail is free bc Google is nice? Come on…

So in this transaction you’re exchanging something that is individually worthless for something that is individually valuable. Which is a bad thing and should stop. Right now! Ps: it’s also not like you’re paying so little that you could say you’re getting it for…… free

It’s really hard for me to take you seriously. You’re just poorly playing semantics to white knight for Google.

Very weird.

It’s a good deal for the individual, that’s why Gmail is popular.

Trading something of low value for something of moderate value is not what “free” means…

Say the data from me or any of my peers was worth 1/100th of a cent and we give that away… that means I am trading something of minor value for something else…

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

#699

Post by AmericanChopper » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 1:05 PM UTC

whaaaaat wrote: post #492

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 can just type MS. I understand that it was cool to use M$ in the 90s, but like, all the tech giants are bad at this point and M$ looks silly.

I’m happy for people to keep writing M$. It’s a great way to quickly identify comments to scroll past.

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

#700

Post by azemetre » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 1:06 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #525

azemetre wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has operating systems, hardware, and software. Maybe Apple should spinoff OSX into its own company? They clearly abuse their positions with OS X and their hardware to push Apple specific software that only they benefit from. If they had to separate their operating systems into another company, they would have to freely compete to put their app stores on their devices. Or even better, spin off their hardware div…

I think it's not that hard of an argument to make that OS and hardware should go together - heck, Apple got praise for decades that their products worked better because they were "the seamless integration of hardware and software". I think it's a much harder argument to make that Apple should get to control all application software used on a device, and furthermore that they have a right to a cut of all revenue of ap…

I disagree, I own Apple hardware. I should be able to easily install and repair it without voiding the warranty. The fact that they make this nearly impossible is what makes their practices despicable.

It's why I added they should be legally compelled by a consent decree to provide parts, schematics, and the ability to change operating systems seamlessly if they want to keep their monopoly.