701–710 of 761 posts
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That sounds bad for Google... ?
I think the point is that if Google is not allowed to make such payments, neither is Microsoft (unless they want to risk the same lawsuit against them). Apple will stay with Google since a change would probably be unpopular with users. End result: Default search engines stay the same, but Google doesn't have to pay for it anymore. I think this ignores Apple could still develop their own search engine, as they did wit…
I have never used the URL/location bar as a search. I once was looking over the shoulder for someone that does, and the list of previous searches that popped up was quite revealing. This just reinforced my not wanting to ever use that feature. I'm sure this must look suspicious to anyone that would ever "look into" my machine. My default search therefore is which site I decide to use at the time, but rarely is it eve…
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How in God's name can someone be forced (compelled by force or necessity : involuntary) by an incentive? No, your usage of the word is against the one used by the code of law regarding market regulation, simple as that.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force - read the verb section. There is no tight definition of "force" in US market regulation. You are making things up. The phrase "market forces" is directly quoted in the ruling. Market forces are incentives pushing market participants to behave in certain ways. This is econ 101.
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It makes no sense to "expect this will be bad for everyone except Google" based on this opinion. "This" has yet to be defined. The court has not even set a date for the trial to determine the remedy yet. All we know at this point is that Google broke the law. We do not know what will be the consequences.
Isn't it reasonable to assume that one of the consequences will be "Google, and nobody else, can do this," therefore applying OP's logic?
antitrust is not about market share, it's about abuse of the power that comes with it.
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"I expect this to be bad for everyone except Google if the ruling holds." If the decision will not be bad for Google, then why would Google spend so much money and time to defend against it.^1 Why not just stop making the anti-competitive payments and terminate the agreements. Money saved. Problem solved. We can now safely say it is not a defense to claim "Google is the best" and that's why people choose it. Anti-com…
HN commenters defending Apple have stated many times that iOS installations do not comprise a majority share of the "smartphone" market. Can we assume that if Microsoft paid Apple to be the default search engine in iOS instead of Google then Microsoft would have market share, or some other source of monopoly power, sufficient to allow the DoJ and state AGs to bring essentially the same antitrust case against Microsof…
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"They simply have a better product" I disagree. 100% they had a better product, but they have absolutely mangled it over the last few updates. Honestly, if I wanted the opinion of randomnumbers45123 on Reddit, I'd just search Reddit. Google achieved dominance ~25 years ago by being better than the alternatives, and the other search engines pretty much withered away rapidly. They (Google) are in a very precarious posi…
People always _always_ forget that Google today is an ad company first. They do search, phones and mobile operating systems as side projects.
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The court is plain silly if it's concluding that multi-billion-dollar deals create resistance or diminishes incentives. If anything, it creates incentives by proving that another search engine could make billions from smartphone fees alone.
>another search engine could make billions from smartphone fees alone. I’m not following… the search engine would be the one paying the billions.
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"I expect this to be bad for everyone except Google if the ruling holds." If the decision will not be bad for Google, then why would Google spend so much money and time to defend against it.^1 Why not just stop making the anti-competitive payments and terminate the agreements. Money saved. Problem solved. We can now safely say it is not a defense to claim "Google is the best" and that's why people choose it. Anti-com…
> Why not just stop making the anti-competitive payments and terminate the agreements. Money saved. Problem solved. It’s only solved if nobody does it. If Google stops those payments unilaterally MS would just make a slightly cheaper deal with Apple..
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People always _always_ forget that Google today is an ad company first. They do search, phones and mobile operating systems as side projects.
By that logic, any product/organization that generates revenue mainly through ads would be an ad company. Search is the product that (probably) carries most of the ads revenues, so that's the main product, and ads are the means for generating revenue around it.
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They really don't, though Kagi costs $. Even ignoring that it's a bit unclear, since in many cases DDG or bing give better results.
Do you have any examples or types of query of where a free search engine produces better results? I tried to Google for it, but maybe expectedly, that doesn’t bring up any good examples. I think free has the be table-stakes for the default search engine, because otherwise you are forcing all users to change or buy a license, so any paid alternatives are out. Disclaimer: Work at Google; not on search-related things, o…