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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

#711

Post by lolinder »

wvh wrote: post #675
hzia wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How much effort do Chrome and Android require from a company the size of Google? It's a genuine question. Jolla/Sailfish make a mobile operating system with a handful of people, and even though that system pretty minimal, I'd say the added value on the Android side is the ecosystem of apps and porting to devices, which is done by other developers and manufacturers than Google. And I'm not sure how many people work on…

> Jolla/Sailfish make a mobile operating system with a handful of people

My biggest question is how long they can stay at a handful if they become popular. The increased burden of security patches alone would likely turn that handful into a small army.

Security through obscurity is often mocked (for good reason), but it actually does work in cases like this as long as you don't reach Android's scale.

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

#712

Post by briandear »

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.

I don’t really care about Chrome or Android. Sounds like helping Chrome and Android has nothing to do with the acceptability of a near monopoly.

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

#713

Post by mumblemumble »

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.

I think that similar arguments were made about Ma Bell and Bell Labs back in the day. And it's true, a lot of great things did come out of Bell Labs.

In fact, it almost seems like the only people able to produce great things in the 1970s were massive entrenched corporations like Ma Bell.

Funny, that.

Come to think of it, wasn't there a much more vibrant browser ecosystem in the late 90s and early 2000s, before Google used its dominant position in the ad market to undercut the competition? There used to be a lot more mobile operating systems out there, too.

I wonder what happened to all that competition? It's almost like some sort of massive anti-competitive influence came into force in the tech scene somewhere in the 2000s. . .

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

#714

Post by lolinder »

T-Winsnes wrote: post #462
hzia wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you underestimate the value of controlling the platform that you base all your revenue from. Chrome controls the internet and android has a huge market share on mobile. The latest changes to chrome that breaks plugins like ublock origin allows them to keep maximising their advertising revenue. I think these two being open source is a major reason why they have been so successfully adopted. It isn’t direct rev…

What you're describing is why Google is willing to sink money into Chrome, and you're right. But that doesn't mean that Chrome can become a viable independent company.

Chrome synergizes with the rest of Google's portfolio.

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

#715

Post by carlosjobim »

ta1243 wrote: post #299
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean Youtube does people just don't pay for it....

Youtube videos still come with adverts, just not the google ones.

I fully understand YouTube on this. Banning promoted/sponsored segments would be censoring the creators. Practically it's also too difficult to draw a line.

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

#716

Post by briandear »

shiroiushi wrote: post #502
T-Winsnes wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the value of controlling the platform that you base all your revenue from. Chrome controls the internet and android has a huge market share on mobile. The latest changes to chrome that breaks plugins like ublock origin allows them to keep maximising their advertising revenue. I think these two being open source is a major reason why they have been so successfully adopted. It isn’t direct rev…

>android has a huge market share on mobile. Not in the US they don't; it's a minority share, split across many different manufacturers who all have their own flavor of Android, their own (crappy) app stores and pre-loaded crapware apps, etc. Apple has a clear majority of the US smartphone market (and it's a vertical monopoly, with Apple controlling the phone hardware and the app store and not allowing any alternative…

Windows isn’t open source. Perhaps Office and Windows should be broken up? They have far more market share comparatively speaking. The fact that most of the enterprise run on Microsoft could be more concerning than an consumer App Store.

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

#717

Post by briandear »

hzia wrote: post #533
sciurus wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these measurements are correct, iOS has about 11% more of the US market share than Android. This is very different from the global market share, where Android has 45% more. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ios-vs-android-market-s...

Majority of revenue base lives on iOS globally (due to being a monopoly in the US) That's why Apple has higher profits than all other mobile operators combined!

iOS isn’t a monopoly.

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

#718

Post by Workaccount2 »

mission_failed wrote: post #709
Workaccount2 wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least be intellectually honest here Ads might suck a lot, but you are also not entitled to free content.

Ads force you to pay for some thing Actually no, it's worse. Ad companies take everything they can from you using any method they can including monitoring everything you browse or watch on TV or say near your phone or TV or in your car or what you look at in every shop or what you buy or who you chat to, compile massive secret databases and sell 'you' to anyone willing to pay, regardless of what the information is us…

I mean, every other business I am aware of forces you to pay for something too?

I don't see what is confusing here. Consumers love the ad-model because they can get things "free". If the real cost of ad-supported products is too much for you, then its too expensive for you to use.

Like someone found the backdoor to the movie theater, and people just go in that way rather than pay for a ticket, and then these same people go on rants about how movie tickets are a rip-off and they make you watch 30 mins of ads before the movie, and candy is 5x overpriced, and proudly declaring "I will never pay for a movie ticket again!", as if they are some righteous moral champion standing against the greed of people wanting to get paid for their work.

Straighten out your head, then come back and make an argument.

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

#719

Post by lolinder »

agent281 wrote: post #517
krackers wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if Google dies then we'll have more diverse browser and mobile ecosystem? Where exactly is the downside?

Google funds Chrome. Other browsers use Chrome as a base. The majority of Firefox's funding is from Google. They will suffer as well. MS would need to step back up with browsers and you would also have Safari left over. I think it would be a major shock to the browser ecosystem.

Frankly, I think the browser ecosystem needs a major shock. There are too many companies invested in the web as a platform for them to collectively allow web browsers to just stop existing, and a few years of discomfort may well be worth it if it shakes up the ecosystem a bit and brings more diversity.

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

#720

Post by freeone3000 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #707
rockskon wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad ads? No, that is horseshit . The goal of blocking ads isn't to only allow in "good ads". It's to block ads . Not some ads. Not a few ads. Not just malware delivered via ads. Not just Google's competitors. It's to block ads. All of them. To stop the relentless harassment of the advertising industry claiming other peoples' screens and time as their own.

At least be intellectually honest here Ads might suck a lot, but you are also not entitled to free content.

And yet, people put out tons of free content all the time! Clip out the ad and it’s right there.
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