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

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

#721

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 1:57 PM UTC

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.

> Google funnels a lot of their profits to make Chrome and Android into OSS

No, that is incidental. What is the first and principal thing it does, what needs does it serve by making open source browsers and operating systems?

Control. Google maintains appreciable control over mobile devices and the web by making their own mobile operating system and browser. In cases such as these, it is only a matter of time before they tightening the screws. They already have.

> we will be left with an even more profitable ad giant, that sends back all profits to it's share holders

But not one that can kill ad blockers or ram remote attestation down people's throats.

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

#722

Post by arghwhat » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:00 PM UTC

KoolKat23 wrote: post #391

arghwhat wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After having been a paid subscriber for a number of months, I have to say that it still wasn't cutting it. I still ended up falling back to google all the time. Plus, https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html

I can understand your point. The links points however are a bit ridiculous, they're entitled to their opinion but may be surprised to find people, at the businesses they use, have opinions that differ to theirs, and these businesses aren't always well-oiled machines.

Differences in opinions and values (in particular what money is used for) is one thing, failing (and refusing) legal obligations and getting surprised by something as basic as tax is something else entirely.

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

#723

Post by Workaccount2 » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

freeone3000 wrote: post #720

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.

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

It's not free, the people who view the ads are covering the cost for those who don't.

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

#724

Post by hzia » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:04 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #713

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 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…

I agree on the Bell Labs analogy

Most browsers have consolidated over time because we are constantly updating web standards and bar for security is so high. On top of that everything has to be insanely backward compatible

WebGPU is a good example. Implementing that securely in a nightmare

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

#725

Post by Workaccount2 » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:06 PM UTC

mossTechnician wrote: post #710

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.

Likewise, no third party is entitled to loading resources on my computer or displaying content on my screen without my permission.

So the people who view the ads and make it possible for you to load just the content are suckers for doing so?

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

#726

Post by Ajedi32 » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:07 PM UTC

adamc wrote: post #247

dekhn wrote: post #175

My primary interest is how Alphabet will attempt to implement this. In particular, if they break up Search and Ads, or really any major product in google3/borg, Alphabet will have a massive pile of work splitting those up in a way that allows the resulting groups to achieve the same level of horizontal and vertical integration that they currently enjoy. Personally I am skeptical that they have enough technically capa…

Not sure that would be a bad thing.

If Google doesn't survive being broken up, then this move would be essentially nuking a 2 TRILLION dollar company into the ground for zero gain. Again, that's 2 TRILLION DOLLARS worth of value getting thrown onto a garbage pile and burned up, just because "it seemed like a good idea at the time".

You can speculate that something better would emerge from the ashes. It's possible you're right. But you have to admit this would be a huge gamble.

This isn't like Bell where you can just split the company into geographically distinct regions and call it a day. Google's services are intricately linked together and tightly integrated, and you can argue that's a huge part of where their value lies.

I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this, but I think I'd be more in favor of laws to force interoperability and promote competition rather than a full fledged break up, at least in the short term. Or maybe a slow, carefully planned breakup where individual services get spun out one at a time over a few decades, with time to reverse course if that proves to be a bad idea.

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

#727

Post by briandear » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:09 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #523

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.

The ideological blindness that causes people to speak past each other is this. Innovation requires reliable funding, such as monopoly profits or government funding. Monopoly leads to undemocratic concentrations of power and various private taxes on the public (e.g. in the case of Google, your personal information). Bell Labs was funded by monopoly funding with a law directing a certain amount to research. Competition…

So how did Apple invent iPhone? What monopoly did they have?

Nationalizing anything is an absolute disaster for innovation. What innovations did Aeroflot develop?

The free market and a thriving entrepreneur ecosystem creates innovation. The profit motive is a powerful one. Taking risks to invent the next big thing is what drives entrepreneurship in the first place. Governments are corrupt, inefficient, and don’t get punished by the markets when they fail.

This idea that governments are democratic is a myth. I didn’t vote for tethered bottle caps in the EU. I didn’t vote to send money to fund wars. In the U.S., one can vote, but the policies that actually happen are the result of what lobbyists spent the most money buying the relevant congressmen.

The answer to this is smaller government. The most democratic thing there is is the free market. Everyone can vote or not vote with their money. And the results are seen nearly immediately and companies have to respond.

If we could choose to pay taxes on a line-item basis, that would be the most democratic thing ever. Because a rep that you voted for on one issue and is wrong on another issue gets his “wrong” initiative defunded and his “right” initiative funded. We should bring free market principles to government not government principles to the free market.

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

#728

Post by briandear » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

hightrix wrote: post #235

loumaciel wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons of small businesses rely on advertising. Tons of legit businesses only exist because online advertising became easy and widespread.

I fully understand that advertising enables many businesses. But there have been businesses based on lead pipes for drinking water plumbing, asbestos for residential insulation, and so on. You could make an argument that these technologies enabled many businesses as well. That doesn’t mean we should allow lead pipes for drinking water or to use asbestos in residential homes.

Lead pipes are a bad pipe. But we still need pipes. The problem is the lead, not the pipe.

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

#729

Post by anon291 » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:17 PM UTC

crabmusket wrote: post #312

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…

Instead of spending millions or billions on giveaways to private companies, why not fund a public alternative? Sure, search isn't cheap. But governments should consider information access to be of key importance to democratic participation. An open source, public benefit search engine would be a really valuable thing to have, which no private company does or ever will find it viable to provide. And I don't even want…

American society is by-and-large self-organizing and this is an American bias. America has done quite well for itself (better than many countries in fact) and so I see no need to drastically change this simply to have search competition. It's fine to have your ideological position, but there's really no need for it.

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

#730

Post by anon291 » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 2:17 PM UTC

j2kun wrote: post #383

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…

They're not punishing success, they're punishing illegal behavior. Breaking up monopolies has a long, successful track record.

From a human rights perspective, there is no unethical behavior. You are allowed to invent things, sell those things, and profit from those things. It's a fundamental human right.

The entire antitrust concept is concerning honestly.