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US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

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Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#751

Post by oezi »

robertlagrant wrote: post #719
jmatthews wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You essentially outline why it should be broken up. I'm not convinced making the ad tech sector more competitive would prompt that outcome but, "It would disrupt mature products" isn't a compelling argument to allow the existence of a monopoly. Google is a monopoly, they exert monopoly power and enjoy monopoly pricing. I think the more likely outcome would be more dynamic products under smaller bannerheads.

> Google is a monopoly, they exert monopoly power and enjoy monopoly pricing. What is monopoly pricing?

Pricing you can only achieve because you are the only seller.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#752

Post by bradley13 »

animal_spirits wrote: post #651
BrenBarn wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a large enough bank goes under, it takes out not just the bank, but huge sectors of the economy, affecting many more businesses and jobs. That's why the government bailed out the banks when they failed. That is why the banks should have been broken up into smaller banks long before we reached that point, and it is why Google should have been broken up long ago. The only way to prevent the situation you describe…

I strongly disagree. If Google was broken up 20 years ago, nearly ALL the services listed above would not have happened. They are all FREE too, mind you. Everyone would still be paying for email. The enormous amount of free education on YouTube would not have been accessible to the world. The economy that we know today would be vastly different and in my opinion far worse off. So much of the economic growth came off…

Those service are certainly not free. Google doesn't offer them just to be nice: they make money from them. The costs to the consumer are hidden and indirect, but they are costs nonetheless.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#753

Post by hilbert42 »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #711
WesBrownSQL wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what you don't get. You aren't just watching ads. You are giving them data about you, a lot of data. That data is used to heavily manipulate you. This isn't like the old days of broadcast TV where ads air and you aren't directly tracked. If you ever find a product that is free, it isn't. You are the product that is being sold.

I do get that, and I’m fine with it.

Trouble is, many of us aren't.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#754

Post by raydiak »

jahsome wrote: post #722
raydiak wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a straw man, nobody asserted that the consequences should not be considered. Clearly, whichever way we proceed there will be considerable consequences; I doubt there is any dispute about that. Your argument seems to fail to acknowledge the dystopian consequences of NOT doing something. Also, let's dispense with inappropriate jabs such as referring to other perspectives as "fantasy".

I disagree with every single thing you said. I think GP was arguing for exactly what I asserted, and it's a literal fantasy to imagine doing something 20 years ago. I'd like to point out I wasn't being dismissive, at all. Sorry you read into it that way.

You still haven't addressed the consequences of NOT doing something.

Perhaps you've never heard the expression about "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." It's an aphorism, absolutely not literal. [1] Additionally, even if it were intended literally, which it clearly was not, saying it should have been done 20 years ago is not the same as fantasizing. It also obviously concludes that it should be done now, which is not fantasy.

I didn't say you were dismissive. If you have valid points, you should be able to make them without rewording everything into something else that you can tear down. That's called a straw man argument. "... the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction" [2]

[1] https://english.stackexchange.com/a/603725 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#755

Post by oezi »

robertlagrant wrote: post #721
lolinder wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consumer did pay the price. Google built on empire on making consumers believe they were getting things for free while selling other businesses a direct line to its customers' wallets. It's been a very effective sleight of hand operation, to the point where even relatively savvy people on HN seem to forget that advertising pays the bills by getting its targets to spend money they would not have otherwise spent. A…

> while selling other businesses a direct line to its customers' wallets What does this mean? > Even if you discount the effectiveness of ads (which seems foolish given how many people have so much staked on them working), the eye-watering prices Google charges for them get directly passed to the consumer in the form of higher prices. But then...why is anyone buying them if they don't work? How do you run this experi…

You can read up on the advertising industry easily, right?

For consumers ads are a net negative. They inflate the cost of the product and favor incumbents and monopolists to retain that position.

Ads certainly work on average and Google has positioned itself in a way that they can extract much of the created value for businesses who buy them.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#756

Post by dreghgh »

RajBhai wrote: post #708
handoflixue wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone would still be paying for email. Free email existed before Google - Hotmail and Yahoo come to mind immediately, but there were plenty of others. You also got a free email address from your ISP - even AOL users had email.

I remember hotmail before gmail. Attachments had a 2 MB limit. I couldn't even share HQ photos using hotmail. And the whole inbox had a 25 MB capacity. I do believe there were paid alternatives with more storage. Gmail came in with 1 GB storage and grouping emails as conversations. To me, both of these aspects were revolutionary, and other email providers shortly followed suit.

Yes, and Gmail hasn't improved for decades. Why not? Because Google is a monopoly actor and does not need to compete.

Example: you can't create a new email label in the Android client. You have to log on to email in a browser and do it there. This was true when smartphones were a niche way of connecting to email, and it's still true today.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#757

Post by hilbert42 »

int_19h wrote: post #583
itsoktocry wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smaller banks aren't competitive with larger (global) banks.

Smaller anything isn't competitive with larger anything, because the larger guys can always price-dump and bundle their way to full market dominance. That's why we need anti-trust in the first place.

"That's why we need anti-trust in the first place."

Moreover, it seems to me these laws ought to strengthened to make executives/decision makers even more accountable.

The people who made Google a monopoly aren't stupid and knew full well what they were doing. They should not be able to hide behind Google's corporate structure and also should be penalized for their bad behavior.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#758

Post by oezi »

BrenBarn wrote: post #687
scarface_74 wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one of those services are a “monopoly”?

I set the bar even lower than the other commenter. I don't care if it's a monopoly, nor even really if it's engaged in anticompetitive practices. I just care if it's big, like big enough to have outsized market power. I think that markets with large disparities in size and market power among participants are inherently anticompetitive. I think that in most market sectors --- banks, automakers, airlines, media, you na…

Absolutely right. Customers benefit most if there is a working market and monopolies and other kinds of capture are restricted.

When I compare the cost cutting happening in my supermarket over pennies and then compare it to the exuberant prices at airports, festival venues and sport stadiums it is clear how much many industries are ripping customers off.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#759

Post by dreghgh »

JustExAWS wrote: post #682
lolinder wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't use that word and no one in the chain above me did either. I specifically chose "anticompetitive behavior" to emphasize that a monopoly is not required to do damage to the free market or to trigger antitrust action.

So out of the list, how has Google behaved “anti competitively” in any of these? - Google Maps - Google Mail - Google Drive - Google Docs - Google Groups - Google Forms - Google Cloud - Google OAuth - Google Analytics - Android - Android Auto - Fitbit - Google Fi - Google Fiber - Google Flights - Google Translate - Google Pay - Waymo

You can't have the Play app store on your Android phone unless you accept to install Youtube, Google Maps, Google Drive and Google Photos. This is clearly anti-competitive.

Re: US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

#760

Post by dreghgh »

sofixa wrote: post #419
fsh wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This list is very telling. Instead of a healthy marketplace of companies competing to sell their software and services, we end up with one monopolist who gives away mediocre products and in return taxes everything you buy (in the form of ad spending), and then annoys you with the same ads. How is this a desirable outcome?

Because the vast majority of people don't want to and have zero intention pf paying separately for email, maps, navigation, browser, etc. In fact, that's how things used to be before Google and their ilk used ads to make an ecosystem, and their ecosystem was better and free at the point of use than what came before

But if Google weren't a monopoly, phone manufacturers could choose to bundle different collections of apps made by different people on to their hardware, rather than having to get it all from Google. This would also mean that phone users could be given a genuine choice about their privacy, rather than have dark patterns to force them to give up most of it, because it's the Android business model.
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