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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

#801

Post by DoctorOW »

Suppafly wrote: post #791
mumblemumble wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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? No? It used to be IE and Mozilla, and now it's Edge, Chrome, and Mozilla. Opera existed then and now, and probably more people use it now, but it's still small enough that no one cares. I suppose you could make a point about Ed…

Before: Trident, Webkit, Gecko, Presto After: Blink/Webkit, Gecko/Quantum

We're seeing less engines which is far more important than the browser wrapper. Also Quantum's development is pretty much driven by a desire to maintain feature parity with Blink which means Google gets control over what the web is according to every major browser. The fact that there are a variety of companies whose browsers are under Google's control is irrelevant in terms of anti-competitive discussion.

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

#802

Post by carlosjobim »

ssklash wrote: post #140
richwater wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> results in a materially worse world. Please explain how Google has created a materially worse world

What part of being a massive ad company whose raison d'etre is to collect as much personal information about you as possible (with limited or no consent) to enable other people to try to convince you to buy stuff even remotely a net positive for the world?

Because of organic search, not because of the ads. It has had a massive effect on the economic opportunities of newcomers. You can open a restaurant outside of the main walking street of a place and get customers through Google Maps. You can have a small business selling almost anything online and people will find you using Google search. Before that you'd have to rely on traditional advertising for anybody to know you exist, which is neither cheap nor effective. Today you can start a business and pay 0 in advertising, and Google will still help customers find you through organic search.

Don't underestimate how much freedom that gives people to strike it out on their own.

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

#803

Post by Apocryphon »

WalterBright wrote: post #777
hightrix wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are problems unrelated to the topic at hand. We aren't going to solve every bit of this situation in this comment thread. Who pays for it? Not my problem. I'll use whatever free service exists, there will always be one. Without a search engine? The internet would fail and targeted ads would cease to exist.

> I'll use whatever free service exists You'll get advertisements, then.

https://adlock.com/blog/search-engine-without-ads/

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

#804

Post by tick_tock_tick »

stephenr wrote: post #577
agent281 wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I think it would be a major shock to the browser ecosystem. To repeat the question from above, where is the downside? Microsoft only abandoned EdgeHTML and adopted Blink because Google owned sites like YouTube were deliberately breaking in Edge. At this stage I don't imagine they'd go back (to EdgeHTML as their engine) specifically, but it's not hard to imagine a world where MSFT maintains its own fork of Blink for…

> Microsoft only abandoned EdgeHTML and adopted Blink because Google owned sites like YouTube were deliberately breaking in Edge.

No they abandoned EdgeHTML because it was shit. Seriously there are plenty of posts right here on hacker news about the internals of that decision. The team and product failed to deliver so badly that it got the axe.

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

#805

Post by AmericanChopper »

11101010001100 wrote: post #749
AmericanChopper wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The irony is begging....

I think it’s an excellent comment, and I’m very happy with it.

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

#806

Post by tick_tock_tick »

idle_zealot wrote: post #565
foolfoolz wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

big breakups don’t make sense in a globalized economy because it empowers foreign companies. i don’t think MS, Apple, amazon, fb would be the only benefactors. i think we entered the age of “too big to fail” about 10 years ago. breaking up very big companies like google is now a national security risk

If you truly believe that tech monopolists are critical to national security then the only safe option would be to nationalize them. Incidentally, that would also remove the profit motive for bad behavior, solving one of the largest problems with allowing a monopoly to exist. But apparently that would be anti-free. Because nothing says Free Country like letting a handful of the most rich and powerful people on the pl…

> If you truly believe that tech monopolists are critical to national security then the only safe option would be to nationalize them.

They are critical to national security because of their ability to perform. Nationalizing them would complete distort their incentives and destroy the company so thoroughly we might as well have just broken them up.

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

#807

Post by KoolKat23 »

consteval wrote: post #765
KoolKat23 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right but differences in values for a business is definitely reason enough to give up your patronage.

Unless it's egregious, it's likely to be hypocritical. Are those same people buying mobile phones (cobalt is being used, guess where and who mines that) or using Amazon (poorer working conditions relatively speaking)? Or communicating via post, and buying from the local guy who imports their products (and has a big carbon footprint)? The real world is grey.

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

#808

Post by consteval »

KoolKat23 wrote: post #807
consteval wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but differences in values for a business is definitely reason enough to give up your patronage.

Unless it's egregious, it's likely to be hypocritical. Are those same people buying mobile phones (cobalt is being used, guess where and who mines that) or using Amazon (poorer working conditions relatively speaking)? Or communicating via post, and buying from the local guy who imports their products (and has a big carbon footprint)? The real world is grey.

It doesn't really matter, because perfect shouldn't be the enemy of good. You're correct the world is gray, but if you're able to make a product switch without too much effort then go for it.

I mean, if I reduce my plastic use because I stop buying product X then that's still better (in my eyes) than if I did nothing. Or if Company Y has some egregious political ties, I cut them off, but Company Z is a huge conglomerate so I can't cut them off. Still a better deal than doing nothing.

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

#809

Post by stego-tech »

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 recall a video essay years ago that made the case that the reason companies like Bell and RCA were so successful and produced so many R&D products was because the tax code incentivized reinvesting profits into the company, and the pursuit of patents to license to other companies specializing in manufacturing as a means of revenue as opposed to vertical conglomerates. Wish I'd bookmarked it, because they did an excellent job citing sources as well.

My subjective experiences tell me that, just like the early days of the microcomputer revolution, anything is possible with talented nerds who don't have to worry about grinding at their day jobs to survive. Early markets are often defined by those with the privilege to innovate absent the need to work to survive, and sharing the fruits of their labors with the masses because that's their entire intent - and that being able to live off of that income instead of a corporate gig was a nice bonus.

If you want more innovation, focus on eliminating societal precarity instead of slashing regulations or growing monopolies.

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

#810

Post by stego-tech »

verdverm wrote: post #750
hzia wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It might be time more of us think about the browser/chromium like Linux/kernel There are lots of distos out there, but we all use the same core and make it better & safer together.

> It might be time more of us think about the browser/chromium like Linux/kernel

Coming from Enterprise Architecture world, if you're not already treating browsers as full-fledged operating systems to manage and secure, then you're operating dangerously. In fact, that's actually why I'm resistant to further "webification" of software and applications, as it's the same drawbacks as nested virtualization: now we have the OS layer that makes the computer run and the web browser layer to interact with stuff to worry about, both of which have their own performance penalties and threat profiles.

As much as I love REST APIs (and boy, do I love them and their simplicity), I don't like the idea of everything running a web server when it doesn't have to be.

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