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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

#831

Post by nickpp »

consteval wrote: post #776
nickpp wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> convince you to buy stuff Ever bought something you didn't actually want? Were you persuaded to want something? What was the exact mechanism? Were you lied to? "Made to" somehow? > net positive for the world How exactly do you find out what is "net positive for the world"? Who assigns the the values and who does the tallying?

> What was the exact mechanism? We don't actually know, but we know it exists. Because otherwise people wouldn't bother paying for ads. Your average person can identify hundreds of brands instantly. What's the value of that? Billions? Trillions? Certainly, when cigarettes and chewing tobacco were advertised most people did it. Granted, the addiction helps because you only need 1 successful conversion for a life-long…

We are learning and teaching machines. We can't help influencing and being influenced. Any interaction we have with another human being will influence us. Reading a book, an article or a simple blog or forum post will influence my mind. A lesson or a chat will influence me. Even a smell or a color will generate thoughts and actions in me. We can't help it - they are using the same mechanism we use for learning and without that we can't survive.

But does that mean that they control me? Only if this information comes from only one side and is well integrated in my regular trusted information streams overwhelming my defenses. Like propaganda. Or a Guru. Or an academic institution.

Ads on the other hand are quite easily defeated because they are both clearly delimited and coming from numerous, competing directions. In a world without Ads I would be very vulnerable to them. In our world though they are reduced to a more utilitarian function: to inform me. They tell me what options are out there, what is available and how to get it if I so choose.

I don't think they can "make me" do anything against my own interest or even change my mind. They can merely inform me and I have no problem with that.

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

#832

Post by jorvi »

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…

> Microsoft entered kinda late and never really developed their phone OS enough and eventually gave up, but that's because their product wasn't good enough, not because of anything the others were doing to stop them.

Not sure if this is meant tongue-in-cheek.

Google very aggressively chased any 3rd-party Windows Phone apps out of town that were Google—services compatible, whilst refusing to release 1st party apps themselves.

Microsoft shares a fair part in the blame because they made developers switch frameworks like… 5 times (?) in the span of 3 OS versions. Not to mention the constant sunsetting of devices.

The UI was amazing though. All content and no dressing, performant on low-end hardware, had dark mode half a decade before Android / iOS.

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

#833

Post by jorvi »

DoctorOW wrote: post #801
Suppafly wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> The fact that there are a variety of companies whose browsers are under Google's control

Que?

If Google did some heinous stuff, tomorrow Microsoft would hard-fork Chromium and Brave et al would just switch their upstream to Edge.

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

#834

Post by jorvi »

verdverm wrote: post #814
stego-tech wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

I agree with your statements What I was trying to say is that we only have a single kernel in the linux world without complaint, so having a single browser "kernel" (chromium) can be seen as a good thing. We have multiple distros (chrome, edge, brave, etc) for the browser as well

For what it’s worth, I have been making the exact same argument for a few years now. At this point, Blink has become the kernel for the web, so why not focus all our efforts there?

Hell, even Firefox could relatively easily swap to running on Blink since most of their UI these days is CSS+JS.

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

#835

Post by nickpp »

mulmen wrote: post #459
WalterBright wrote: post #373

What country wouldn't love to have a Google? And the US wants to break its good fortune up. Like all dominant companies, Google will eventually fall via strangulation by its internal bureaucracy. There's no reason to hand the market over to another country.

Why would this breakup hand anything to another country? Competition is good for the economy. Breaking up Google allows new innovators to thrive.

What do you think innovators will feel when they see the government breaking up a private company? Do you think they’ll be more or less motivated to create one to meet the same fate down the road in the unlikely case of success, after immeasurable difficulties and struggle?

Ever heard of second order effects and chilling effect of regulation?

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

#836

Post by nickpp »

Apocryphon wrote: post #782
WalterBright wrote: post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who's to say that the other country's Google-killer won't prove to be a greater boon to American consumers? If you do it by hobbling American businesses, they aren't a greater boon.

But maybe the consumers derive greater service satisfaction or pay less. Why should the American customer care for the plight of American businesses?

As a consumer a care greatly about the fate of businesses: they are the ones providing the services and products I enjoy. The government gives me nothing. Less than nothing, actually, since they are taking most of my income for the crap they provide.

And I care about every single business since I know that the more competition there is - the better and cheaper the products and services will be.

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

#837

Post by Apocryphon »

nickpp wrote: post #836
Apocryphon wrote: post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But maybe the consumers derive greater service satisfaction or pay less. Why should the American customer care for the plight of American businesses?

As a consumer a care greatly about the fate of businesses: they are the ones providing the services and products I enjoy. The government gives me nothing. Less than nothing, actually, since they are taking most of my income for the crap they provide. And I care about every single business since I know that the more competition there is - the better and cheaper the products and services will be.

Right, and in this hypothetical scenario, foreign businesses are providing you with potentially higher-quality services and products at lower costs.

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

#838

Post by nickpp »

Apocryphon wrote: post #837
nickpp wrote: post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a consumer a care greatly about the fate of businesses: they are the ones providing the services and products I enjoy. The government gives me nothing. Less than nothing, actually, since they are taking most of my income for the crap they provide. And I care about every single business since I know that the more competition there is - the better and cheaper the products and services will be.

Right, and in this hypothetical scenario, foreign businesses are providing you with potentially higher-quality services and products at lower costs.

So far, in software, no they don’t. Still want their competition: keeps the local business on their toes. I want them both.

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

#839

Post by Apocryphon »

nickpp wrote: post #838
Apocryphon wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and in this hypothetical scenario, foreign businesses are providing you with potentially higher-quality services and products at lower costs.

So far, in software, no they don’t. Still want their competition: keeps the local business on their toes. I want them both .

Perhaps the fall of a dominant company will spur on greater competition as rival claimants attempt to fill the power vacuum.

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

#840

Post by paulryanrogers »

jorvi wrote: post #833
DoctorOW wrote: post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The fact that there are a variety of companies whose browsers are under Google's control Que? If Google did some heinous stuff, tomorrow Microsoft would hard-fork Chromium and Brave et al would just switch their upstream to Edge.

> Microsoft would hard-fork Chromium and Brave et al would just switch their upstream to Edge.

Doubt.

I'll believe it when I see it. Maintaining a hard fork is almost as hard as a greenfield browser like old Edge or old Opera. There are no serious competitors doing hard Chromium forks besides Apple. (Afraid to admit Firefox isn't a serious competitor anymore.)

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