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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

#851

Post by altpaddle »

svara wrote: post #243
gaiagraphia wrote: post #181

The free market's great IF there's competition. If the market's dead, it's time to reinject some life and keep the cogs turning. Scale's great, but it often comes with a societal cost. For every efficiency made, there's less agency and decent jobs to go round. Seems unfair to make such decisions ad-hoc though, and string it out through years of court cases and m/billions of lawyer fees. Why not establish rules of the…

Sort of playing devil's advocate here, but well run companies with near monopolies have on many occasions provided massive benefits that would not have been possible at smaller scale. Think of Bell Labs. Google has a number of Bell Labs style projects ongoing that massively benefit scientific research. Transformers, AlphaFold, etc. It's hard to see how a smaller, more focused company would be able to justify that typ…

Do you realize what the cost was to society to have a Bell Labs? Telephone service was expensive as hell and you couldn't even own your own telephone. There was no incentive for innovation in many areas like answering machines, cell phones etc

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

#852

Post by xnx »

alt227 wrote: post #684
someluccc wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can literally use Chrome, Workspace, Drive, Android and Maps without seeing a single ad, without an ad blocker, without EVER using google search, for free.

Do you realise that as soon as you go to any of those websites, your details are scraped and sold? The second you put any data in drive or worksdpace, that is scraped into LLMs and sold? Theres a reason that you have to log into a Google account to use those services, which means agreeing to their rather large TOS. Buying something doesnt necessarily mean you have to pay money for it. Your time and information is wor…

> Do you realise that as soon as you go to any of those websites, your details are scraped and sold?

I've never heard of Google doing this. Google sells access to and the attention of their audience. They do not sell personal data.

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

#853

Post by nickpp »

Apocryphon wrote: post #839
nickpp wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Only if that fall comes as a result of natural competition and market forces (like what happened to IBM for example). But if the fall was the result of government culling and interference with the free market, a chilling effect will take place among the most vulnerable in the business chain: startups and entrepreneurs now thinking twice before starting new startups.

The end result will be even less competition and more monopolies - inviting additional government intervention in a vicious cycle that ends up with only large, incumbent, too-big-to-fail corporations on an overregulated market. Like how it's in the EU for example. Or the aerospace industry in the US.

Politicians are quite happy with this state of things since their role is expanding and everyone is asking for their help. The ones suffering are, of course, the consumers having fewer and crappier choices...

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

#854

Post by Apocryphon »

nickpp wrote: post #853
Apocryphon wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Only if that fall comes as a result of natural competition and market forces (like what happened to IBM for example). But if the fall was the result of government culling and interference with the free market, a chilling effect will take place among the most vulnerable in the business chain: startups and entrepreneurs now thinking twice before starting new startups. The end result will be even less competition and mo…

> startups and entrepreneurs now thinking twice before starting new startups

Debatable. Microsoft falling prey to antitrust only led to a new generation of even bigger tech companies, including its old rival Apple.

> The ones suffering are, of course, the consumers having fewer and crappier choices...

Going back to the original thread, that’s where foreign competitors come in for customer choice.

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

#855

Post by KoolKat23 »

fsflover wrote: post #847
KoolKat23 wrote: post #812

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can cut them off, you choose not to. You don't have to buy from Amazon, its just more convenient. You could buy a Fairphone but you don't. And compare Google and Kagi? Monopoly bad or Employee bad, which do you choose? As I say unless its egregious. It's a nice idea but doesn't work in practice there's always trade offs.

So if I don't use Google and Apple (which is true), you approve me rejecting Kagi?

You're missing my point. No one and no company is infallible. It's hypocritical, because if you dig deep enough you will find something that doesn't "align to your values".

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

#856

Post by fsflover »

KoolKat23 wrote: post #855
fsflover wrote: post #847

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I don't use Google and Apple (which is true), you approve me rejecting Kagi?

You're missing my point. No one and no company is infallible. It's hypocritical, because if you dig deep enough you will find something that doesn't "align to your values".

It's impossible to 100% follow any value system. It doesn't mean you can forget about any values. Perfection is the enemy of the good. So I don't see your point. All compromises come with a cost (effort, money, lack of features). Everybody chooses which cost they can afford, as it should be.

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

#857

Post by Suppafly »

jorvi wrote: post #832
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…

> 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 the…

Microsoft just didn't want it bad enough. It's a similar situation to when they joined the video game market, except they wanted that and took a loss to stay in the market and now are essentially the main console.

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

#858

Post by KoolKat23 »

fsflover wrote: post #856
KoolKat23 wrote: post #855

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing my point. No one and no company is infallible. It's hypocritical, because if you dig deep enough you will find something that doesn't "align to your values".

It's impossible to 100% follow any value system. It doesn't mean you can forget about any values. Perfection is the enemy of the good. So I don't see your point. All compromises come with a cost (effort, money, lack of features). Everybody chooses which cost they can afford, as it should be.

I understand perfection is the enemy of good but if you can't reach perfection, good exists on both sides of the coin.

It's purely tribal thinking i.e. this one is on my side so I can't go near that one.

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

#859

Post by consteval »

nickpp wrote: post #831
consteval wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wi…

> I don't think they can "make me" do anything against my own interest or even change my mind

I think you lack humility and imagination.

Once again, I remind you of the Tobacco industry. After advertisement was abolished, Tabacco use went down significantly. They often targeted young boys with promises of masculinity and prestige.

Keep in mind Tabacco isn't your average product either. It kills you, rather painfully and slowly.

If people can be influenced via ads to do that, which we know they can because they were, odds are you are being influenced right now with products with much less personal risk.

Or perhaps look at the obesity epidemic. We have millions upon millions of people literally eating themselves to death. Their quality of life is severely impacted. That's pretty extreme, certainly nobody would harm themselves like that without influence from the outside. Now, granted, we run into the same problem of confounding factors. Food tastes good and food sense is taught to children. But I personally believe advertisement has something to do with it.

Your note about "competing ads" I don't think works. The reason being that while ads may compete with each other, they all have the same goal - to get you to buy something. Yes, McDonald's and Wendy's compete, but, for you, the effects are pretty much the same. You buy something unhealthy to eat.

I've never seen an ad for not eating. I've never seen an ad for not buying a pair of shoes. I have seen ads for not smoking - PSAs. Which, I think, is really just further proof that advertising must work.

All that to say, I think if ads did work you would have no way of knowing. I think I said this previously but it's pretty much worthless to force someone to do something. The trick is getting them to do it and letting them believe they made the choice. That's the golden goose.

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

#860

Post by consteval »

KoolKat23 wrote: post #858
fsflover wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to 100% follow any value system. It doesn't mean you can forget about any values. Perfection is the enemy of the good. So I don't see your point. All compromises come with a cost (effort, money, lack of features). Everybody chooses which cost they can afford, as it should be.

I understand perfection is the enemy of good but if you can't reach perfection, good exists on both sides of the coin. It's purely tribal thinking i.e. this one is on my side so I can't go near that one.

> good exists on both sides of the coin

No, not really. Some sides of the coin are just bad.

I get very frustrated at this "tribal thinking" notion that I hear a lot these days. It's not bad to have values and then at least try to stick to those values.

If someone doesn't like something they shouldn't be forced to endure it. I see this with so-called "cancel culture" too. It's not a cancel culture if you say something offensive and people stop listening. They're not trying to hurt you, that's not their intention. They just didn't like it so instead they go listen/watch something they DO like. That's predictable.

I mean, what's the end goal here? I use a product I don't even like just for the fun of it? Really? But I don't even like it...

After Chick-fil-a openly and vehemently opposed gay marriage in 2015 (and after!), I stopped eating there. And guess what? I don't miss it. I'm not worse off, at all. If anything, I'm better off, because the food is unhealthy anyway. Boom, it's that easy.

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