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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]

#941

Post by nobody9999 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #623
makeitdouble wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as good This is a point that will be recurring and merits more thought IMHO. Google services are mostly better because they crushed competition. Cutting their advantage will also mean better alternatives (money will flow to competitors instead of being sucked by Google). As an analogy, it's like athlete doping: they sure were faster than the other athletes, but that's part of the issue.

The fundamental issue is that people don't want to pay money for things. Google tapped into that by creating an ad economy, which since it's inception also comes with a payment optional feature (ad-blocking). People may hate google, but by god do they ever love the internet google created.

>People may hate google, but by god do they ever love the internet google created.

Actually, we don't. Google is a prime culprit in the 'enshittification' of the Internet. As Cory Doctorow can explain[0] to you.

[0] https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/08/who-broke-the-internet/#b...

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

#942

Post by MyOutfitIsVague »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #842
MyOutfitIsVague wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google services are not a gift. They are not actually free. Google is not a charity nor is it a non-profit. I want people in this discussion to stop arguing as if Google isn't making money on all these services. If the parents were slowly siphoning off enough of the teen's money through a convoluted set of channels such that the teenager indirectly paid for the truck anyway and the parents ended up effectively taking…

> Google services are not a gift. Which is why the services exists at all, thank god for that. What it is though, is cheaper and better than the alternatives, which is why their products are so overwhelmingly popular.

I disagree with it being cheaper. One of the major costs is that we have an entire ad-driven ecosystem, aggressive attention economy, and the many potential alternatives that could never compete with a gargantuan ad conglomerate that has the leverage in one field to completely make all competition infeasible in others. It looks cheaper to us, but only because the price we have paid is that great things that may have existed never had a chance to.

There are many difficult-to-estimate costs for monopolies, especially ones like this. That does not mean that the costs do not exist. That's the entire point in making people believe that things are "free" or "cheap", you rob them of even the opportunity to even evaluate alternatives to realize how much better it could be. There are very good reasons that these kinds of things should be illegal.

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

#943

Post by MyOutfitIsVague »

rafaelmn wrote: post #901
belorn wrote: post #855

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to embed ads into the browser if the websitet that the user will load are already loaded with google ads. They also don't need to replace competitor ads with google ads if there is no meaningful market share by any competitor. Why should they siphon data to a third parties when they themselves want the data, and its a competitive advantage to keep that data for themselves. What we are seeing is chrome…

This is my point - Chrome isn't there to play dirty, it's there so competitors can't. But if it had to make money without Google all that BS would get bundled in the browser.

Making moves so that competitors can't play at all is so far beyond playing dirty. It's anti-competitive and illegal.

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

#944

Post by MyOutfitIsVague »

mattmaroon wrote: post #892
padjo wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been paying attention to the current US administration? Whatever your opinion of them I don’t think anyone could reasonably say they’re doing things carefully and thoughtfully.

Disagree. They’re not doing everything carefully and thoughtfully, but some things they are. Just because you disagree with it doesn’t mean it isn’t careful and thoughtful. What’s going on with immigration for instance has been in the planning phases for years. And while Trump may set tariffs based on his mood at any given moment, this case isn’t a whim. I think a lot of thought is being given to what to do about Goo…

> What's going on with immigration for instance has been in the planning phases for years.

Then how do they still manage to mistakenly deport the wrong people and have to cover it with a smoke screen of lies? If this is what their "careful and thoughtful" planning looks like, I'd hate to see what their recklessness looks like, because it all looks like the same level of shit show from my angle.

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

#945

Post by computerthings »

mattmaroon wrote: post #892
padjo wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been paying attention to the current US administration? Whatever your opinion of them I don’t think anyone could reasonably say they’re doing things carefully and thoughtfully.

Disagree. They’re not doing everything carefully and thoughtfully, but some things they are. Just because you disagree with it doesn’t mean it isn’t careful and thoughtful. What’s going on with immigration for instance has been in the planning phases for years. And while Trump may set tariffs based on his mood at any given moment, this case isn’t a whim. I think a lot of thought is being given to what to do about Goo…

[dead]

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

#946

Post by mike_d »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #702
mike_d wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google has two interlocked monopolies, one is the search index The index is the farthest thing from a monopoly Google has - anyone can recreate it. Heck, you can even just download Commoncrawl to get a massive head start.

I see it a bit differently, many (most?) web sites explicitly deny scraping execept for Google. Further Google has the infrastructure to crawl several trillion web pages and create a relevant index out of the most authoritative 1.5 trillion. To re-create that on your own, you would need both the web to allow it, and the infrastructure to do it. I would agree that this isn't an insurmountable moat but it is a good one…

Most websites only explicitly deny scraping by bad bots (robots.txt). Things like Cloudflare are a completely different matter, and I have a whole batch of opinions about how they are destroying the web.

I'd love to compete directly with OpenAI, but the cost of a half million GPUs is a me problem - not a them problem. Google can't be faulted for figuring out how to crawl the web in an economically viable way.

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

#947

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #367

I'm not sure people understand what the consequences of taking away Google's ad revenue is. 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. The same will happen when Google loses its ad revenue. Google is an ad company. By opening up all its trade secret data, i…

"Here's a small number of things that will die when Google dies."

How many were developed by Google; how many were Google acquisitions.

These "arguments" are so weak, so desperate, they only expose Google's culpability even further. Silicon Valley routinely obfuscates, misdirects and even lies under oath. It's difficult to make convincing arguments absent any credibility.

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

#948

Post by padjo »

mattmaroon wrote: post #892
padjo wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been paying attention to the current US administration? Whatever your opinion of them I don’t think anyone could reasonably say they’re doing things carefully and thoughtfully.

Disagree. They’re not doing everything carefully and thoughtfully, but some things they are. Just because you disagree with it doesn’t mean it isn’t careful and thoughtful. What’s going on with immigration for instance has been in the planning phases for years. And while Trump may set tariffs based on his mood at any given moment, this case isn’t a whim. I think a lot of thought is being given to what to do about Goo…

That’s why Musk was dancing around on stage with a chainsaw. Chainsaws are famously the symbol of careful and deliberate cutting.

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

#949

Post by BrenBarn »

animal_spirits wrote: post #910
BrenBarn wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you don't actually know how valuable it is without knowing how it's being used. If your ad-view statistics are used to charge you personally a higher price for a product than someone else who didn't click on the same ads, is that still okay? If they're used to raise your mortgage interest rate, is that still okay? If they're used to sell scam products to old ladies, is that still okay? If they're…

I fully agree with you - the practice of price discrimination is illegal under the Robinson-Patman Act and Google should be penalized for violating this law if they have been found to do this. I am only trying to push against the notion that Google (or any company) should be broken up just because they are big. This is the nuance that makes these discussions important IMO

My position is basically that enormous market power is like a ticking time bomb. It's not going to work to try to patch over it with specific prohibitions like the one you mention, because big companies will always find loopholes, use their market power to exploit them, and use their wealth and "too big to fail" status to drag out any attempt to enforce the rules. It is an endless game of whack-a-mole that can never work. It's better to just limit the total power of companies to do anything; doing so will also limit their ability to do harm of any kind.

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

#950

Post by surajrmal »

hluska wrote: post #926
selfhoster wrote: post #867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You essentially outline why it should be broken up. I disagree: 1) My wife and I have a FREE Gmail account we use for home and other combined interests. 2) We watch all our streaming (movies, docs, etc.) and TV (Tablo TV DVR for free OTA) using FREE Chrome on Linux laptops in our LR, MBR and one for ambiance that runs all day between the kitchen and LR visible across both rooms showing relaxing aquarium and bird vi…

And again, under an economic definition of monopoly, you have explained why Google should be broken up.

For offering best in class services people want to use? It feels like the people who want a Google breakup simply have something to gain from it. It's not obvious the average consumer will benefit.
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