4 ms·

I wonder if, when a company crosses a threshold we all think violates a Nash equilibrium, we start to oppose the company. With this move, Google is declaring w

by fnid2 17y ago

I wonder if, when a company crosses a threshold we all think violates a Nash equilibrium, we start to oppose the company. With this move, Google is declaring war on a host of web companies that are heretofore thriving and collaborating and making tons of money. Every dollar of advertising that Facebook makes is a dollar or even more from Google. Every minute that facebookers facebook, google isn't showing them ads and isn't getting click throughs and this amounts to a vastly larger sum of money than any new search engine or aggregator or individual media company which google has already rendered moot to a large extent. This is real time search which everyone has been asking for with all the data stored on google's super voluminous uber-fast lightning machine with its neurons and axons keeping the world connected and communicating. Here it is and we don't want it. The competition is for virtual real estate. Everywhere there is blank space on the screen or blank time in the consumer day or a blank wall in the virtual world, there will be an ad on it, just as today there are ads in nearly every physical space: Public transportation, Bar room mirrors, big screen tvs... Nothing is safe. No one is safe from Google and they have crossed the nash equilibrium where everyone is competing against them, including the websites where they get their content and the websites where people go to pass time.

yungchin 17y ago
> I wonder if, when a company crosses a threshold we all think violates a Nash equilibrium, we start to oppose the company. Do you mean "we, the people" or "we, the people who think in terms of Nash equilibria"? ;) More seriously: I don't think I care about how big the company is. Rather, I care about the quality of the product, and whether I am free to leave it for a competitor's product. Google is actually trying to make it easy for you to leave if you choose to, and take your data with you - they're even inviting you to report their failures in that regard at www.dataliberation.org - so that's quite good. If they don't make it easy for me to interact with Facebookers/Twitterers/whateverers, I'll end up visiting Facebook/Twitter/whatever instead, and vice versa - what's wrong with that? I'm not an economist, but this sounds like a healthy competitive landscape to me?
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  Indeed. There are small companies that are horribly restrictive with their products/services, a lot more than some big companies. It's about quality, not size.
- sketerpot 17y ago
  > Do you mean "we, the people" or "we, the people who think in terms of Nash equilibria"? ;) The latter, of course. WE ARE A NEW PEOPLE! WE WILL PREVAIL! More seriously, I don't care about how big the company is either, as such -- but I do worry about a company that gets so big and so diversified that it may become anticompetitive and stifle innovation. Remember when Microsoft had the power to hold back innovation, and we were stuck with IE6 for years and years? Didn't that just suck? Google is being a lot better about this, mind you. They seem to genuinely care about interoperability and making it possible for competitors to beat them by being better. And they've got good products and smart people and a non-broken management structure. I feel good about Google. Nevertheless, a Google-dominated web is something to worry about. I hope that there are always viable alternatives. Not because I think Google is evil and corrupt, but because I worry that they could become so.
  - andreyf 17y ago
    Seriously, what does this have to do with Nash equilibria, and how is Google "violating" one?
murrayb 17y ago
> With this move, Google is declaring war on a host of web companies that are heretofore thriving and collaborating and making tons of money. Actually I think Google is just escalating their war with FB, the other companies you refer to could end up being collateral damage though.
fan 17y ago
What game does this Nash Equilibrium correspond to? How are we modeling the world such that the eqm. changes? I don't see the "shift" as obvious at all.
ekanes 17y ago
>> With this move, Google is declaring war on a host of web companies that are heretofore thriving and collaborating and making tons of money. From the perspective of those other companies they are indeed "declaring war" and it's all very dramatic... but for actual users, this is just another company competing for their attention by providing a better service. I expect the product will fail because Google sucks at social stuff, but in principle more competition is good, and unless a company competes unfairly through a monopoly (and they don't have one for email or social networking.)

by fnid2 17y ago

yungchin 17y ago

> I wonder if, when a company crosses a threshold we all think violates a Nash equilibrium, we start to oppose the company. Do you mean "we, the people" or "we, the people who think in terms of Nash equilibria"? ;) More seriously: I don't think I care about how big the company is. Rather, I care about the quality of the product, and whether I am free to leave it for a competitor's product. Google is actually trying to make it easy for you to leave if you choose to, and take your data with you - they're even inviting you to report their failures in that regard at www.dataliberation.org - so that's quite good. If they don't make it easy for me to interact with Facebookers/Twitterers/whateverers, I'll end up visiting Facebook/Twitter/whatever instead, and vice versa - what's wrong with that? I'm not an economist, but this sounds like a healthy competitive landscape to me?

MikeCapone 17y ago
Indeed. There are small companies that are horribly restrictive with their products/services, a lot more than some big companies. It's about quality, not size.
sketerpot 17y ago
> Do you mean "we, the people" or "we, the people who think in terms of Nash equilibria"? ;) The latter, of course. WE ARE A NEW PEOPLE! WE WILL PREVAIL! More seriously, I don't care about how big the company is either, as such -- but I do worry about a company that gets so big and so diversified that it may become anticompetitive and stifle innovation. Remember when Microsoft had the power to hold back innovation, and we were stuck with IE6 for years and years? Didn't that just suck? Google is being a lot better about this, mind you. They seem to genuinely care about interoperability and making it possible for competitors to beat them by being better. And they've got good products and smart people and a non-broken management structure. I feel good about Google. Nevertheless, a Google-dominated web is something to worry about. I hope that there are always viable alternatives. Not because I think Google is evil and corrupt, but because I worry that they could become so.
- andreyf 17y ago
  Seriously, what does this have to do with Nash equilibria, and how is Google "violating" one?

murrayb 17y ago

> With this move, Google is declaring war on a host of web companies that are heretofore thriving and collaborating and making tons of money. Actually I think Google is just escalating their war with FB, the other companies you refer to could end up being collateral damage though.

fan 17y ago

What game does this Nash Equilibrium correspond to? How are we modeling the world such that the eqm. changes? I don't see the "shift" as obvious at all.

ekanes 17y ago

>> With this move, Google is declaring war on a host of web companies that are heretofore thriving and collaborating and making tons of money. From the perspective of those other companies they are indeed "declaring war" and it's all very dramatic... but for actual users, this is just another company competing for their attention by providing a better service. I expect the product will fail because Google sucks at social stuff, but in principle more competition is good, and unless a company competes unfairly through a monopoly (and they don't have one for email or social networking.)