6 ms·

In this thread a lot of people don't understand the meaning of monopoly and assumes a monopoly is only synonymous with the companies they hate. It has more to d

by nivla 10y ago

In this thread a lot of people don't understand the meaning of monopoly and assumes a monopoly is only synonymous with the companies they hate. It has more to do with having a dominant control over a market and abusing that dominant position to own advantage. Google has pulled a lot of stunts in the past that clearly defines this. Remember the only way to have pictures on your search listing was to link your blog/site with Google+? A result with an image next to it had better clicks that the one without. Next was the shopping fiasco: The shopping results that shows up on the top had barely anything to do with ranking, instead it was a set of sponsored listing that was paid for by companies. Hmm the blending out the background of the ads with the rest of the results is another story of its own. Although my primary search engine is still Google (like the majority here), I still don't agree nor do I encourage the direction Google is taking with their search engine.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> In this thread a lot of people don't understand the meaning of monopoly and assumes a monopoly is only synonymous with the companies they hate. It has more to do with having a dominant control over a market and abusing that dominant position to own advantage. No, it just has to do with the former (usually defined through possession of pricing power, which is very hard to argue Google has in many of the free services in which it is dominant.) The latter is abusing a monopoly, not having one.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > (usually defined through possession of pricing power, which is very hard to argue Google has in many of the free services in which it is dominant.) They can dictate AdWords pricing though, no? And where else are you going to go? Bing?
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > They can dictate AdWords pricing though, no? Perhaps; they certainly have a very large share of search advertising and its a paid market, but whether they have pricing power is a fact question that I haven't seen strong reasons to believe either way on. Its pretty clear that there are competing places for online, even search-specific, advertising, and that firms make cost-benefit considerations in choosing these; its not clear to me that there is any range in which Google can increase AdWords prices without losing some business to its competitors, even if AdWords is so attractive at its current price point that it draws the vast majority of spending.
  - green_throwaway 10y ago
    > They can dictate AdWords pricing though, no? It's an auction model. The buyer literally sets the price.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      And Google dictates the rules of the auction marketplace.
      - green_throwaway 10y ago
        In a way that has never been suggested to harm consumers or be even remotely anti-competitive. So your point being?
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Point: Google is a monopoly. I don't believe enough research has been done to decide if they've used their monopoly in an anti-competitive manner. Interested to see what the EU conclusions are.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > And Google dictates the rules of the auction marketplace. Every company "dictates the rules" on which its sells product. Pricing power -- the key test in antitrust for a monopoly -- requires that they be able to change those rules so as to raise prices within some range without business moving to alternatives; in the case of AdWords, it would mean that Google could make it more expensive for the same results without any net migration to any other advertising vendor. Is that the case? I don't see compelling evidence either way.
raldi 10y ago
One of the primary characteristics of a monopoly is high customer switching costs. For example, a business running on the Microsoft platform in 1995 could not realistically switch to Apple, Solaris, etc. During the heyday of Standard Oil, you could either buy from them or find a way to get your oil shipped from overseas. If you didn't want to use AT&T in 1975, you'd... uh, have to work at the speed of telegrams? Meanwhile, if someone builds a better search engine, all of Google's customers could switch to it in ten seconds and never look back.
- azakai 10y ago
  High switching costs can make monopolies worse. And yes, it is possible to switch away from Google search. But it's still a monopoly, and it's held in place by various means. For example, the vast majority of people - not tech people like us - do think that they can't switch away. They don't understand the distinction between a web browser, a search engine, email, etc. For them, Google is how they access the internet, and that means google.com, and often also means Chrome and gmail. The monopoly is also held in place by Android, which defaults to Google services (search, email, etc.) very strongly. Of course, us tech people know how to avoid that if we want, but the majority of people don't even know they can. And even if they do, it's not easy for them.
  - awesomepantsm 10y ago
    And Windows defaults to IE and Bing search. I don't see any antitrust case against Microsoft for essentially the same thing you are describing. Or Apple and Safari.
    - syrrim 10y ago
      There was a successful antitrust case against microsoft because of the way they abused their OS to get browser share with IE. I believe that the case was mostly because MS purposefully raised the switching cost by adding non standard features to their browser.
      - 10y ago
smokeyj 10y ago
We live in a world full of many pressing issues. My google results page is not one of them. What I'd like to know is - how did these regulators prioritize their backlog in such a way that this is the current priority - and everything else is a lesser one. That process is what's broken. Not Google.
- cscurmudgeon 10y ago
  This is exactly the same argument as "Why go to space when there are starving children in Africa."
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    The people who distribute food aid are generally not mostly astronauts. Europe's economy is not without serious problems, yet the same people who would otherwise be charged with considering those instead busy themselves with critical study of search results. That doesn't seem to be exactly the same situation.
    - cscurmudgeon 10y ago
      The people responsible for the economy are not the same people responsible for regulations. Did you ever think one of the reasons for the problems could be big companies acting unethically?
  - smokeyj 10y ago
    What's your point. That space exploration is in principle a good investment? That investing in lowing the cost of living is a bad investment? You're a little sparse on details.
- kuschku 10y ago
  Well, they're also researching other stuff, but Google, for example, saying "you can't have yahoo ads on a page with AdSense ads or YouTube embeds" was kinda problematic. Luckily, that stopped a few years ago, yet it was still very crazy.
- 10y ago
cbreeden 10y ago
I don't understand the shopping results argument listed on the top of the pages for search results. I have personally never confused them with actual results, and doesn DuckDuckGo Bing and Yahoo do this? If so, then why single out Google?

by nivla 10y ago

dragonwriter 10y ago

> In this thread a lot of people don't understand the meaning of monopoly and assumes a monopoly is only synonymous with the companies they hate. It has more to do with having a dominant control over a market and abusing that dominant position to own advantage. No, it just has to do with the former (usually defined through possession of pricing power, which is very hard to argue Google has in many of the free services in which it is dominant.) The latter is abusing a monopoly, not having one.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
> (usually defined through possession of pricing power, which is very hard to argue Google has in many of the free services in which it is dominant.) They can dictate AdWords pricing though, no? And where else are you going to go? Bing?
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > They can dictate AdWords pricing though, no? Perhaps; they certainly have a very large share of search advertising and its a paid market, but whether they have pricing power is a fact question that I haven't seen strong reasons to believe either way on. Its pretty clear that there are competing places for online, even search-specific, advertising, and that firms make cost-benefit considerations in choosing these; its not clear to me that there is any range in which Google can increase AdWords prices without losing some business to its competitors, even if AdWords is so attractive at its current price point that it draws the vast majority of spending.
- green_throwaway 10y ago
  > They can dictate AdWords pricing though, no? It's an auction model. The buyer literally sets the price.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    And Google dictates the rules of the auction marketplace.
    - green_throwaway 10y ago
      In a way that has never been suggested to harm consumers or be even remotely anti-competitive. So your point being?
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Point: Google is a monopoly. I don't believe enough research has been done to decide if they've used their monopoly in an anti-competitive manner. Interested to see what the EU conclusions are.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > And Google dictates the rules of the auction marketplace. Every company "dictates the rules" on which its sells product. Pricing power -- the key test in antitrust for a monopoly -- requires that they be able to change those rules so as to raise prices within some range without business moving to alternatives; in the case of AdWords, it would mean that Google could make it more expensive for the same results without any net migration to any other advertising vendor. Is that the case? I don't see compelling evidence either way.

raldi 10y ago

One of the primary characteristics of a monopoly is high customer switching costs. For example, a business running on the Microsoft platform in 1995 could not realistically switch to Apple, Solaris, etc. During the heyday of Standard Oil, you could either buy from them or find a way to get your oil shipped from overseas. If you didn't want to use AT&T in 1975, you'd... uh, have to work at the speed of telegrams? Meanwhile, if someone builds a better search engine, all of Google's customers could switch to it in ten seconds and never look back.

azakai 10y ago
High switching costs can make monopolies worse. And yes, it is possible to switch away from Google search. But it's still a monopoly, and it's held in place by various means. For example, the vast majority of people - not tech people like us - do think that they can't switch away. They don't understand the distinction between a web browser, a search engine, email, etc. For them, Google is how they access the internet, and that means google.com, and often also means Chrome and gmail. The monopoly is also held in place by Android, which defaults to Google services (search, email, etc.) very strongly. Of course, us tech people know how to avoid that if we want, but the majority of people don't even know they can. And even if they do, it's not easy for them.
- awesomepantsm 10y ago
  And Windows defaults to IE and Bing search. I don't see any antitrust case against Microsoft for essentially the same thing you are describing. Or Apple and Safari.
  - syrrim 10y ago
    There was a successful antitrust case against microsoft because of the way they abused their OS to get browser share with IE. I believe that the case was mostly because MS purposefully raised the switching cost by adding non standard features to their browser.
    - 10y ago

smokeyj 10y ago

We live in a world full of many pressing issues. My google results page is not one of them. What I'd like to know is - how did these regulators prioritize their backlog in such a way that this is the current priority - and everything else is a lesser one. That process is what's broken. Not Google.

cscurmudgeon 10y ago
This is exactly the same argument as "Why go to space when there are starving children in Africa."
- jessaustin 10y ago
  The people who distribute food aid are generally not mostly astronauts. Europe's economy is not without serious problems, yet the same people who would otherwise be charged with considering those instead busy themselves with critical study of search results. That doesn't seem to be exactly the same situation.
  - cscurmudgeon 10y ago
    The people responsible for the economy are not the same people responsible for regulations. Did you ever think one of the reasons for the problems could be big companies acting unethically?
- smokeyj 10y ago
  What's your point. That space exploration is in principle a good investment? That investing in lowing the cost of living is a bad investment? You're a little sparse on details.
kuschku 10y ago
Well, they're also researching other stuff, but Google, for example, saying "you can't have yahoo ads on a page with AdSense ads or YouTube embeds" was kinda problematic. Luckily, that stopped a few years ago, yet it was still very crazy.
10y ago

cbreeden 10y ago

I don't understand the shopping results argument listed on the top of the pages for search results. I have personally never confused them with actual results, and doesn DuckDuckGo Bing and Yahoo do this? If so, then why single out Google?