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The internet is the greatest barrier-lowering device to starting a business ever conceived. You can, using just your skills and barely any money, compete with

The internet is the greatest barrier-lowering device to starting a business ever conceived. You can, using just your skills and barely any money, compete with google and facebook this afternoon! (google and amazon will even give you a month to try for free) Your chances at winning are pretty low, but eventually someone will do it.

zepto 10y ago
This makes no sense. Using just your skills and barely any money, you cannot acquire a corpus of decades of historical searches and click data nor can you employ the thousands of human raters, both of which Google uses to make the search algorithm work. Please stop spreading this misleading idea.
- nannePOPI 10y ago
  And why you should get something without work. Also nobody forces me or you to use google. It is a free choice, if a better search engine comes up we can use it and nobody forbids you to use other search engine or any site. With net neutrality you are free. Without net neutrality you are bound to the services of the friends of the ISP. You have cable tv 2.0 no more freedom
  - zepto 10y ago
    Net neutrality is a prerequisite for competition, agreed. However a better search engine cannot 'just come up', because Google is the result of billions of dollars of investment over more than 2 decades using data that is not publicly available. Stop pretending otherwise.
    - kortex 10y ago
      What would you rather compete against? 1. Conglomo with 2 decades of competitive advantage 2. Conglomo with 2 decades of competitive advantage and the ability to pay ISPs for preferential treatment?
      - zepto 10y ago
        Have I argued otherwise? I am simply asking people to stop claiming that Google can be easily competed against with minimal resources if you are just clever. It's simply false. Competing against google is a red herring when it comes to net neutrality. Net neutrality hurts new products that don't compete against Google. It is barely relevant to competing against Google because the other barriers are so high.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  No, but you could create a better note taking app than Google Keep, or a better email client than Gmail, or a better chat platform than Hangouts, etc... Sure, not everything is that easy, but an open internet does allow for a massive leg up that many other industries could only dream of. Imagine being able to take on Honda's lawnmower division competitively with less than $100 and a few months!
  - jazzyk 10y ago
    The hallways of VC offices are littered with corpses of startup founders who did have a better app than Google, but were shown the door, because: you don't want to compete with Google. I should know - I am one of those corpses :-)
    - jcoffland 10y ago
      Your mistake was relying on VC for success.
    - sqeaky 10y ago
      Did you because an ISP squeezed you out of business? If not net neutrality helped you.
  - zepto 10y ago
    At least you agree that Google search is unassailable. That's the misleading example I wish people to stop using. It's certainly true that the barrier to entry for new products is lower because of net neutrality.
- natoliniak 10y ago
  >you cannot acquire a corpus of decades of historical searches and click data nor can you employ the thousands of human raters No, but as soon as Google starts abusing their monopoly status by turning into something reminiscent of Alta Vista, a new search engine will sprout up. Google itself grew like wildfire in the late 90s not only because it offered superior search results, but because of the massive global reach it had, thanks to net neutrality! If the net wasn't neutral back then, AOL search would still rule the net.
  - zepto 10y ago
    How will this new search engine 'spring up' if nobody can build a better search engine because the resources are not available? You are right that net neutrality enabled Google's growth, but the barriers to a Google competitor are different now, and far more difficult to overcome than what Google faced. Google is not trusted, but people use it because there is no alternative and the barriers to an alternative being built are monumental. https://www.cnet.com/news/people-trust-nsa-more-than-google-survey-says/ https://www.cnet.com/news/people-trust-nsa-more-than-google-...
    - rocqua 10y ago
      Google's only non-technical reputation in the search engine department is reputation. Should google fall, Bing would easily be replace google. The biggest challenge in replacing google would be getting the advertisers. Especially because at the start, your low userbase makes targeted adds much harder to pull off.
    - natoliniak 10y ago
      Right now, there is no need for an alternative search engine because Google fully satisfies that market (it is fast accurate and clean). However, once Google gets so comfortable in their position as AOL/Altavista/Myspace once did, and turns into a bloated adware machine, any alternative but functioning search engine will take over, even one that pales in comparison to what google can do today. Net neutrality is the Internet's "invisible hand" that can immediately slap google into shape if they start offering degrading product quality.
vacri 10y ago
> Your chances at winning are pretty low, but eventually someone will do it. That's a 'lottery', not a 'barrier-lowering device'.
rocqua 10y ago
The value of a product like facebook depends on more than just the quality of the product. It is the userbase where a lot of the value comes from. This has the effect of essentially creating a huge barrier to entry.

zepto 10y ago

This makes no sense. Using just your skills and barely any money, you cannot acquire a corpus of decades of historical searches and click data nor can you employ the thousands of human raters, both of which Google uses to make the search algorithm work. Please stop spreading this misleading idea.

nannePOPI 10y ago
And why you should get something without work. Also nobody forces me or you to use google. It is a free choice, if a better search engine comes up we can use it and nobody forbids you to use other search engine or any site. With net neutrality you are free. Without net neutrality you are bound to the services of the friends of the ISP. You have cable tv 2.0 no more freedom
- zepto 10y ago
  Net neutrality is a prerequisite for competition, agreed. However a better search engine cannot 'just come up', because Google is the result of billions of dollars of investment over more than 2 decades using data that is not publicly available. Stop pretending otherwise.
  - kortex 10y ago
    What would you rather compete against? 1. Conglomo with 2 decades of competitive advantage 2. Conglomo with 2 decades of competitive advantage and the ability to pay ISPs for preferential treatment?
    - zepto 10y ago
      Have I argued otherwise? I am simply asking people to stop claiming that Google can be easily competed against with minimal resources if you are just clever. It's simply false. Competing against google is a red herring when it comes to net neutrality. Net neutrality hurts new products that don't compete against Google. It is barely relevant to competing against Google because the other barriers are so high.
Klathmon 10y ago
No, but you could create a better note taking app than Google Keep, or a better email client than Gmail, or a better chat platform than Hangouts, etc... Sure, not everything is that easy, but an open internet does allow for a massive leg up that many other industries could only dream of. Imagine being able to take on Honda's lawnmower division competitively with less than $100 and a few months!
- jazzyk 10y ago
  The hallways of VC offices are littered with corpses of startup founders who did have a better app than Google, but were shown the door, because: you don't want to compete with Google. I should know - I am one of those corpses :-)
  - jcoffland 10y ago
    Your mistake was relying on VC for success.
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    Did you because an ISP squeezed you out of business? If not net neutrality helped you.
- zepto 10y ago
  At least you agree that Google search is unassailable. That's the misleading example I wish people to stop using. It's certainly true that the barrier to entry for new products is lower because of net neutrality.
natoliniak 10y ago
>you cannot acquire a corpus of decades of historical searches and click data nor can you employ the thousands of human raters No, but as soon as Google starts abusing their monopoly status by turning into something reminiscent of Alta Vista, a new search engine will sprout up. Google itself grew like wildfire in the late 90s not only because it offered superior search results, but because of the massive global reach it had, thanks to net neutrality! If the net wasn't neutral back then, AOL search would still rule the net.
- zepto 10y ago
  How will this new search engine 'spring up' if nobody can build a better search engine because the resources are not available? You are right that net neutrality enabled Google's growth, but the barriers to a Google competitor are different now, and far more difficult to overcome than what Google faced. Google is not trusted, but people use it because there is no alternative and the barriers to an alternative being built are monumental. https://www.cnet.com/news/people-trust-nsa-more-than-google-survey-says/ https://www.cnet.com/news/people-trust-nsa-more-than-google-...
  - rocqua 10y ago
    Google's only non-technical reputation in the search engine department is reputation. Should google fall, Bing would easily be replace google. The biggest challenge in replacing google would be getting the advertisers. Especially because at the start, your low userbase makes targeted adds much harder to pull off.
  - natoliniak 10y ago
    Right now, there is no need for an alternative search engine because Google fully satisfies that market (it is fast accurate and clean). However, once Google gets so comfortable in their position as AOL/Altavista/Myspace once did, and turns into a bloated adware machine, any alternative but functioning search engine will take over, even one that pales in comparison to what google can do today. Net neutrality is the Internet's "invisible hand" that can immediately slap google into shape if they start offering degrading product quality.

vacri 10y ago

> Your chances at winning are pretty low, but eventually someone will do it. That's a 'lottery', not a 'barrier-lowering device'.

rocqua 10y ago

The value of a product like facebook depends on more than just the quality of the product. It is the userbase where a lot of the value comes from. This has the effect of essentially creating a huge barrier to entry.