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“Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″
- FussyZeus 9y agoI've worked hard at distancing myself from Google. It seems their motto "Don't be Evil" has about as many asterisks behind it as they can manage. Every product they design seems to be built from the ground up to enable data collection, and every advertiser they partner with seems to have build plausible deniability into every aspect of the "product" they claim to deliver. I can't point to anything in particular, but whenever I use any of their software it just feels...creepy. At the moment I'm still tied to Chrome for bookmark sync but that's about it.
- RodericDay 9y agoI've replaced Google Maps with my iPhone's Apple Maps, and I barely use e-mail other than for transactional matters, so I'm pretty close. What's your recommendation for e-mail replacement?
- news_to_me 9y agoPersonally, I really like Fastmail. The web interface is pretty good, and I usually just use native clients anyway.
- FussyZeus 9y agoI've fallen in love with Outlook.com. I know, I know, Microsoft is just as if not more evil but frankly I've found their commitment to privacy to carry very well through the service, plus, the spam-blocking is excellent. Best I've used.
- sqeaky 9y agoPlease step back from your entrenched viewpoint and look objectively at this. You move away from a company because they are attempting "Don't be Evil", and failing in your opinion. Then you use a company that doesn't even try to rate on non-evilness and just cares about profit. Microsoft has clearly abused their actual monopoly. They have been sued and lost for many things up to and including lying to the justice department. They are constantly being pushed back by Europe and South Korea on on bundling various things in an attempt to stifle competition. They had the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish memo where they announced all out assault on the open source community. They are patent trolling and rent seeking against Android handset makers today, right now (if they actually wanted to defend their IP they would sue google, but they want to rent seek). They put ads in local software running on peoples machines, right in the start menu. They built spyware into operating systems. They have had problems issuing rebates and paying kickbacks to squeeze other operating system out of the market. They have coerced standardization bodies. Microsoft uses security updates to force operating systems on people and stops support to convince people to move to newer versions for more money. I could go on like this for hours, but this 5 minutes of typing was enough to illustrate my point. The worst that can be said about Google is that sometimes their things they give away for free don't work right in all the browsers, and even then they try to fix it. This is astoundingly hypocritical.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoWhile I think Google is more evil than Microsoft at present, both companies fall well into the category of organizations that will sacrifice any principles necessary to profit. When companies like Google and Microsoft are on top, they become abusive to maintain control of the market. Microsoft is down and out right now, and I'm using some of their services a bit more myself, but you need to bear in mind that if the tides change, so will Microsoft eventually. Sidebar: For email, I recommend FastMail.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoI'm curious as to why you think Google is more evil than Microsoft. Last time I checked Microsoft is still trying to extort money from Android OEM's for their bag of junk patents.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoGoogle just also announced a patent extortion scheme, as it so happens! And note that the common defense for Google not being a problem in the US is that they it only matters if they harm consumers, not businesses. Patent licensing harms the Google OEM business, but does not harm consumers. And taxing an abusive monopoly like Google's could arguably seen as a boon for the consumer's interests.
- educar 9y agoI just host my own email these days. Not going to rely on any 3rd party anymore.
- fosco 9y agodo you have a guide on doing this successfully? do you have email on your phone as well?
- specialp 9y agoYou can have email everywhere with IMAP and SMTP. Even phones. One thing that is difficult running your own mail server is assuring you do not get spam filtered for running on a cloud server netblock. I had to set up DKIM, DMARC and SPF. I used this for setup: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Postfix https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Postfix To get a full stack going with proper SSL auth it is somewhat involved. The good thing is once you do it, it works reliably and you OWN your email. Complying with every anti spam measure is critical though because you will be most likely sending mail to others on large servers that will reject your mail otherwise. Even then I had a lot of problems with Yahoo to get whitelisted, and Verizon just summarily blocks Digital Ocean hosts.
- kuschku 9y agoThis is a famous guide most self-hosting users run: https://workaround.org/ispmail/jessie https://workaround.org/ispmail/jessie
- educar 9y agoI use cloudron for self-hosting mail. Yes, it works perfectly fine on mobile.
- ionised 9y agoArs Technica had decent little guides for setting up secure web server and mail server; Secure Web Server series; https://arstechnica.com/series/web-served/ https://arstechnica.com/series/web-served/ Mail Server Series https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/how-to-run-your-own-e-mail-server-with-your-own-domain-part-1/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/how-t... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/taking-e-mail-back-part-2-arming-your-server-with-postfix-dovecot/* https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/takin... https://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/taking-e-mail-back-part-3-fortifying-your-box-against-spammers/ https://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/taking-e-mail-back-... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/taking-e-mail-back-part-4-the-finale-with-webmail-everything-after/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/takin...
- cabalamat 9y ago> It seems their motto "Don't be Evil" has about as many asterisks behind it as they can manage Surely they just removed two letters, and an apostrophe?
- Sylos 9y ago> At the moment I'm still tied to Chrome for bookmark sync but that's about it. You can sync bookmarks with Firefox, too. And you should be able to migrate your bookmarks just as well...
- FussyZeus 9y agoI can't get over Firefox's resource waste though. I know Chrome isn't great for it either but Firefox really takes the cake for devouring memory.
- sqeaky 9y agoSo you have options, but don't like them because Google outcompetes them even after giving them a fair chance to compete. This sounds nothing like a monopoly.
- rpearl 9y agoIt really does seem like you sorta froze your opinions on these matters a decade ago, because in 2017 Firefox usually uses less memory than Chrome.
- arthulia 9y agoGoogle officially dropped the "Don't be Evil" motto a while back and picked up Alphabet's "Do the Right Thing" motto, which seems a lot more subjective.
- itp 9y agoAlphabet code of conduct: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/code-of-conduct.html "Employees of Alphabet and its subsidiaries and controlled affiliates (“Alphabet”) should do the right thing – follow the law, act honorably, and treat each other with respect." "If you are employed by a subsidiary or controlled affiliate of Alphabet, please comply with your employer’s code of conduct." Google code of conduct: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html "Don't be evil."
- FussyZeus 9y agoBut wouldn't that technically apply to only those working at Google, not the other Alphabet companies? Not that it really matters, both are utterly without meaning. I was just using it to show how their corporate personality has changed over the years.
- polishTar 9y agoThat's a really silly way of doing it then. Besides, "do the right thing" is more restrictive than just "don't be evil"
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago"Do the right thing" for whom? Making money is definitely doing the right thing... for Google's bottom line.
- magicalist 9y ago"Don't be evil" to whom? Making money is definitely not evil...for Google's bottom line. This is a silly game. Proof by corporate motto.
- Omnius 9y agoGoogle has a ton of competition across all of its products. It's dominating in some of them but being better then your competition is a lot different then there not being any.
- kuschku 9y agoGoogle beats the competition in some markets because they have so much power in other markets. If you start a startup even in cloud photo storage, and suddenly Google Photos comes along, you’re dead. No one will fund you anymore, and you’ve basically lost. Google has such an immense amount of network effect, and of knowledge they can gain from dominating in other markets, that if Google enters a market – unless there’s regulations or network effects that prevent this – they immediately dominate it.
- throwaway91111 9y agoMaybe that's a sign that photo storage is already commodity and such a startup shouldn't be funded.
- drucik 9y agoI'm sure that such attitude doesn't help innovation
- angryasian 9y agoWell I don't see why funding should be a consideration. Maybe they should release a better product based off of a viable business model.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zitterbewegung 9y agoWhat about imgur?
- geppeto 9y agoIts not 2004 so you shouldn't be as impressionable as a child any longer. If you are fawning over a corporation's motto you are playing life by an ineffective set of rules. But .... now that I think about it, scratch that, maybe you'll be interested in being part of my Amway downline.
- FussyZeus 9y agoCareful you don't sprain an ankle making all those leaps there. My reasoning has nothing to do with their motto, my reasoning is the fact that they've been involved in multiple breaches of ethics concerning privacy, which when you think about it makes a lot of sense because their business model not only incentivizes but actually depends upon their ability to learn about their users and serve ads matching their interests. I'm not saying this is inherently a bad thing, there are many many people out there happily willing to trade their personal data instead of money for services, and more power to them, that's their choice to make. I'm just going a different route is all.
- dang 9y agoWould you please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? It's not what this site is for: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14308965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14308965 and marked it off-topic.
- geppeto 9y agoOkay sorry and I didn't realize you had that capability for moderation, pretty helpful that you can isolate child threads. One thing I want to question is how to criticize and steer discussion away from certain directions on this site? HN is widely known for the pedantic and non sequitur directions that discussions go, as ridiculous opinions get elevated and non-comforming opinions get downvoted to oblivion but not based on correctness or relevance. Thoughts? I often speak in hyperbole to highlight the absurdity of other people's opinions, but that doesn't seem compatible with the mod's ideals for this site
- jessaustin 9y agoMa Bell's monopoly has never been "natural". It has been enforced by FCC, ever since FCC was formed for that specific purpose in 1934. Even before that, ICC through the Kingsbury Commitment had adopted an ill-considered and unjustified hands-off policy with respect to Ma Bell's anticompetitive actions.
- warcher 9y agoJesus, yes, how did I have to scroll down this far before I read "ATT was a government monopoly"? Google doesn't have a monopoly on anything. They have the best search engine, but I can switch in seconds. Likewise the rest of their products all have very well established and really quite functional competitors. That I don't use, cause I like the big G, but I could if they annoyed me too much.
- amelius 9y agoThe whole issue of Google being a monopoly is silly. Fact of the matter is that they have a huge influence on the entire economy, and this influence is orders of magnitude greater than any other company.
- Shivetya 9y agofollow the money. they are a monopoly if it can generate penalties and further the careers of politicians with regulatory powers.
- cobbzilla 9y agoYou're describing regulatory capture, and it doesn't require a monopoly at all, merely deeply-entrenched players with effective lobbyists. Many, many industries engage in regulatory capture without having a single monopolist, e.g. pharma, defense, even say the SF housing market.
- digi_owl 9y agoYeah, the whole "monopoly" word brings stuff to mind that is more a distraction than useful.
- panabee 9y agoIt would be great to see more balanced discourse on monopolies, especially in a software-dominated world. Most analyses and articles fixate on the costs of monopolies. Let's assume the worst of Google and conclude they abused their search monopoly. Innovation in search was stifled. Competitors were damaged and achieved only a fraction of their potential. For instance, Yelp might be worth $15B instead of $3B in a world without "evil" Google. But Google's search monopoly and concomitant cash flows also gave society free worldwide communication, self-driving cars, cheaper smartphones, free digital maps, and countless other benefits. All policies hurt some and help others. Before supporting or rejecting a policy, it's wise to consider the overall benefits to society instead of focusing only on the injured parties. Why should thinking about monopolies differ? To reiterate, this is neither endorsing nor disparaging monopolies. It's a request for objective analysis and updated thinking to reflect the potential new realities of monopolies like Google that give products away for free.
- rgbrenner 9y agoso if you do something good, you should be permitted some amount of illegal behavior? If you're a priest, perhaps you would be permitted 1 murder, in exchange for your good behavior over the years? Is that what you're saying?
- rmvt 9y ago> (...) he has seen first-hand the damage that the internet economy has wrought on working artists like his friend, legendary drummer Levon Helm, who was forced to put on a series of concerts at his home at the age of 70, while dying from throat cancer, in order to pay his medical bills. this is a bit farfetched. do you really want to blame the internet for the immense fuck up health care has become? really?
- polskibus 9y agoI wonder how does this refer to Microsoft with Azure and other companies with ultra-broad platform offerings with hundreds of services and products. Maybe internet companies should scale horizontally and not verticly in their product offering after they reach certain size?
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoI think there's a huge issue with all of these companies being able to own so many disparate products. It creates an effect where users feel like they need to be in one company's ecosystem or another, and inherently protects bad products or bad business models from competition through this ecosystem effect. People who use some Google services tend to use mostly Google services. People who use some Microsoft services tend to use mostly Microsoft services. Without much stricter regulation to at bare minimum require more intercompatibility between competing ecosystems, I don't see this effect decreasing.
- beefman 9y agoIt seems neither Taplin or Schechter know what a natural monopoly is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
- redm 9y agoI think the key point here is not whether Google is abusing its effective monopoly willingly, its that it exists at all. There may be alternatives, but not viable ones. Try not supporting Chrome or ignoring Chrome requirements such as security mandates, you will go out of business. You can say these are 'good' for the consumer but the fact that Google has the ability to unilaterally change the web itself is partially the issue, they are not a standards body. Whats the viable alternative to Google Search? Sure you can use Bing as a customer, but if you're a website operator you HAVE to stay on Google's good side. (not always easy to do) Whats the viable alternative to Adsense? Especially when it comes to many Geo's that are hard to monetize. Whats the viable alternative to Android? Not all aspects of Google's business are so dominated, but where they are, you have little choice but to go with Google and the fact that are dominate in so many key segments is troubling. Let's be honest, it's not like Google makes themselves easy to contact, interact with, or get support from. They are in many ways a black box. Ever notice how the transparency reports for Safe Browsing never includes Google Properties or how they are happy to report DMCA issues for the internet, but never for Youtube?
- maverick_iceman 9y ago>Whats the viable alternative to Android? iOS.
- gozur88 9y agoSo there are alternatives, but for one reason or another they're not as attractive? Doesn't sound like a monopoly to me.
- scarface74 9y agoWhats the viable alternative to Google Search? Sure you can use Bing as a customer, but if you're a website operator you HAVE to stay on Google's good side. (not always easy to do) Or you can not base your business on the fickleness of Google's search algorithms. Ben Thompson (stratechery.com) posts one article per week publically and charged $100 a year for his newsletter. The only time he gave numbers, he has over 2000 subscribers. There are other ways to build a business that don't depend on search. Whats the viable alternative to Adsense? Especially when it comes to many Geo's that are hard to monetize. If you are in a certain niche, find a publication or a podcast that serves that niche and make a direct connection to them. Marco Arment - a one man development shop - created his own podcast based advertising platform that is doing well. What's the viable alternative to Android The viable alternative to Android is...Android. Many companies are forking the AOSP version of Android and running their own services, including Amazon in the U.S. and a few companies in developing markets. The danger Google faces is not that a company will come up with a better search engine, it's that people will start using search engines less as mobile takes over along with digital assistants that give you the information you want. Facebook is already seen as a place for old people and young people may have a FB page but they aren't posting to it because their parents are on it.
- tuna-piano 9y agoThe term "Natural Monopoly" has a special meaning besides just the common definition of both words, which is missing from this discussion, but is in my opinion the most interesting topic of discussion. Basically all software fits the economic definition of "Natural Monopoly". Natural monopolies exist in situations where the fixed cost is large and the marginal (per-customer) cost is small. In these situations, it only makes sense for one company to exist, as each additional company that exists will just increase that large fixed cost, while not decreasing the per-customer cost. Therefore, each additional company just increases the the total societal and average per-customer cost. Natural Monopolies have been defined and talked about for longer than software has been around. The long-running natural monopoly example has been that it doesn't make sense to have two power lines to your house. Another historical example includes newspapers, who have fixed article writing costs, but can distribute it to every customer in a city. Some people consider that Wal-marts in small towns are natural monopolies, given the fixed cost of a large store, and the lack of a market for more than one store in a given area. Software, of course, has large fixed costs and small per-customer costs. The questions for me are: -Historically, why have some natural monopolies been considered bad (railroads, utilities), and needing regulation, and others (newspapers, Walmart) not? -Is Google's advantage really as a true economic natural monopoly, or is it just a really powerful habit and brand? Bing seems pretty close in search quality, but yet few switch over. -If the economic definition of natural monopoly exists at Google and most software companies - why are there countless exceptions in software: database software (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2...), Web browsers (Chrome, Edge, FireFox, Safari), calculator apps, etc? -What are the current issues with potential natural monopolies at these software companies, and would a regulated model make them better or worse for society? http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/natural_monopoly.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/natural_monopoly.asp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
- ouid 9y ago>Bing seems pretty close in search quality, but yet few switch over. a) Why would anyone switch if they are both equal and both free? b) Most people use chrome. Most people don't change their default search engine. c) As much as people pretend to hate Google, they actually hate Microsoft a lot more, and for good reason. Microsoft operates on bad faith far more frequently than Google does, most of their business decisions seem to revolve around the question "How do we leverage product A to force the user to use our product B?" whereas Google's anticompetitive behavior has always been more passive.
- rjmunro 9y agoThis article annoys me. "YouTube makes $9 billion in annual revenues, but artists earn more from the sales of vinyl records than online streaming" It's a useless comparison. Perhaps the vinyl industry is worth more than $9 billion. Not all of YouTube is music streaming. More artists are on YouTube than release vinyl. A single artist that has vinyl releases and has videos on YouTube may earn more from the vinyl, but there are many more artists on youtube who don't sell vinyl. The article is good and has a valid points, but it's important to put comparisons you can actually compare. Then "... Levon Helm, who was forced to put on a series of concerts at his home at the age of 70, while dying from throat cancer, in order to pay his medical bills" Sounds like a story about medical bills / lack of insurance, not a story about digital music sales. Plenty of other people get throat cancer and aren't famous enough to put on concerts to pay the bills.
- bedhead 9y agoOne big difference is that Google is free its customers.
- beagle3 9y agoNo. Google is free to its users, but the users are the product. The customers -- the advertisers -- pay dearly.
- narrowrail 9y ago'No cost' is probably a better phrase here. Especially because the word 'free' can mean: 1) no immediate monetary cost ($) 2)or shorthand for freedom, as in related to liberty. However, "Generally, liberty is distinctly differentiated from freedom in that freedom is primarily, if not exclusively, the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do; whereas liberty concerns the absence of arbitrary restraints and takes into account the rights of all involved. As such, the exercise of liberty is subject to capability and limited by the rights of others."
- bedhead 9y agoThat is not how the FTC sees it.
- pascalxus 9y agoI think it's dangerous of Theil to absolve monopolies as "good". Monopolies can lead to deadweight loss and stagnation. The human species only has limited supply of attention and "goto mindspace" to reach. Human attention is a natural resources, just like coal, or oil. Imagine if a single petrol company had access to all the oil on the Earth - it wouldn't be good. On the other hand. There's not much we can do about this problem until consumers start seeing it as a problem. Once consumers do see it as a big problem - we'll have opportunities open to us :)
- mikeash 9y agoIt's hard to see any comparison. At the peak of AT&T's power, they were able to block sales of a third-party device that attached to your phone that helped keep people from overhearing your conversations. The device was just a cup, it didn't do anything electrical, but AT&T still decided they didn't like it and shut it down. That was eventually overturned in court, but it was a decade-long fight. It took another decade before third parties were allowed to sell devices that transmitted sound through the phone system with acoustic coupling, and another decade after that before you could just plug in your own phone. For everything Google does, there are viable competitors. They may not be nearly as large, but they're extremely easy to switch to if you want. People don't stick with Google because they have no choice (as would be the case with a monopoly) but because they like it more.
- beagle3 9y agoI agree with what you wrote, but the comparison is apples to oranges: Google customers are businesses; end users (who CAN switch easily) are the product. Right now the only (supposedly) viable competitor is Facebook, but it's more of an advertising duopoly that divides the market - all the people I know who advertise say that you use FB for brand/interaction/marketing and Google for sales, and for a specific spend it is usually clear which one gets it (and seldom if ever anyone other than FB or Google).
- jhall1468 9y ago> Google customers are businesses; end users (who CAN switch easily) are the product. I am a Google customer. They provide me with a product (Google) which I pay for by allowing Google to display advertisements on the results. A business is also a Google customer. They pay Google to display ads to a visitors to the website. But that distinction is moot anyway. Businesses aren't covered by consumer protections because they aren't "consumers".
- bunburying 9y agoI think you're being a bit mischievous with you definition of customer. You're really a user; not a customer. Customers pay. Google is selling your eyeballs to advertisers. Advertises are Google's customers.
- awqrre 9y agoI have a feeling that it will get even worst when Google will dump the Linux kernel in favor of it's own. (with Google’s “Fuchsia” smartphone OS)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- beagle3 9y agoAn important difference that a lot of people seem to ignore: Ma Bell's users were Ma Bell's customers. Google's users are not Google's customers - they are Google's product. Google's customers are advertisers, and it is there where Google has a monopoly, and talk of "cost of switching" is meaningless in that respect - other advertising venues are meaningless for most advertisers.
- ipa711 9y agoI use duckduckgo more than Google for search. I almost always get hits with duckduckgo, that I want, that are on page 2 of Google.
- hobarrera 9y agoDuckDuckGo is great. It's gotten so much better in recent years, that I can't stand the poor results that Google yields recently. TBH, if I can't find something on DDG, google won't have anything useful either.
- tehabe 9y agoI disagree on the term "natural", but I agree that Google is a monopoly. A phone company with last mile lines has a natural monopoly because competition need access to the last mile to offer their services. That is the reason that the Bell System was a natural monopoly and essentially every phone company on the planet. Facebook has a near-natural monopoly I think, because of the network effects of its 1 billion memebers. Microsoft had one too, when everyone was developing everything for a PC running Windows, this got broken due to the web and smartphones. Building a new search engine is not impossible, you just need a lot of breath and patience.
- faragon 9y agoIn my opinion, Google is a tolerated monopoly because of being efficient, and not being too greedy. I.e. providing many efficient "free" services that work great is a good thing for the society, and in return Google gets a massive lock-in in advertising and information control capability. So, the dilemma is: if for having such great "free" services is required the existence of that kind of monopoly, should we tolerate it and accept it as a lesser evil?
- jackcosgrove 9y agoThere is another advantage/disadvantage (depending on your perspective) to Google vs. AT&T that I haven't seen discussed. One of the classical arguments in favor of monopolies is not just efficiency but that they concentrate capital for large-scale investment. In the case of AT&T this occurred with Bell Labs, and it is also happening with Google. Whether an alternative system could be more innovative is impossible to determine. I am of the opinion that, even in Silicon Valley, the big firms (Bell Labs, Xerox, Google) make the biggest investments and innovations (semiconductors, operating systems, search engines), while smaller startups adapt these technologies to business uses.
- marcosdumay 9y agoThat extra capital is extracted from society by impoverishing it. If you wanted to tax people for research, the government can do it way more directly, without depending on the good will of a few rich people.
- Teknoman117 9y agoSo why is he leaving Microsoft out of the mix? He claims Google having an 88% share in advertising is a monopoly, why then claim that Microsoft is not a monopoly when it has a similar share of the PC space? He says that Microsoft competes in the market with many players, but Google also competes in the market with many players.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoMicrosoft still has over 90% of the desktop OS marketshare. How is this not even a greater natural monopoly?
- AnthonyMouse 9y agoThe Bell System wasn't a natural monopoly. AT&T had a monopoly on long distance service. The natural monopoly is the last mile. Even after Ma Bell was broken up, all the local natural monopolies were still there. Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) didn't serve the same territory as Southwestern Bell (now "AT&T"). The way that Ma Bell became a national monopoly is that nobody originally prevented them from leveraging their last mile monopolies. If your network is the only way to reach millions of telephone customers in your service area, a smaller provider has no choice but to deal with you, and so absent regulation the bigger telco can charge whatever they want for interconnection. They can also show up with an offer to buy your network for cost in one hand and a bankruptcy-inducing interconnection bill in the other. If this sounds to you anything like the current debate over network neutrality, well spotted. Google isn't AT&T, they're IBM.
- treytrey 9y agoAmazon is far more scary as monopoly.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- luord 9y ago> Q: As you point out yourself in the book, natural monopoly can also be a positive thing. For instance, in the cases of the telephone and the telegraph. What is the difference between those natural monopolies and digital platforms? Of the interview, this was by far the most interesting question and he didn't really answer it. It could be argued that at the root of the net neutrality crisis is that cable companies don't have to risk a race to the bottom. If they did, they'd sing a different tune, if only to use "we will deliver everything to you without playing favorites or selling your data" as a sales pitch.