4 ms·

Exactly. Because enforcing monopolies like that is a good thing? Isn't it?

jahvo 9y ago
Gmail won because it fixed the biggest pain points with HTML email and spam. And so many years later nobody has come even close. That's not their fault.
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  And now you get to wonder what ideas people might have come up with, that you'd have loved, but got shut down immediately because Google doesn't let people break in with new ideas. Being the best available option is good. Using a dominant position to try to ensure nobody is ever allowed to compete with you again in the future is bad, and in theory illegal.
  - lallysingh 9y ago
    How would this play out in email? Users can have more than 1 email account, and even just forward from their old acct to their new one.
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      How would what play out? If Google blackholes mail coming from new ("untrusted", therefore "spammy") providers, how does a new provider gain traction in the market? They already do this with other services. YouTube is probably the single most-DMCA'd site on the internet, for example, but still gets prime search-result real estate. But if you try setting up a competing video site, Google will count how many DMCA notices it gets to take down links to your site, and penalize you in search results for being a no-good horrible copyright-violation-enabler. Google is very very good at setting up situations where the rule for their property is different from the rule for everyone else, and for some reason it always favors the Google property...
      - SquareWheel 9y ago
        Youtube surely does get a lot of DMCAs, but the vast, vast majority of copyright disputes are handled with a system meant to preclude DMCAs. Secondly, do you have any evidence that DMCA claims are a ranking factor? Google search actually goes out of its way to point to sources showing takedowns, implying they do not agree with them. Thirdly, Youtube has millions of incoming links. It's going to do pretty darn well in ranking no matter what.
        dhimes 9y ago
        Google's mobile support was horrific when they started penalizing other sites for a bad mobile experience.
        SquareWheel 9y ago
        Desktop and mobile searches are indexed separately, so they could hold high desktop rank even if mobile faltered. Though I'm not sure which service you're referring to specifically. In most cases I would still expect inbound links to be very high, offsetting any mobile penalty.
        ubernostrum 9y ago
        YouTube gets special promotion in Google SERPs, because it's a Google property. So it gets to live way up top. And yes, Google has admitted that DMCA notices received for results to your site is something they'll factor in to rankings for non-Google properties: https://searchengineland.com/dmca-requests-now-used-in-googles-ranking-algorithm-130118 https://searchengineland.com/dmca-requests-now-used-in-googl...
        SquareWheel 9y ago
        I've never heard of that signal before, but it is interesting. I'm guessing it's designed to reduce the visibility of pirate stream websites. However, "YouTube gets special promotion in Google SERPs" is still an unfounded claim. There are hundreds of signals. Failing at one does not prove collusion.
- takluyver 9y ago
  And because Google realised they could afford to give you 1GB space when everyone else was offering ~10-20 MB, and because they launched it cleverly, with restricted signups making a gmail.com address a desirable thing. But the complaint isn't about how GMail got to a dominant position, it's about what it does with that position.
- CM30 9y ago
  Isn't their HTML/CSS support atrocious? I mean, it might be a bit better than Outlook, but as far as HTML emails are concerned, it's more mobile browsers which have made it actually usable again: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/email-client/gmail/ https://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/email-client/gmail/
SquareWheel 9y ago
Letting people spoof emails by ignoring SPF records isn't ideal either.

Gmail won because it fixed the biggest pain points with HTML email and spam. And so many years later nobody has come even close. That's not their fault.

ubernostrum 9y ago
And now you get to wonder what ideas people might have come up with, that you'd have loved, but got shut down immediately because Google doesn't let people break in with new ideas. Being the best available option is good. Using a dominant position to try to ensure nobody is ever allowed to compete with you again in the future is bad, and in theory illegal.
- lallysingh 9y ago
  How would this play out in email? Users can have more than 1 email account, and even just forward from their old acct to their new one.
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    How would what play out? If Google blackholes mail coming from new ("untrusted", therefore "spammy") providers, how does a new provider gain traction in the market? They already do this with other services. YouTube is probably the single most-DMCA'd site on the internet, for example, but still gets prime search-result real estate. But if you try setting up a competing video site, Google will count how many DMCA notices it gets to take down links to your site, and penalize you in search results for being a no-good horrible copyright-violation-enabler. Google is very very good at setting up situations where the rule for their property is different from the rule for everyone else, and for some reason it always favors the Google property...
    - SquareWheel 9y ago
      Youtube surely does get a lot of DMCAs, but the vast, vast majority of copyright disputes are handled with a system meant to preclude DMCAs. Secondly, do you have any evidence that DMCA claims are a ranking factor? Google search actually goes out of its way to point to sources showing takedowns, implying they do not agree with them. Thirdly, Youtube has millions of incoming links. It's going to do pretty darn well in ranking no matter what.
      - dhimes 9y ago
        Google's mobile support was horrific when they started penalizing other sites for a bad mobile experience.
        SquareWheel 9y ago
        Desktop and mobile searches are indexed separately, so they could hold high desktop rank even if mobile faltered. Though I'm not sure which service you're referring to specifically. In most cases I would still expect inbound links to be very high, offsetting any mobile penalty.
      - ubernostrum 9y ago
        YouTube gets special promotion in Google SERPs, because it's a Google property. So it gets to live way up top. And yes, Google has admitted that DMCA notices received for results to your site is something they'll factor in to rankings for non-Google properties: https://searchengineland.com/dmca-requests-now-used-in-googles-ranking-algorithm-130118 https://searchengineland.com/dmca-requests-now-used-in-googl...
        SquareWheel 9y ago
        I've never heard of that signal before, but it is interesting. I'm guessing it's designed to reduce the visibility of pirate stream websites. However, "YouTube gets special promotion in Google SERPs" is still an unfounded claim. There are hundreds of signals. Failing at one does not prove collusion.
takluyver 9y ago
And because Google realised they could afford to give you 1GB space when everyone else was offering ~10-20 MB, and because they launched it cleverly, with restricted signups making a gmail.com address a desirable thing. But the complaint isn't about how GMail got to a dominant position, it's about what it does with that position.
CM30 9y ago
Isn't their HTML/CSS support atrocious? I mean, it might be a bit better than Outlook, but as far as HTML emails are concerned, it's more mobile browsers which have made it actually usable again: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/email-client/gmail/ https://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/email-client/gmail/

SquareWheel 9y ago

Letting people spoof emails by ignoring SPF records isn't ideal either.