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You've been posting mainly inflammatory comments about Google and Facebook. Could you please try switching it up? > Please don't use Hacker News primarily for

by sctb 8y ago

You've been posting mainly inflammatory comments about Google and Facebook. Could you please try switching it up? > Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle. This destroys intellectual curiosity, so we ban accounts that do it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mudil 8y ago
These are not inflammatory comments. These are facts about two monopolies, that are dangerous for society and for the internet in general. Plus there is this important thing called privacy of the individual.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > These are facts about two monopolies If you poke through my comments, you'll find we share antipathy for Facebook and, to a less degree, Google. That antipathy, however, is an opinion. Not a fact. Neither Facebook nor Google are monopolies by any common definition. Their business models disagree with our values. But a lot of Americans do as well. Your comments forego the debate necessary to establish agreement, and in that respect I think they are inflammatory. (As well as unproductive towards our common cause of convincing people these companies should be regarded with more caution.)
  - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
    Depending on the data source, Google has 80%+ share of the search engine market in many countries (such as here in the UK). That's a level often considered monopolistic.
    - bduerst 8y ago
      No, that's considered having a large market share. Monopolies do not have competitors and have markets that are difficult for other companies to enter. Google has competition, both search (Bing, Baidu, DDG, etc.) and ads (MSN, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Put another way, monopoly companies have a large market share, but not all companies with a large market share are monopolies.
      - patrickg_zill 8y ago
        https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a... The FTC explains their view of what is a monopoly.
  - ColinWielga 8y ago
    I recently learned a new word: monopsony. That is, a market where single buyer has enough market power to dictate the terms of sale. If google is not a monopsony they are certainly very close. This is reflected in the margins of online publishers vs those of google. If you want to publish content online, you have to do it on googles terms. This degree of market power over the flow of information frankly makes me pretty uncomfortable.
mudil 8y ago
Serious question. How is it that Google makes billions of dollars on ads and newspapers that depend on ads are suffering?
- Andrex 8y ago
  What's the difference between Google and newspapers? A massive focus on technology.
- Jyaif 8y ago
  Because depending on ads to pay journalists is a crappy business. Ads are worth it if the content with the ads is super cheap to generate (e.g. search result pages, or user generated content)
breakupgoogle 8y ago
Why? It's a legitimate criticism of these 2 companies. They essentially hold an oligopoly in the ad space and have openly committed to the destruction of any concept of privacy. New account because you two continually ban me for this type of thing. I get this is mostly a site for the cult of the founder, but this is still a pretty lame response to one of the bigger issues in this industry.

by sctb 8y ago

mudil 8y ago

These are not inflammatory comments. These are facts about two monopolies, that are dangerous for society and for the internet in general. Plus there is this important thing called privacy of the individual.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> These are facts about two monopolies If you poke through my comments, you'll find we share antipathy for Facebook and, to a less degree, Google. That antipathy, however, is an opinion. Not a fact. Neither Facebook nor Google are monopolies by any common definition. Their business models disagree with our values. But a lot of Americans do as well. Your comments forego the debate necessary to establish agreement, and in that respect I think they are inflammatory. (As well as unproductive towards our common cause of convincing people these companies should be regarded with more caution.)
- Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
  Depending on the data source, Google has 80%+ share of the search engine market in many countries (such as here in the UK). That's a level often considered monopolistic.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    No, that's considered having a large market share. Monopolies do not have competitors and have markets that are difficult for other companies to enter. Google has competition, both search (Bing, Baidu, DDG, etc.) and ads (MSN, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Put another way, monopoly companies have a large market share, but not all companies with a large market share are monopolies.
    - patrickg_zill 8y ago
      https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a... The FTC explains their view of what is a monopoly.
- ColinWielga 8y ago
  I recently learned a new word: monopsony. That is, a market where single buyer has enough market power to dictate the terms of sale. If google is not a monopsony they are certainly very close. This is reflected in the margins of online publishers vs those of google. If you want to publish content online, you have to do it on googles terms. This degree of market power over the flow of information frankly makes me pretty uncomfortable.

mudil 8y ago

Serious question. How is it that Google makes billions of dollars on ads and newspapers that depend on ads are suffering?

Andrex 8y ago
What's the difference between Google and newspapers? A massive focus on technology.
Jyaif 8y ago
Because depending on ads to pay journalists is a crappy business. Ads are worth it if the content with the ads is super cheap to generate (e.g. search result pages, or user generated content)

breakupgoogle 8y ago

Why? It's a legitimate criticism of these 2 companies. They essentially hold an oligopoly in the ad space and have openly committed to the destruction of any concept of privacy. New account because you two continually ban me for this type of thing. I get this is mostly a site for the cult of the founder, but this is still a pretty lame response to one of the bigger issues in this industry.