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Is the consumer being harmed? That’s the only question that matters in anti-trust. That mom and pop can’t compete isn’t a symptom of a monopoly, it’s a symptom

Is the consumer being harmed? That’s the only question that matters in anti-trust. That mom and pop can’t compete isn’t a symptom of a monopoly, it’s a symptom of mom and pop not doing more to be the best choice. Mom and pop could compete if they had a better, cheaper product. If you want to compete — be better than the competition. Many startups are not — that isn’t the fault of Google.

xg15 8y ago
Yes, e.g. by stiffling sale of alternative Android-based operating systems, as the EU just concluded. Google uses their market power and control over Android to give competing OSes a disadvantage, whether or not they would be better than Android/Google Play.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  Using the EU as an argument is like bringing a friend that agrees with you to confirm your statement. Use actual arguments, please.
  - xg15 8y ago
    It seems a bit ridiculous to call a multi-year investigation by the EU's anti-trust agency "calling in my friends", but ok. The most severe thing they did was give retailers a hard choice: Either they only sell phones with Google's Android distribution (AOSP+Google Play) or they only sell phones with no-name AOSP distributions. They cannot sell both. As missing out on the revenue from Google Play-based phones would be financially irresponsible, this choice had only one viable option: Not selling any other AOSP-based OS except Google's. Therefore Google effectively made competing AOSP-based projects extremely hard to sell, regardless of their quality.
  - ionised 8y ago
    So you're not interested in hearing arguments you don't like?