7 ms·

> The problem is that Google is without question a monopoly This is just false. bing.com exists. news.ycombinator.com exists. reddit.com exists.... > The fa

> The problem is that Google is without question a monopoly This is just false. bing.com exists. news.ycombinator.com exists. reddit.com exists.... > The fact that they show people's content without giving them page views.. This is just false. Google shows at most an excerpt (that is defined by the publisher) or a headline (on news.google.com). Unless you're talking about AMP, but that's a decision made by the publisher too.

patrickmcnamara 8y ago
Just because there are other websites on the internet does not mean that Google doesn't have a monopoly. They have 91% search engine market share.
- rascul 8y ago
  Stats seem to vary, it's not clear that 91% is correct. Even if it was 91%, that doesn't necessarily make it a monopoly. http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share https://www.statista.com/statistics/267161/market-share-of-search-engines-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/267161/market-share-of-s... https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.as...
  - cyphar 8y ago
    Does 92% usage make something a monopoly? 95%? 99%? 100%? I think that the percentage argument is not the only important thing to consider, there are other anti-competitive practices which (when practiced at a large enough scale) become a monopoly even if "only" 50% of people use the product (friendly reminder that 50% of internet users is more than a billion people -- much larger than the population of most countries). My point is not that Google is doing something illegal (and thus arguing over the legal definition of a monopoly is not helpful -- just like arguing over the legal meaning of the US 1st Amendment is not helpful in discussions over the concept of free speech). I'm arguing that it is a monopoly in the ordinary meaning of the word, in that effectively everyone uses Google and Google exerts a massive amount of power over their users. But for a pseudo-legal argument: Google participates in a form of product tying[1] by requiring you to create a Google account in order to access Google Groups (which are publicly-run mailing lists and an unrelated product to their account service). Now since you don't pay for Google accounts this isn't a strict violation of anti-trust laws, but it is very close in concept to the sort of thing anti-trust laws protect against. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)
    - cesarb 8y ago
      > But for a pseudo-legal argument: Google participates in a form of product tying[1] by requiring you to create a Google account in order to access Google Groups (which are publicly-run mailing lists and an unrelated product to their account service). That seems to be false; I can read mailing lists hosted at Google Groups without logging in (for instance https://groups.google.com/a/groups.riscv.org/forum/#!forum/isa-dev https://groups.google.com/a/groups.riscv.org/forum/#!forum/i... opens for me without asking for a login). I'm subscribed to that mailing list from an email address which is not a Google account, and I didn't have to log in to any Google account when I subscribed. I can post to that mailing list directly from a normal email client, through a non-Google email provider.
      - cyphar 8y ago
        The link you just posted requires me to log in, and I've had this problem with go-nuts and the OCI mailing list in the past. It's strange this doesn't happen to you -- maybe it's a geographically specific thing (I'm connecting from Australia)? Of course you don't need to login in order to post on the mailing list, but I think that's only one of the three main features of a mailing list (broadcast, subscription, and archival) that I can do without logging in.
        rascul 8y ago
        I am not required to login from the US.
    - rascul 8y ago
      > Does 92% usage make something a monopoly? 95%? 99%? 100%? 100% certainly would. > I'm arguing that it is a monopoly in the ordinary meaning of the word, in that effectively everyone uses Google and Google exerts a massive amount of power over their users. What do you mean by "the ordinary meaning of the word" here? It's also not clear to me that "effectively everyone uses Google".
      - cyphar 8y ago
rwj 8y ago
Monopoloy: exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices. I don't think that word means what you think it means.
ploika 8y ago
Monopoly doesn't mean that there's only one company in the market. It means that one company has an overwhelming amount of market share. Google unquestionably fits this description when it comes to internet search, outside of China at least. Generally it's measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index - HHI. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hhi.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hhi.asp
Illniyar 8y ago
Though the word implies otherwise a monopoly is not defined by the lack of competitors. At least not in a legal sense anymore. It is defined by it's marketshare. And google search is by and large a monopoly in this regard having ~90% market share in virtually all segments of the market.
- Tor3 8y ago
  >[..] a monopoly is not defined by the lack of competitors.[..]It is defined by it's marketshare. No, I can't agree. I don't even consider Microsoft a monopoly, even though their product comes pre-installed on every PC you can buy in shops. If you can't get any alternative ISP (to e.g. AT&T) where you live, by any means, now that is a monopoly.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Surely you can just move house to get a different ISP and so in line with your other reasoning it can't be a monopoly?
    - Tor3 8y ago
      Move house? To where? In areas with only a single ISP, and that ISP 'owns' the poles/whatever, you can move as much as you want. Nothing changes. Or did you mean moving to another city? Another part of the country? Really? It should be obvious that it's perfectly possible to define something as a monopoly in a certain area. If a monopoly could only be defined as a monopoly if it were global, there wouldn't be many.
      - cyphar 8y ago
        For the record, I do agree that ISPs are monopolies (or oligopolies) in many parts of the US and other countries as well. However they are not the only form of monopoly, and I don't understand why you seem to be saying that the statement "Google is a monopoly" is implicitly saying "ISPs are not a monopoly". They're both monopolies, just different kinds -- the geographic argument doesn't make sense for websites for instance (outside of countries that massively censor the internet).
cyphar 8y ago
> [Google being a monopoly] is just false. bing.com exists. news.ycombinator.com exists. reddit.com exists.... I don't think the existence of other websites on the internet is not really an argument against Google being a monopoly. Without question, the vast majority of the population (outside China) uses Google. This means that the majority of people who use the internet are using Google as their method of accessing websites, and thus Google has an effective monopoly on what links people see (and thus by proxy what articles they read and what they think about topics). I'm arguing all of this from a point of view where you don't really care how Google or anything behind the scenes works -- most people view Google as a utility that just tells you what "the internet" has to say on a topic. Given it's prevalence and significant impact on people's decision making, it should have far more accountability. > Google shows at most an excerpt (that is defined by the publisher) or a headline (on news.google.com). Google also has their Q&A thing where they parse the contents of web pages to answer questions you ask Google -- so you don't end up on the person who wrote the answer's website. I think that is pretty clearly an example of Google showing people's content without giving them page views (whether or not you agree that it is an issue).
- plandis 8y ago
  If there are viable competitors then can’t consumers simply move to different platforms? I primarily use DuckDuckGo, so how is Google search a monopoly? If you’re going to base it solely off number of users then you’re effectively punishing businesses for being successful and NOT from harming consumers.
  - cyphar 8y ago
    Google can (and has) changed large things about their platform that may negatively impact their users (~90% of the internet population which is ~3 billion people -- larger than the population of any single country) and their users don't really have much of a choice. For instance, changes to PageRank have negatively impacted websites and business consistently in the past (so much that there's an industry around making pages cater to the whims of an unauditable algorithm -- SEO). I think the fact that websites obviously cannot just switch to a competitor (unless they want to stop catering to a potential market of 3 billion people) rules that as being monopolistic behaviour. That's what I mean when I refer to a monopoly. If you have exclusive control over an algorithm that affects more people than any government body on earth, then you are a monopoly. Same argument goes for quite a few of their other products (if your personal mail server isn't effectively "blessed" by GMail you cannot communicate with the majority of internet users), but Search is the most obvious one.

patrickmcnamara 8y ago

Just because there are other websites on the internet does not mean that Google doesn't have a monopoly. They have 91% search engine market share.

rascul 8y ago
Stats seem to vary, it's not clear that 91% is correct. Even if it was 91%, that doesn't necessarily make it a monopoly. http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share https://www.statista.com/statistics/267161/market-share-of-search-engines-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/267161/market-share-of-s... https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.as...
- cyphar 8y ago
  Does 92% usage make something a monopoly? 95%? 99%? 100%? I think that the percentage argument is not the only important thing to consider, there are other anti-competitive practices which (when practiced at a large enough scale) become a monopoly even if "only" 50% of people use the product (friendly reminder that 50% of internet users is more than a billion people -- much larger than the population of most countries). My point is not that Google is doing something illegal (and thus arguing over the legal definition of a monopoly is not helpful -- just like arguing over the legal meaning of the US 1st Amendment is not helpful in discussions over the concept of free speech). I'm arguing that it is a monopoly in the ordinary meaning of the word, in that effectively everyone uses Google and Google exerts a massive amount of power over their users. But for a pseudo-legal argument: Google participates in a form of product tying[1] by requiring you to create a Google account in order to access Google Groups (which are publicly-run mailing lists and an unrelated product to their account service). Now since you don't pay for Google accounts this isn't a strict violation of anti-trust laws, but it is very close in concept to the sort of thing anti-trust laws protect against. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)
  - cesarb 8y ago
    > But for a pseudo-legal argument: Google participates in a form of product tying[1] by requiring you to create a Google account in order to access Google Groups (which are publicly-run mailing lists and an unrelated product to their account service). That seems to be false; I can read mailing lists hosted at Google Groups without logging in (for instance https://groups.google.com/a/groups.riscv.org/forum/#!forum/isa-dev https://groups.google.com/a/groups.riscv.org/forum/#!forum/i... opens for me without asking for a login). I'm subscribed to that mailing list from an email address which is not a Google account, and I didn't have to log in to any Google account when I subscribed. I can post to that mailing list directly from a normal email client, through a non-Google email provider.
    - cyphar 8y ago
      The link you just posted requires me to log in, and I've had this problem with go-nuts and the OCI mailing list in the past. It's strange this doesn't happen to you -- maybe it's a geographically specific thing (I'm connecting from Australia)? Of course you don't need to login in order to post on the mailing list, but I think that's only one of the three main features of a mailing list (broadcast, subscription, and archival) that I can do without logging in.
      - rascul 8y ago
        I am not required to login from the US.
  - rascul 8y ago
    > Does 92% usage make something a monopoly? 95%? 99%? 100%? 100% certainly would. > I'm arguing that it is a monopoly in the ordinary meaning of the word, in that effectively everyone uses Google and Google exerts a massive amount of power over their users. What do you mean by "the ordinary meaning of the word" here? It's also not clear to me that "effectively everyone uses Google".
    - cyphar 8y ago

rwj 8y ago

Monopoloy: exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices. I don't think that word means what you think it means.

ploika 8y ago

Monopoly doesn't mean that there's only one company in the market. It means that one company has an overwhelming amount of market share. Google unquestionably fits this description when it comes to internet search, outside of China at least. Generally it's measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index - HHI. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hhi.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hhi.asp

Illniyar 8y ago

Though the word implies otherwise a monopoly is not defined by the lack of competitors. At least not in a legal sense anymore. It is defined by it's marketshare. And google search is by and large a monopoly in this regard having ~90% market share in virtually all segments of the market.

Tor3 8y ago
>[..] a monopoly is not defined by the lack of competitors.[..]It is defined by it's marketshare. No, I can't agree. I don't even consider Microsoft a monopoly, even though their product comes pre-installed on every PC you can buy in shops. If you can't get any alternative ISP (to e.g. AT&T) where you live, by any means, now that is a monopoly.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Surely you can just move house to get a different ISP and so in line with your other reasoning it can't be a monopoly?
  - Tor3 8y ago
    Move house? To where? In areas with only a single ISP, and that ISP 'owns' the poles/whatever, you can move as much as you want. Nothing changes. Or did you mean moving to another city? Another part of the country? Really? It should be obvious that it's perfectly possible to define something as a monopoly in a certain area. If a monopoly could only be defined as a monopoly if it were global, there wouldn't be many.
    - cyphar 8y ago
      For the record, I do agree that ISPs are monopolies (or oligopolies) in many parts of the US and other countries as well. However they are not the only form of monopoly, and I don't understand why you seem to be saying that the statement "Google is a monopoly" is implicitly saying "ISPs are not a monopoly". They're both monopolies, just different kinds -- the geographic argument doesn't make sense for websites for instance (outside of countries that massively censor the internet).

cyphar 8y ago

> [Google being a monopoly] is just false. bing.com exists. news.ycombinator.com exists. reddit.com exists.... I don't think the existence of other websites on the internet is not really an argument against Google being a monopoly. Without question, the vast majority of the population (outside China) uses Google. This means that the majority of people who use the internet are using Google as their method of accessing websites, and thus Google has an effective monopoly on what links people see (and thus by proxy what articles they read and what they think about topics). I'm arguing all of this from a point of view where you don't really care how Google or anything behind the scenes works -- most people view Google as a utility that just tells you what "the internet" has to say on a topic. Given it's prevalence and significant impact on people's decision making, it should have far more accountability. > Google shows at most an excerpt (that is defined by the publisher) or a headline (on news.google.com). Google also has their Q&A thing where they parse the contents of web pages to answer questions you ask Google -- so you don't end up on the person who wrote the answer's website. I think that is pretty clearly an example of Google showing people's content without giving them page views (whether or not you agree that it is an issue).

plandis 8y ago
If there are viable competitors then can’t consumers simply move to different platforms? I primarily use DuckDuckGo, so how is Google search a monopoly? If you’re going to base it solely off number of users then you’re effectively punishing businesses for being successful and NOT from harming consumers.
- cyphar 8y ago
  Google can (and has) changed large things about their platform that may negatively impact their users (~90% of the internet population which is ~3 billion people -- larger than the population of any single country) and their users don't really have much of a choice. For instance, changes to PageRank have negatively impacted websites and business consistently in the past (so much that there's an industry around making pages cater to the whims of an unauditable algorithm -- SEO). I think the fact that websites obviously cannot just switch to a competitor (unless they want to stop catering to a potential market of 3 billion people) rules that as being monopolistic behaviour. That's what I mean when I refer to a monopoly. If you have exclusive control over an algorithm that affects more people than any government body on earth, then you are a monopoly. Same argument goes for quite a few of their other products (if your personal mail server isn't effectively "blessed" by GMail you cannot communicate with the majority of internet users), but Search is the most obvious one.