6 ms·

I frequently see people say "Google should be broken up" and I want to hear more on that argument. Meaning Google and Youtube should be separated? but then we'r

by wpasc 8y ago

I frequently see people say "Google should be broken up" and I want to hear more on that argument. Meaning Google and Youtube should be separated? but then we're no longer talking about just their search dominance right? How could search alone be broken up if a large part of the complaint is about the dominance of their search? Moreover, it is pretty easy to not use google search? Why couldn't someone use DDG, Yahoo, Bing, etc.? despite it being defaulted to in browsers (you can change this), most people elect to use Google. If a company dominates a single sector through consumer choice, should they be broken up (esoecially when consumer could walk away)? I'm not try to be facetious, I would just like counter arguments

sonnyblarney 8y ago
There are two arguments, one is about Search as a monopoly the other is about that power as it relates to other parts of the value chain. Google search is fundamentally better than DDG (for most purposes) because it has massive advantages that make it effectively unassailable. For example, I stopped using DDG because I rely on reverse image search. FYI DDG does not have its own crawler, it gets data from other sources. And it won't get reverse image search unless it does it itself ... which I doubt will happen. Maybe. And of course Yahoo is not a search engine either, it's not really an alternative at all. In order to compete with Google effectively, you'd have to build your own crawler etc.. It's essentially impossible. The number of engineers, data centres other components ... my gosh man. Consider for a moment that Google is a massive cash printing machine. Do you not think that VC's would be lining up, piling billions of dollars into competitors in order to take a piece of the action? Why is nobody - not even intelligent actors with a lot of cash to burn - investing in the most profitable business model of our era? Because the barriers to compete are absurdly high. It's a monopoly. And if it is - then we have to be very concerned about their relationship to adjacent layers of the value chain because of their ability to subsidize products to put others out of business. So you're aware that in free trade deals between nations, part of the deal includes measures to bar state actors from participating in some economies, and also, rules against 'dumping'. This is because if a nation state actor wants to, they could subsidize their own industries, wipe out competition in other nations, and then let their industry dominate. The same applies in value chain monopolies. Standard Oil didn't have 'better oil' or better practices than other Oil companies - they used control and ownership of the railroads to increase prices on their competitors and put them out of business. In a truly competitive landscape, there would be no Standard Oil. When Microsoft uses their ownership of the OS to put all other 'Office' solutions out of business, is that good for consumers? By the way - MS is still printing money hands over fist in Office Software. They are making billions. They are a de-facto standard, arguably a monopoly there. Why aren't investors lining up to create competitive solutions? (Because it's an unassailable monopoly). If Google decides to get into your line of business, and you are small, they will absolutely wipe you out if they want to, and it has nothing to do with having 'a better product'. Also consider for a moment how many of Google's other business parts could stand on their own as businesses? Google Analytics? Android? Chrome? Google Docs? Maps? They are all all money pits, strategic investments (i.e. 'moats') by Google to ensure the dominance of Google Search. How could a mobile OS vendor compete in a market where Google is using billions from one market, to dominate a different one, like mobile OS? They can't. Maybe in China, wherein there are non-market factors to protect their own makers. For the same reason that governments have mostly separated the transport of electricity from electricity production, for the same reason we have net neutrality, Google Search should possibly be pared off from the other businesses. Amazon is using massive profits from AWS to put retailers out of business. Amazon is not hugely profitable, but their AWS business unit is, ergo, the retail unit is probably losing money. How can retailers compete against Amazon, which is effectively selling at a loss? They can't. Consumers generally don't win when a de-facto or real monopoly in one market, uses that power to wipe out competition in others. There is essentially no real competition in search, nobody is putting money in it. Same for office software. Given how much money is being minted in those markets, it's a sure sign of monopoly.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  DDG is proof positive that the barriers to entry are extraordinarily low. It is incredibly easy to start a search engine. Now, to make one that is considered good relative to Google, that is hard, because if Google is known for one thing, it's known for executing in search. But if someone wanted to invest billions and billions of dollars, they could take a shot. Microsoft has been taking their shot for years, and so far it isn't working, but that's not because of barriers to entry. It's because they do not execute as well as Google does. It's also hard to build a new car company, or a new chemical manufacturing conglomerate, or a new anything. That is not a defining feature of a monopoly.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 8y ago
    DDG doesn't maintain its own indexes. It uses Bing and Yandex, the only two other global-level English language web indexes. So DDG isn't proof positive of anything.
  - rifung 8y ago
    > Microsoft has been taking their shot for years, and so far it isn't working, but that's not because of barriers to entry. It's because they do not execute as well as Google does. I think that's a little unfair to Microsoft. Google has spent way more engineer team on all the infrastructure required to make Search great. Microsoft's main products were a desktop OS and application, so presumably their existing internal tooling probably wasn't as mature for scalable web services. I work at Google but opinions are my won.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    "It is incredibly easy to start a search engine" Yes, but it's impossible to build a quality one, that will compete with Google. "Microsoft has been taking their shot for years, and so far it isn't working, but that's not because of barriers to entry. It's because they do not execute as well as Google does." MSFT is one of the greatest companies in the world, with tons of high tech workers, brand recognition and the like. If they can't make a dent in search, then again I hold this up as evidence of monopoly. When there is only 1 primary player, despite everything else, then that alone is evidence of monopoly. If VC's could spend 1 Billion and take a piece out of Google - they would in a heartbeat.
twtw 8y ago
IMO, the right approach to regulating Google is similar to the regulations pre-breakup imposed on AT&T. Stuff like all patents and technology must be made public, interoperability, etc.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  What is that expected to change? Google is not exactly known for initiating patent litigation. They use standard SMTP, HTTP, DNS etc. -- all open standards, and when they do something like QUIC they write it up and standardize that too. They've had that "download your data" thing for years. The biggest problem with Google is that they're collecting too much data on people. But that has basically nothing to do with market share or market power or competition. It would be exactly the same problem if they had a dozen competitors.
toast0 8y ago
The argument goes roughly as follows: Google is able to use its lead in search to exert undue influence on other markets. Google can (and has) ocassionaly placed banners suggesting a switch to chrome, influencing the browser market. Google showcases YouTube videos above other video results, regardless of the relative merits of the videos. Similar things in other verticals. Additionally, search dominance leads to dominance in the related search ads and text ads generally space. In part, because of market size, Yahoo was unable to attract the same kind of advertising market as Google, and famously chose to contract that out to Microsoft, which also was unable to make it work well. I was at Yahoo during parts of that time, and my feeling is that market size wasn't a big part of that failure, but it could be argued that it was a part. Is any of this compelling enough to be worth an anti-trust case? I don't think so, but maybe? How could you break up Google if this was considered egrigious enough? Split into several actually separate companies: software, containing chrome, android, and chrome os; search, providing web search apis, but not a front end; advertising, providing advertising apis, but not hosting any sites that use then; consumer services, including a web search front end, Gmail, YouTube, etc; business services, including the Google cloud stuff and maybe g suite; I dunno about the alphabet soup bits. Make the search and ads services contracts be on FRAND and public terms.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > Google can (and has) ocassionaly placed banners suggesting a switch to chrome, influencing the browser market. But so can anybody else. Google sells ads on their search engine to anyone. If you asked nicely enough with a large enough pile of money they would presumably even sell you a banner placement. What is the objection supposed to be? That Google didn't pay itself for the ad space? How would it have changed anything if they did?
  - toast0 8y ago
    How much would Google charge me to put a prominent banner next to the search box saying that Google recomends w3m for the best browsing experience on Google search? My guess is they would have considered it before they had their own browser, but now that chrome is something they've invested in, it seems like something that is not for sale. How much of an impact is that placement? I don't really know, but I bet Google has data on it. Discovery on a case like this would be interesting. Anyway, the point is that's something they can do, because they control so much of search. Bing putting up a banner that says hey, why don't you use Edge, pretty please doesn't have as much impact, because Bing has a smaller market share.

by wpasc 8y ago

sonnyblarney 8y ago

There are two arguments, one is about Search as a monopoly the other is about that power as it relates to other parts of the value chain. Google search is fundamentally better than DDG (for most purposes) because it has massive advantages that make it effectively unassailable. For example, I stopped using DDG because I rely on reverse image search. FYI DDG does not have its own crawler, it gets data from other sources. And it won't get reverse image search unless it does it itself ... which I doubt will happen. Maybe. And of course Yahoo is not a search engine either, it's not really an alternative at all. In order to compete with Google effectively, you'd have to build your own crawler etc.. It's essentially impossible. The number of engineers, data centres other components ... my gosh man. Consider for a moment that Google is a massive cash printing machine. Do you not think that VC's would be lining up, piling billions of dollars into competitors in order to take a piece of the action? Why is nobody - not even intelligent actors with a lot of cash to burn - investing in the most profitable business model of our era? Because the barriers to compete are absurdly high. It's a monopoly. And if it is - then we have to be very concerned about their relationship to adjacent layers of the value chain because of their ability to subsidize products to put others out of business. So you're aware that in free trade deals between nations, part of the deal includes measures to bar state actors from participating in some economies, and also, rules against 'dumping'. This is because if a nation state actor wants to, they could subsidize their own industries, wipe out competition in other nations, and then let their industry dominate. The same applies in value chain monopolies. Standard Oil didn't have 'better oil' or better practices than other Oil companies - they used control and ownership of the railroads to increase prices on their competitors and put them out of business. In a truly competitive landscape, there would be no Standard Oil. When Microsoft uses their ownership of the OS to put all other 'Office' solutions out of business, is that good for consumers? By the way - MS is still printing money hands over fist in Office Software. They are making billions. They are a de-facto standard, arguably a monopoly there. Why aren't investors lining up to create competitive solutions? (Because it's an unassailable monopoly). If Google decides to get into your line of business, and you are small, they will absolutely wipe you out if they want to, and it has nothing to do with having 'a better product'. Also consider for a moment how many of Google's other business parts could stand on their own as businesses? Google Analytics? Android? Chrome? Google Docs? Maps? They are all all money pits, strategic investments (i.e. 'moats') by Google to ensure the dominance of Google Search. How could a mobile OS vendor compete in a market where Google is using billions from one market, to dominate a different one, like mobile OS? They can't. Maybe in China, wherein there are non-market factors to protect their own makers. For the same reason that governments have mostly separated the transport of electricity from electricity production, for the same reason we have net neutrality, Google Search should possibly be pared off from the other businesses. Amazon is using massive profits from AWS to put retailers out of business. Amazon is not hugely profitable, but their AWS business unit is, ergo, the retail unit is probably losing money. How can retailers compete against Amazon, which is effectively selling at a loss? They can't. Consumers generally don't win when a de-facto or real monopoly in one market, uses that power to wipe out competition in others. There is essentially no real competition in search, nobody is putting money in it. Same for office software. Given how much money is being minted in those markets, it's a sure sign of monopoly.

asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
DDG is proof positive that the barriers to entry are extraordinarily low. It is incredibly easy to start a search engine. Now, to make one that is considered good relative to Google, that is hard, because if Google is known for one thing, it's known for executing in search. But if someone wanted to invest billions and billions of dollars, they could take a shot. Microsoft has been taking their shot for years, and so far it isn't working, but that's not because of barriers to entry. It's because they do not execute as well as Google does. It's also hard to build a new car company, or a new chemical manufacturing conglomerate, or a new anything. That is not a defining feature of a monopoly.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 8y ago
  DDG doesn't maintain its own indexes. It uses Bing and Yandex, the only two other global-level English language web indexes. So DDG isn't proof positive of anything.
- rifung 8y ago
  > Microsoft has been taking their shot for years, and so far it isn't working, but that's not because of barriers to entry. It's because they do not execute as well as Google does. I think that's a little unfair to Microsoft. Google has spent way more engineer team on all the infrastructure required to make Search great. Microsoft's main products were a desktop OS and application, so presumably their existing internal tooling probably wasn't as mature for scalable web services. I work at Google but opinions are my won.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  "It is incredibly easy to start a search engine" Yes, but it's impossible to build a quality one, that will compete with Google. "Microsoft has been taking their shot for years, and so far it isn't working, but that's not because of barriers to entry. It's because they do not execute as well as Google does." MSFT is one of the greatest companies in the world, with tons of high tech workers, brand recognition and the like. If they can't make a dent in search, then again I hold this up as evidence of monopoly. When there is only 1 primary player, despite everything else, then that alone is evidence of monopoly. If VC's could spend 1 Billion and take a piece out of Google - they would in a heartbeat.

twtw 8y ago

IMO, the right approach to regulating Google is similar to the regulations pre-breakup imposed on AT&T. Stuff like all patents and technology must be made public, interoperability, etc.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
What is that expected to change? Google is not exactly known for initiating patent litigation. They use standard SMTP, HTTP, DNS etc. -- all open standards, and when they do something like QUIC they write it up and standardize that too. They've had that "download your data" thing for years. The biggest problem with Google is that they're collecting too much data on people. But that has basically nothing to do with market share or market power or competition. It would be exactly the same problem if they had a dozen competitors.

toast0 8y ago

The argument goes roughly as follows: Google is able to use its lead in search to exert undue influence on other markets. Google can (and has) ocassionaly placed banners suggesting a switch to chrome, influencing the browser market. Google showcases YouTube videos above other video results, regardless of the relative merits of the videos. Similar things in other verticals. Additionally, search dominance leads to dominance in the related search ads and text ads generally space. In part, because of market size, Yahoo was unable to attract the same kind of advertising market as Google, and famously chose to contract that out to Microsoft, which also was unable to make it work well. I was at Yahoo during parts of that time, and my feeling is that market size wasn't a big part of that failure, but it could be argued that it was a part. Is any of this compelling enough to be worth an anti-trust case? I don't think so, but maybe? How could you break up Google if this was considered egrigious enough? Split into several actually separate companies: software, containing chrome, android, and chrome os; search, providing web search apis, but not a front end; advertising, providing advertising apis, but not hosting any sites that use then; consumer services, including a web search front end, Gmail, YouTube, etc; business services, including the Google cloud stuff and maybe g suite; I dunno about the alphabet soup bits. Make the search and ads services contracts be on FRAND and public terms.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> Google can (and has) ocassionaly placed banners suggesting a switch to chrome, influencing the browser market. But so can anybody else. Google sells ads on their search engine to anyone. If you asked nicely enough with a large enough pile of money they would presumably even sell you a banner placement. What is the objection supposed to be? That Google didn't pay itself for the ad space? How would it have changed anything if they did?
- toast0 8y ago
  How much would Google charge me to put a prominent banner next to the search box saying that Google recomends w3m for the best browsing experience on Google search? My guess is they would have considered it before they had their own browser, but now that chrome is something they've invested in, it seems like something that is not for sale. How much of an impact is that placement? I don't really know, but I bet Google has data on it. Discovery on a case like this would be interesting. Anyway, the point is that's something they can do, because they control so much of search. Bing putting up a banner that says hey, why don't you use Edge, pretty please doesn't have as much impact, because Bing has a smaller market share.