> There is no moving of goalposts. Data collection was part of my argument from the start. It's moving the goalposts because when I countered the argument you

> There is no moving of goalposts. Data collection was part of my argument from the start. It's moving the goalposts because when I countered the argument you dropped it, ignored it, and redoubled on data collection. > Because it’s historical - i.e. it was available in the past, but is no longer available. Every company that collects data collects "historical" data. > advantage of having not only a huge head start A headstart is not a barrier to entry for your competitors. > all the data available up to how about the structure of the web and user searches. Data collection is not a barrier to entry for your competitors. Google isn't stopping you from crawling the web to determine its structure. Just because google collected data on user searches in the past doesn't mean you can't collect data on user searches on your own platform today. > Your statement that we should ban user tracking is another example of you creating an absurd remedy as a strawman. I did not propose it as a remedy, it is a deliberately absurd conclusion meant to illustrate the flaw in your reasoning, i.e. the fact that every company collects user data and nobody ever views that practice as barrier to entry for competitors. > That doesn’t mean we have to deceive ourselves into believing that there are no barriers to entry to compete with Google. For someone that deigns to project insults about reading comprehension you sure are bad at it yourself. Re-read what I wrote. I never said there are no barriers to entry, I said that google's business model does not create barriers to entry for their competitors. If we're using every single competitive advantage as an example of a "barrier to entry" then the term is meaningless because it applies to every market leader.