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There’s actually a pretty good real world metaphor when you realize that Google is a telecommunications company. Imagine if when people called your restaurant
by CPLX 7y ago
There’s actually a pretty good real world metaphor when you realize that Google is a telecommunications company.
Imagine if when people called your restaurant to make a reservation the phone company had someone else answer the phone first and suggest you try a different restaurant.
No metaphor is perfect but that’s pretty reasonable. Conceptually Google is some kind of an amalgamation of a common carrier and natural regulated monopoly at this point and should be treated as such.
- ohithereyou 7y agoA similar issue with a phone company lead to the first creation of an automatic telephone exchange[1]: >Strowger, an undertaker, was motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the local telephone operators, one of whom was the wife of a competitor. He was said to be convinced that she, as one of the manual telephone exchange operators, was sending calls "to the undertaker" to her husband. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y agoEver been so pissed at a dude's wife, you invented a major telecom technology that took over the world and lead to better stuff?
- gowld 7y agoLike the Yellow Pages, where your phone listing is immediately adjacent to listings for all your competitors.
- Untit1ed 7y agoI'd argue this use of Google is more like the White Pages, where you look up by name alphabetically. Yellow Pages would be more like googling "<cuisine> Restaurant in <town>", in which case displaying with all your competitors is much more reasonable.