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This just isn't how a majority of people find sites, though. To your normal users, google may as well be the address bar. Hell, I've watched users go to google,

This just isn't how a majority of people find sites, though. To your normal users, google may as well be the address bar. Hell, I've watched users go to google, type facebook.com (or wherever they're going) into google, and then click on the first ad link. So, you have this situation where typing basecamp.com into google may not bring basecamp as the first result and the people buying the ads know that.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Hence snidane's comment about location location location is accurate. Google owns a coveted location, and now they can charge rent for it. Apple owns a coveted location, and charges Google rent for it. But it could not be simpler or easier to bypass Google.
- yabadabadoes 7y ago
  > But it could not be simpler or easier to bypass Google. Really? Unless you pay Apple considerably more, you will have a google search bar prominently on your phone that you can gimp but cant hide or change to another search provider.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    I was thinking about on a desktop, but even on mobile, tapping the browser icon and then tapping the address bar is not a burden from my perspective. Perhaps google is abusing their position as makers of Android, but it’s tough to see a argument to not let them put their own search bar on their own software.
    - yabadabadoes 7y ago
      A profit model based on the defaults is certainly pretty reasonable, and eforcing that on manufacturers is perhaps logical, but if a company is afraid of letting the user change the defaults to use different combinations of products that they prefer then you are basically the reason for antitrust legislation. (Either the products require this coercion, few people would switch or you are using a product in one area to prevent new competition in another.)
  - mokus 7y ago
    I have been racking my brain for several minutes now trying to figure out what you’re taking about. I never paid Apple anything to switch my Safari search bar to DuckDuckGo, and I can’t imagine 3rd party browsers are restricted from using a plain address bar or any search provider they want
    - yabadabadoes 7y ago
      I meant 80% of the market runs Android primarily on hardware price.. If you are using a newer Android, the manufacturer has been coerced to make a google search bar not only prominent but impossible to hide, even manually by the user.
      - mokus 7y ago
        Ah, that makes sense. I was afraid maybe you were referring to something horrible coming in iOS 13
- whoopdedo 7y ago
  Voice control is becoming the de facto interface on phones, cars, and home connected devices. That puts Google or Apple directly between you and what you want with no equivalent alternative.
  - Filligree 7y ago
    And yet if you ask Assistant to search for and open a webpage, it'll pick the first search result while ignoring the ads. Of course it would -- it's basically "I'm feeling lucky" in a different format, which never did care about ads.
- batty_alex 7y ago
  > But it could not be simpler or easier to bypass Google. My point was that your run-of-the-mill user doesn't do this. It is easy to bypass, but how many people actually do it? You're just saying to me that people should become power users or just accept that they're victims of manipulative advertising. Anyway, the rent they're charging is other products masquerading under Bootcamp's popular name. They're essentially charging Bootcamp rent so that "fraudsters" can't eat up the top positions in search results for your product. Grocery stores don't let a Cheerios knock-off named Cheerio-os sit on the end-caps because they paid more than Cheerios. If I go to my grocery store and ask for Cheerios, they'll take me to it - not Cheerio-os because they paid more for me to find them. It sounds like a racket to me. You can pay google to keep your company at the top of the search results, or they can break your kneecaps by making you hard to find. And why is rent-seeking behavior something that we want in a search engine we are supposed use to find relevant information?
ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
The same could be said for physical shopping, though. The majority of people are not going to drive out into the countryside or the warehouse district to find your particular clothing store. They're going to walk to the fifth avenue shopping district or Herald Square. And, indeed, your competitors are all there, even if the user intended to go directly to your store. You can easily observe the same phenomenon in the clustering of car dealerships. I mean the fundamental observation, I feel, is that you don't have a right to be free from competition just because the user has heard your name. To believe otherwise is anti-user and anti-consumer. It is good that Basecamp's competitors can advertise to its potential users, because that increases the level of competition and information in the marketplace.

lotsofpulp 7y ago

Hence snidane's comment about location location location is accurate. Google owns a coveted location, and now they can charge rent for it. Apple owns a coveted location, and charges Google rent for it. But it could not be simpler or easier to bypass Google.

yabadabadoes 7y ago
> But it could not be simpler or easier to bypass Google. Really? Unless you pay Apple considerably more, you will have a google search bar prominently on your phone that you can gimp but cant hide or change to another search provider.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I was thinking about on a desktop, but even on mobile, tapping the browser icon and then tapping the address bar is not a burden from my perspective. Perhaps google is abusing their position as makers of Android, but it’s tough to see a argument to not let them put their own search bar on their own software.
  - yabadabadoes 7y ago
    A profit model based on the defaults is certainly pretty reasonable, and eforcing that on manufacturers is perhaps logical, but if a company is afraid of letting the user change the defaults to use different combinations of products that they prefer then you are basically the reason for antitrust legislation. (Either the products require this coercion, few people would switch or you are using a product in one area to prevent new competition in another.)
- mokus 7y ago
  I have been racking my brain for several minutes now trying to figure out what you’re taking about. I never paid Apple anything to switch my Safari search bar to DuckDuckGo, and I can’t imagine 3rd party browsers are restricted from using a plain address bar or any search provider they want
  - yabadabadoes 7y ago
    I meant 80% of the market runs Android primarily on hardware price.. If you are using a newer Android, the manufacturer has been coerced to make a google search bar not only prominent but impossible to hide, even manually by the user.
    - mokus 7y ago
      Ah, that makes sense. I was afraid maybe you were referring to something horrible coming in iOS 13
whoopdedo 7y ago
Voice control is becoming the de facto interface on phones, cars, and home connected devices. That puts Google or Apple directly between you and what you want with no equivalent alternative.
- Filligree 7y ago
  And yet if you ask Assistant to search for and open a webpage, it'll pick the first search result while ignoring the ads. Of course it would -- it's basically "I'm feeling lucky" in a different format, which never did care about ads.
batty_alex 7y ago
> But it could not be simpler or easier to bypass Google. My point was that your run-of-the-mill user doesn't do this. It is easy to bypass, but how many people actually do it? You're just saying to me that people should become power users or just accept that they're victims of manipulative advertising. Anyway, the rent they're charging is other products masquerading under Bootcamp's popular name. They're essentially charging Bootcamp rent so that "fraudsters" can't eat up the top positions in search results for your product. Grocery stores don't let a Cheerios knock-off named Cheerio-os sit on the end-caps because they paid more than Cheerios. If I go to my grocery store and ask for Cheerios, they'll take me to it - not Cheerio-os because they paid more for me to find them. It sounds like a racket to me. You can pay google to keep your company at the top of the search results, or they can break your kneecaps by making you hard to find. And why is rent-seeking behavior something that we want in a search engine we are supposed use to find relevant information?

ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago

The same could be said for physical shopping, though. The majority of people are not going to drive out into the countryside or the warehouse district to find your particular clothing store. They're going to walk to the fifth avenue shopping district or Herald Square. And, indeed, your competitors are all there, even if the user intended to go directly to your store. You can easily observe the same phenomenon in the clustering of car dealerships. I mean the fundamental observation, I feel, is that you don't have a right to be free from competition just because the user has heard your name. To believe otherwise is anti-user and anti-consumer. It is good that Basecamp's competitors can advertise to its potential users, because that increases the level of competition and information in the marketplace.