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The government intentionally created the Airline oligopoly by banning foreign airlines from operating domestic flights in the US, and further by allowing Unite

The government intentionally created the Airline oligopoly by banning foreign airlines from operating domestic flights in the US, and further by allowing United, American and Delta to form joint-ventures with foreign airlines to control prices/schedules between continents. Is Google really a monopoly? Many people use Outlook, iPhones, Apple Maps, AWS, Bing, HERE maps etc...

jbeam 6y ago
The antitrust investigation is focused on online advertising. So Outlook, iPhones, maps, AWS doesn't really apply there. "Many people" might use Bing, but Google dwarfs it in market share. I'm not particularly familiar with the infrastructure of the ad business, but my layman's view is that alternatives are slim outside of Google for search engine and the more general web and Facebook for specifically social media.
- thephyber 6y ago
  > The antitrust investigation is focused on X so Y doesn't really apply there. Antitrust prosecutions are heavily dependent upon shaping the "market" which supposedly is being monopolized. There is no good argument for antitrust against the Apple App Store if the market is "all transactional marketplaces where software can be purchased", but there is a good argument if the market is narrowly defined as "all transactional marketplaces where software can be installed onto iOS mobile devices". Look for similar shaping of the market by both sides (the prosecutor will attempt to narrow the market and the defendants will attempt to broaden the market). Also worth noting that Amazon already chipping away at Google's market share dominance in online advertising[1]. By the time the DOJ's prosecution goes thru the courts, the market is likely to be significantly changed from where it was when AG Sessions (who started these investigations) started crafting an anti-tech-giants strategy. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/amazon-is-eating-into-googles-dominance-in-search-ads.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/amazon-is-eating-into-google...
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    > "all transactional marketplaces where software can be installed onto iOS mobile devices" This is clearly the case though? The App Store doesn't sell, say, Windows software, and iOS devices refuse to run software from (for example) the Google Play store.
    - thephyber 6y ago
      Yes it's clearly the case, but it's not clear that there are any market benefits by the government forcing all app stores to sell all software, irrespective of the platform the software runs on. This would effectively deny all businesses the ability to work just in their niche/forte and destroys the "competitive advantage" (economics term) of most/all businesses.
remarkEon 6y ago
Is there something fundamentally wrong with creating the Airline oligopoly though? Maintaining domestic ability for commercial airline traffic seems like a smart idea. Having a singular search and ad network company doesn't.
olliej 6y ago
For advertising it is, especially since they were allowed to purchase their only real competitor years ago.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  I think the snarky response here would be “When did Google buy Facebook?” If you’re willing to restrict the scope of the “internet advertising market” to just specifically the things that Google dominates, then duh, Google has total control of “internet advertising”. And yet, there’s another multi-hundred billion dollar company that makes most of its money by advertising on the internet. Scoping markets in this way is nonsense. It a marketer wants to market products on the internet, are they going to put all of their money into Google because it’s the only way to advertise on the internet? Obviously not. And further, therefore there is obviously not a monopoly.
ghastmaster 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920 Exactly. The Federal government speaks out of both sides of it's mouth. If monopolies fail to spur innovation as is suggested by many, then regulatory burdens such as the Jones Act do even more explicitly.
subsubzero 6y ago
Actually its worse that I thought! Google controls 91.89% of the search market [1] G controls 68% of the browser market [2] G's android is on 84% of phones operating systems [3] G has 73% of the search advertising market [4] These numbers are really scary, if you care about fair competition and a just, balanced society. [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/544400/market-share-of-internet-browsers-desktop/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/544400/market-share-of-i... [3] https://beta.trimread.com/articles/16433 https://beta.trimread.com/articles/16433 [4] https://www.geekwire.com/2019/amazon-gaining-google-search-advertising-market-share/ https://www.geekwire.com/2019/amazon-gaining-google-search-a...

jbeam 6y ago

The antitrust investigation is focused on online advertising. So Outlook, iPhones, maps, AWS doesn't really apply there. "Many people" might use Bing, but Google dwarfs it in market share. I'm not particularly familiar with the infrastructure of the ad business, but my layman's view is that alternatives are slim outside of Google for search engine and the more general web and Facebook for specifically social media.

thephyber 6y ago
> The antitrust investigation is focused on X so Y doesn't really apply there. Antitrust prosecutions are heavily dependent upon shaping the "market" which supposedly is being monopolized. There is no good argument for antitrust against the Apple App Store if the market is "all transactional marketplaces where software can be purchased", but there is a good argument if the market is narrowly defined as "all transactional marketplaces where software can be installed onto iOS mobile devices". Look for similar shaping of the market by both sides (the prosecutor will attempt to narrow the market and the defendants will attempt to broaden the market). Also worth noting that Amazon already chipping away at Google's market share dominance in online advertising[1]. By the time the DOJ's prosecution goes thru the courts, the market is likely to be significantly changed from where it was when AG Sessions (who started these investigations) started crafting an anti-tech-giants strategy. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/amazon-is-eating-into-googles-dominance-in-search-ads.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/amazon-is-eating-into-google...
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > "all transactional marketplaces where software can be installed onto iOS mobile devices" This is clearly the case though? The App Store doesn't sell, say, Windows software, and iOS devices refuse to run software from (for example) the Google Play store.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    Yes it's clearly the case, but it's not clear that there are any market benefits by the government forcing all app stores to sell all software, irrespective of the platform the software runs on. This would effectively deny all businesses the ability to work just in their niche/forte and destroys the "competitive advantage" (economics term) of most/all businesses.

remarkEon 6y ago

Is there something fundamentally wrong with creating the Airline oligopoly though? Maintaining domestic ability for commercial airline traffic seems like a smart idea. Having a singular search and ad network company doesn't.

olliej 6y ago

For advertising it is, especially since they were allowed to purchase their only real competitor years ago.

dodobirdlord 6y ago
I think the snarky response here would be “When did Google buy Facebook?” If you’re willing to restrict the scope of the “internet advertising market” to just specifically the things that Google dominates, then duh, Google has total control of “internet advertising”. And yet, there’s another multi-hundred billion dollar company that makes most of its money by advertising on the internet. Scoping markets in this way is nonsense. It a marketer wants to market products on the internet, are they going to put all of their money into Google because it’s the only way to advertise on the internet? Obviously not. And further, therefore there is obviously not a monopoly.

ghastmaster 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920 Exactly. The Federal government speaks out of both sides of it's mouth. If monopolies fail to spur innovation as is suggested by many, then regulatory burdens such as the Jones Act do even more explicitly.

subsubzero 6y ago

Actually its worse that I thought! Google controls 91.89% of the search market [1] G controls 68% of the browser market [2] G's android is on 84% of phones operating systems [3] G has 73% of the search advertising market [4] These numbers are really scary, if you care about fair competition and a just, balanced society. [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/544400/market-share-of-internet-browsers-desktop/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/544400/market-share-of-i... [3] https://beta.trimread.com/articles/16433 https://beta.trimread.com/articles/16433 [4] https://www.geekwire.com/2019/amazon-gaining-google-search-advertising-market-share/ https://www.geekwire.com/2019/amazon-gaining-google-search-a...