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Would that really ever happen? Microsoft - a company so dominant it got an antitrust lawsuit - hasn't even been able to get 90% of the market share. No operatin

Would that really ever happen? Microsoft - a company so dominant it got an antitrust lawsuit - hasn't even been able to get 90% of the market share. No operating system since the very early days of computing has. Not only that, but other older operating systems are always going to have an advantage here anyway: they'll have support, ecosystems, documentation, and people with years of experience with them. Google isn't even a monopoly in search for heaven's sake! Only 87% of people use Google Search. If they can't get a monopoly there - and you really can't get a monopoly in almost any industry without government help - what makes you think they can get a near-monopoly in operating systems?

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> Only 87% of people use Google Search. Note that some ostensible competitors like Startpage are still powered by Google under the hood.
- logicprog 6y ago
  Ah, interesting.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
87% of the market is a monopoly by any legal definition.
- mrep 6y ago
  A monopoly is the sole supplier of a product or service and the fact that bing exists makes search not a monopoly. In the concept of antitrust, the United States Department of Justice does not use that term directly and instead talks about power and the Supreme Court has defined market power as "the ability to raise prices above those that would be charged in a competitive market," and monopoly power as "the power to control prices or exclude competition" [0]. Google does not posses monopoly power over search as they do not exclude you from using bing, nor do they control prices (bing in fact sets a lower price than Googles free in that they will pay you to use their search engine). They do have market power though. [0]: https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act-chapter-2 https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...
  - logicprog 6y ago
    I don't understand why people think monopoly means "big company," especially when size is contingent on continuing to serve customers better than competitors.
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      This is fundamentally untrue. Monopoly has nothing to do with product or service quality. This is proven by Google, which both has bad products and terrible service. Monopoly is built by using network effects and illegal business arrangements to gut competitors such that a better product cannot win in the market.
      - logicprog 6y ago
        Network effects aren't part of the quality of the product? Seems to me like they are. Interestingly as well, the most network-effect-ridden sectors of the internet, namely social media platforms, also seem to be the most diverse. There are a heck of a lot of social media platforms out there! Furthermore, what about Google Search allows it to take advantage of a network effect? It's a product designed to be used by a single person - it's not a social network. You can switch without incurring network effect problems. The real reason nobody is switching is that Google Search really is better than the alternatives: Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc, all have a plethora of users complaining about worse searches, even here. If someone were to make a search engine algorithm that led to a genuinely better experience (not for ideological or moral reasons, but actually better at finding what you want on a regular basis in a way the average person would care about), and had equally good (or better) user interface design, do you really think it would be that hard to switch? Face it, for the Average Joe, the experience of using Google is far better than any other option. That's why they're all using Google. They don't care so much about their data, they just want search results. In essence, they're paying for good search results by selling their search history. What illegal business arrangements has Google used to "gut competitors"? Nothing that Google seems to have done, besides being well known - as far as I know - has prevented other players from entering the market. This is definitely [citation needed] in this case. Furthermore, sure I made a hasty generalization, but the best way to keep competitors out of the market really is using the government. What else are you going to do? Buy every competitor that comes your way? That's not going to work for long, especially as you get worse in services (that's the whole point of monopoly power) so each competitor sees a bigger and bigger chance of reward in the amount of pent up demand (people who would really like to switch to something else). In conclusion, Google Search has not made it impossible for a better product to win in the market, it has not to my knowledge used illegal businesses, has certainly not gutted competitors except through actual market competition, and can't take advantage of network effects. It does not have bad products (I love most of Google's products, everything else is basically sh!t) nor does it have terrible service - even moreso for the Average Joe, as I said, who doesn't have an ideological commitment to hate Google. One could argue that monopoly can be kept by using network effects and "illegal business arrangments" (whatever that means) but that's not how a company gets big enough in the first place to do those things. The reason Google is big enough now to make everyone start freaking out is because their Search was that much better.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  The legal definition mentions market share? I find that hard to believe.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

> Only 87% of people use Google Search. Note that some ostensible competitors like Startpage are still powered by Google under the hood.

logicprog 6y ago
Ah, interesting.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

87% of the market is a monopoly by any legal definition.

mrep 6y ago
A monopoly is the sole supplier of a product or service and the fact that bing exists makes search not a monopoly. In the concept of antitrust, the United States Department of Justice does not use that term directly and instead talks about power and the Supreme Court has defined market power as "the ability to raise prices above those that would be charged in a competitive market," and monopoly power as "the power to control prices or exclude competition" [0]. Google does not posses monopoly power over search as they do not exclude you from using bing, nor do they control prices (bing in fact sets a lower price than Googles free in that they will pay you to use their search engine). They do have market power though. [0]: https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act-chapter-2 https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...
- logicprog 6y ago
  I don't understand why people think monopoly means "big company," especially when size is contingent on continuing to serve customers better than competitors.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    This is fundamentally untrue. Monopoly has nothing to do with product or service quality. This is proven by Google, which both has bad products and terrible service. Monopoly is built by using network effects and illegal business arrangements to gut competitors such that a better product cannot win in the market.
    - logicprog 6y ago
      Network effects aren't part of the quality of the product? Seems to me like they are. Interestingly as well, the most network-effect-ridden sectors of the internet, namely social media platforms, also seem to be the most diverse. There are a heck of a lot of social media platforms out there! Furthermore, what about Google Search allows it to take advantage of a network effect? It's a product designed to be used by a single person - it's not a social network. You can switch without incurring network effect problems. The real reason nobody is switching is that Google Search really is better than the alternatives: Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc, all have a plethora of users complaining about worse searches, even here. If someone were to make a search engine algorithm that led to a genuinely better experience (not for ideological or moral reasons, but actually better at finding what you want on a regular basis in a way the average person would care about), and had equally good (or better) user interface design, do you really think it would be that hard to switch? Face it, for the Average Joe, the experience of using Google is far better than any other option. That's why they're all using Google. They don't care so much about their data, they just want search results. In essence, they're paying for good search results by selling their search history. What illegal business arrangements has Google used to "gut competitors"? Nothing that Google seems to have done, besides being well known - as far as I know - has prevented other players from entering the market. This is definitely [citation needed] in this case. Furthermore, sure I made a hasty generalization, but the best way to keep competitors out of the market really is using the government. What else are you going to do? Buy every competitor that comes your way? That's not going to work for long, especially as you get worse in services (that's the whole point of monopoly power) so each competitor sees a bigger and bigger chance of reward in the amount of pent up demand (people who would really like to switch to something else). In conclusion, Google Search has not made it impossible for a better product to win in the market, it has not to my knowledge used illegal businesses, has certainly not gutted competitors except through actual market competition, and can't take advantage of network effects. It does not have bad products (I love most of Google's products, everything else is basically sh!t) nor does it have terrible service - even moreso for the Average Joe, as I said, who doesn't have an ideological commitment to hate Google. One could argue that monopoly can be kept by using network effects and "illegal business arrangments" (whatever that means) but that's not how a company gets big enough in the first place to do those things. The reason Google is big enough now to make everyone start freaking out is because their Search was that much better.
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
The legal definition mentions market share? I find that hard to believe.