6 ms·

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 Stat

by 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.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      If you include network effects as part of the quality of a product you torpedo any argument that would posit that the free market is optimal for all parties in products where the network effect is similar, because that means that you will always end up with a monopoly in all but name and that you will refuse to call it a monopoly, which leads to bad outcomes for the vast majority of actors.
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      You looked at the wrong side of Google Search, which is why you didn't understand it. Searchers are the product being sold, Google Search's business is ads, and it's customers are advertisers. Due to their monopoly, businesses can't switch: You might hate Google. Google might be your direct competitor. No matter what, you have to give Google money, and Google gets to make all of your web design decisions, because if Google doesn't approve of you, you don't exist. Google isn't good at this, it's just that you really can't leave. They have too much search data solely based on the fact everyone already uses them. Why does everyone already use them? They're the default. Through investing in web browsers and mobile OSes, Google is the default everywhere already. And the majority don't ever change the default. So no matter how bad they are at search, they remain in top.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
asah 6y ago
bing has under 3% marketshare vs 92.06% for google. As an advertiser or app/publisher, google has "the power to control prices or exclude competition." https://www.google.com/search?q=bing+market+share https://www.google.com/search?q=bing+market+share
- mrep 6y ago
  From Section IV of the Justice Departments article: The Supreme Court has noted the crucial role that defining the relevant market plays in section 2 monopolization and attempt cases. The market-definition requirement brings discipline and structure to the monopoly-power inquiry, thereby reducing the risks and costs of error. The relevant product market in a section 2 case, as elsewhere in antitrust, "is composed of products that have reasonable interchangeability for the purposes for which they are produced--price, use and qualities considered." Thus, the market is defined with regard to demand substitution, which focuses on buyers' views of which products are acceptable substitutes or alternatives. For search advertising, they will likely find other forms of advertising such as Facebook as a good enough substitute and thus the market definition will include other forms of advertising and not just search. For app publishing, you can publish your app for android yourself which Fortnite did. iOS distribution on the other hand can probably be argued for that and in fact they are getting sued for their "abusive monopoly in iOS app/in-app distribution services" [0]. [0] (PDF): https://www.hbsslaw.com/uploads/case_downloads/apple-dev/2019-06-04-complaint-apple-developers.pdf https://www.hbsslaw.com/uploads/case_downloads/apple-dev/201...
  - bsaul 6y ago
    "For search advertising, they will likely find other forms of advertising such as Facebook as a good enough substitute and thus the market definition will include other forms of advertising and not just search." Nope, they won't. because 92% of people search the web on google.
    - logicprog 6y ago
      He just said that they could find other places online to advertise ("other forms of advertising such as Facebook"), not that they could find other SEARCH places. Do companies really care whether it's on Google Search or some other place, as long as they get eyes? And really, Google doesn't own 92% of the web, lol.

by mrep 6y ago

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.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    If you include network effects as part of the quality of a product you torpedo any argument that would posit that the free market is optimal for all parties in products where the network effect is similar, because that means that you will always end up with a monopoly in all but name and that you will refuse to call it a monopoly, which leads to bad outcomes for the vast majority of actors.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    You looked at the wrong side of Google Search, which is why you didn't understand it. Searchers are the product being sold, Google Search's business is ads, and it's customers are advertisers. Due to their monopoly, businesses can't switch: You might hate Google. Google might be your direct competitor. No matter what, you have to give Google money, and Google gets to make all of your web design decisions, because if Google doesn't approve of you, you don't exist. Google isn't good at this, it's just that you really can't leave. They have too much search data solely based on the fact everyone already uses them. Why does everyone already use them? They're the default. Through investing in web browsers and mobile OSes, Google is the default everywhere already. And the majority don't ever change the default. So no matter how bad they are at search, they remain in top.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

asah 6y ago

bing has under 3% marketshare vs 92.06% for google. As an advertiser or app/publisher, google has "the power to control prices or exclude competition." https://www.google.com/search?q=bing+market+share https://www.google.com/search?q=bing+market+share

mrep 6y ago
From Section IV of the Justice Departments article: The Supreme Court has noted the crucial role that defining the relevant market plays in section 2 monopolization and attempt cases. The market-definition requirement brings discipline and structure to the monopoly-power inquiry, thereby reducing the risks and costs of error. The relevant product market in a section 2 case, as elsewhere in antitrust, "is composed of products that have reasonable interchangeability for the purposes for which they are produced--price, use and qualities considered." Thus, the market is defined with regard to demand substitution, which focuses on buyers' views of which products are acceptable substitutes or alternatives. For search advertising, they will likely find other forms of advertising such as Facebook as a good enough substitute and thus the market definition will include other forms of advertising and not just search. For app publishing, you can publish your app for android yourself which Fortnite did. iOS distribution on the other hand can probably be argued for that and in fact they are getting sued for their "abusive monopoly in iOS app/in-app distribution services" [0]. [0] (PDF): https://www.hbsslaw.com/uploads/case_downloads/apple-dev/2019-06-04-complaint-apple-developers.pdf https://www.hbsslaw.com/uploads/case_downloads/apple-dev/201...
- bsaul 6y ago
  "For search advertising, they will likely find other forms of advertising such as Facebook as a good enough substitute and thus the market definition will include other forms of advertising and not just search." Nope, they won't. because 92% of people search the web on google.
  - logicprog 6y ago
    He just said that they could find other places online to advertise ("other forms of advertising such as Facebook"), not that they could find other SEARCH places. Do companies really care whether it's on Google Search or some other place, as long as they get eyes? And really, Google doesn't own 92% of the web, lol.