4 ms·

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.

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.