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Is anyone else tired of seeing the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day. So, we want to break up Google because it has gotten too bi

Is anyone else tired of seeing the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day. So, we want to break up Google because it has gotten too big. What about Luxottica? It has over 80% market share on eyewear brands. What about Pearson? It has over 60% market share on testing market? What about Paypal? It has over 80% market share on online payments. What about Aetna (merged with Humana) on health care market? List goes on..

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
Aetna shouldn’t be broken up - it should be nationalised!
robbrown451 6y ago
Because this is HackerNews and we are more affected by Google than those other companies.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  I doubt this. Most people here employ ad blocking of some form, use Firefox and religiously de-google. At least this particular thread is probably 90% of those people.
  - robbrown451 6y ago
    If you work in the tech industry or have a web site, I'd say there's a good chance you are affected by Google.
FridgeSeal 6y ago
If the ball gets rolling with breaking up one of these companies and the rest follow, isn't that a good outcome? Arguing for all-or-nothing feels like letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. For what it's worth I do think those ones should be broken up as well, no reason to confine our attention just to popular tech companies.
akira2501 6y ago
All these companies obtained this market share by purchasing competitors or integrating surrounding businesses. You're right though, they're all problems and shouldn't have been allowed to acquire so casually to their current market positions. That being said, Google gets primary access to your personal data and habits, and then also gets to sell advertising based on that data. That's certainly more unseemly than having too few choices for eyewear, don't you think?
- keith__talent 6y ago
  "That being said, Google gets primary access to your personal data and habits, and then also gets to sell advertising based on that data." Then lets find legislation that enforces privacy, but still allows them to work with advertisers. The platform is here, but needs adjustment.
- rob74 6y ago
  Well, you are still free to not use Google and deny them access to your data, there are alternatives to all of their services. With some of the other companies mentioned, this might be trickier...
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  > All these companies obtained this market share by purchasing competitors And Google has acquired hundreds of companies in the last 20 years.
guerrilla 6y ago
I'm tired of there being reasons for the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day. > What about Luxottica? It has over 80% market share on eyewear brands. I would assume optometrists and opthamologists argue about that on their own forums rather than this tech forum filled with people mostly from tech.
harry8 6y ago
Paypal? Absolutely. Luxottica, Pearson, Aetna - no idea. Perhaps they're having similar discussions on eywear community messageboards and healthcare messageboards where they know about such things? Or perhaps you can write a sensible, well-reasoned article using evidence on how these companies are similar to Facebook, Google or some other tech behmoth and what the appropriate remedies are or aren't? Just a thought.
zozbot234 6y ago
Large market share just doesn't mean much unless the market has non-trivial barriers to entry that make competition infeasible. And that's certainly the case wrt. the 'platform'-like businesses of Google and other large tech firms. They should simply be required to be interoperable with other players in the market, and a break-up is definitely one way of pursuing this.
anonytrary 6y ago
Your argument doesn't take into account the absolute market size and influence. No one is churning out propaganda on the other companies you mentioned because those markets are either much smaller or much harder to manipulate than Google's market. Why would people try to cancel Luxottica? Eyewear touches a much smaller market and doesn't have nearly the same potential to manipulate people as Google does (at least not yet). People will always focus all of their attention on the largest threat.
lenkite 6y ago
Ok, if you don't want to break them up, then can we at-least consider anti-trust charges? US anti-trust litigation has degraded to the point of non-existence. Microsoft faced anti-trust charges in 1998 that will puzzle most youngsters in HN today - because both Google and Apple do far-far worse. Destroying all competition via control of the market has become normalised US corporate behaviour. Why has this been allowed to occur ? For all its faults, the EU appears to notice this when the US doesn't.
- robin_reala 6y ago
  You’re forgetting the monopoly situation Microsoft had for desktop computing in the late nineties. For better or worse, neither Google nor Apple has a monopoly in mobile, and Apple aren’t really attempting to leverage their natural monopoly in tablet computing (leaving aside the somewhat dubious WebKit requirement on iOS).
  - lenkite 6y ago
    Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors.
elorant 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
thereyougo 6y ago
exactly. I'm not saying that those companies are perfect, but writing opinion articles only against them it's becoming a bit too much. You can also find it in many marketing strategies of some companies. Take duckduckgo for example, I love them more than google but I'm kinda tired of 'Use us, Because Google is BAD' approach
kevingadd 6y ago
I think you underestimate how many fans of strong anti-trust enforcement would actually be in favor of breaking up almost every one of those mega-companies that's been vacuuming up competitors through acquisitions for decades. All the examples you mentioned probably have a negative impact on the market (and the public), the ones I'm familiar with definitely do.
205guy 6y ago
This is his 3rd article in a “series” on breaking up monopolies. In his first article, he summarizes a book and covers your examples: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/06/08/Anti-monopoly https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/06/08/Anti-mono... His second article is about breaking AWS out of Amazon, into a fictional company called A-Cloud. And he’s using Amazon’s own project planning process to do so, though I can’t tell if it’s out of habit or for the mordant irony. https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/06/21/A-Cloud-PR-FAQ https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/06/21/A-Cloud-P...

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago

Aetna shouldn’t be broken up - it should be nationalised!

robbrown451 6y ago

Because this is HackerNews and we are more affected by Google than those other companies.

searchableguy 6y ago
I doubt this. Most people here employ ad blocking of some form, use Firefox and religiously de-google. At least this particular thread is probably 90% of those people.
- robbrown451 6y ago
  If you work in the tech industry or have a web site, I'd say there's a good chance you are affected by Google.

FridgeSeal 6y ago

If the ball gets rolling with breaking up one of these companies and the rest follow, isn't that a good outcome? Arguing for all-or-nothing feels like letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. For what it's worth I do think those ones should be broken up as well, no reason to confine our attention just to popular tech companies.

akira2501 6y ago

All these companies obtained this market share by purchasing competitors or integrating surrounding businesses. You're right though, they're all problems and shouldn't have been allowed to acquire so casually to their current market positions. That being said, Google gets primary access to your personal data and habits, and then also gets to sell advertising based on that data. That's certainly more unseemly than having too few choices for eyewear, don't you think?

keith__talent 6y ago
"That being said, Google gets primary access to your personal data and habits, and then also gets to sell advertising based on that data." Then lets find legislation that enforces privacy, but still allows them to work with advertisers. The platform is here, but needs adjustment.
rob74 6y ago
Well, you are still free to not use Google and deny them access to your data, there are alternatives to all of their services. With some of the other companies mentioned, this might be trickier...
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> All these companies obtained this market share by purchasing competitors And Google has acquired hundreds of companies in the last 20 years.

guerrilla 6y ago

I'm tired of there being reasons for the same hate Facebook, Zoom and Google narratives every single day. > What about Luxottica? It has over 80% market share on eyewear brands. I would assume optometrists and opthamologists argue about that on their own forums rather than this tech forum filled with people mostly from tech.

harry8 6y ago

Paypal? Absolutely. Luxottica, Pearson, Aetna - no idea. Perhaps they're having similar discussions on eywear community messageboards and healthcare messageboards where they know about such things? Or perhaps you can write a sensible, well-reasoned article using evidence on how these companies are similar to Facebook, Google or some other tech behmoth and what the appropriate remedies are or aren't? Just a thought.

zozbot234 6y ago

Large market share just doesn't mean much unless the market has non-trivial barriers to entry that make competition infeasible. And that's certainly the case wrt. the 'platform'-like businesses of Google and other large tech firms. They should simply be required to be interoperable with other players in the market, and a break-up is definitely one way of pursuing this.

anonytrary 6y ago

Your argument doesn't take into account the absolute market size and influence. No one is churning out propaganda on the other companies you mentioned because those markets are either much smaller or much harder to manipulate than Google's market. Why would people try to cancel Luxottica? Eyewear touches a much smaller market and doesn't have nearly the same potential to manipulate people as Google does (at least not yet). People will always focus all of their attention on the largest threat.

lenkite 6y ago

Ok, if you don't want to break them up, then can we at-least consider anti-trust charges? US anti-trust litigation has degraded to the point of non-existence. Microsoft faced anti-trust charges in 1998 that will puzzle most youngsters in HN today - because both Google and Apple do far-far worse. Destroying all competition via control of the market has become normalised US corporate behaviour. Why has this been allowed to occur ? For all its faults, the EU appears to notice this when the US doesn't.

robin_reala 6y ago
You’re forgetting the monopoly situation Microsoft had for desktop computing in the late nineties. For better or worse, neither Google nor Apple has a monopoly in mobile, and Apple aren’t really attempting to leverage their natural monopoly in tablet computing (leaving aside the somewhat dubious WebKit requirement on iOS).
- lenkite 6y ago
  Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors.

elorant 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

thereyougo 6y ago

exactly. I'm not saying that those companies are perfect, but writing opinion articles only against them it's becoming a bit too much. You can also find it in many marketing strategies of some companies. Take duckduckgo for example, I love them more than google but I'm kinda tired of 'Use us, Because Google is BAD' approach

kevingadd 6y ago

I think you underestimate how many fans of strong anti-trust enforcement would actually be in favor of breaking up almost every one of those mega-companies that's been vacuuming up competitors through acquisitions for decades. All the examples you mentioned probably have a negative impact on the market (and the public), the ones I'm familiar with definitely do.

205guy 6y ago

This is his 3rd article in a “series” on breaking up monopolies. In his first article, he summarizes a book and covers your examples: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/06/08/Anti-monopoly https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/06/08/Anti-mono... His second article is about breaking AWS out of Amazon, into a fictional company called A-Cloud. And he’s using Amazon’s own project planning process to do so, though I can’t tell if it’s out of habit or for the mordant irony. https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/06/21/A-Cloud-PR-FAQ https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/06/21/A-Cloud-P...