4 ms·

Google Talk and Documents aren't very good, but I'll give you GMail. But in any case, the issue with Google is that we're the product and the advertisers are t

Google Talk and Documents aren't very good, but I'll give you GMail. But in any case, the issue with Google is that we're the product and the advertisers are the customer. Google's ad product probably is worse than any comparable MS product I can recall -- at least from the perspective of the customer. And lets be clear, MS never built something you had to use, any more than you have to use Google's ad product. You use them both because they are dominant in their industry. But for both, there was a time when they weren't the most dominant. People made a choice to use their products. The thing that almost makes Microsoft a more sympathetic monopoly is that their monopoly was to the customers that used the product. So if you want to end their monopoloy in Windows, stop using the product and use something else. If enough people do that, the monopoly ceases. Google's monopoly is indirect. As an advertiser, even if I move to another ad platform -- if my product doesn't move (the people searching with Google search), I'm still screwed. An uprising by the customer can't change the monopoly -- they need to get to the product. (Note, there are technically different names for these two different forms of industry domination, but its not uncommon to refer to them under the same name -- anti-competitive behaviors can apply to either).

nkassis 16y ago
Wow, I mean, I'm young but I do remember the late 90s where every document had to be in .doc format (last I checked it's still pretty mendatory) or else no one could open it and Microsoft did everything they could to prevent other from reimplementing that format. Or how microsoft took a protocol like netbios and then smb and made it so that no one could interface with their network protocols without some crazy reverse engineering (thank you Tridge). Or how IE took over and slowly started adding incompatible stuff (look at activex and jscript as a good example) to make it impossible to work without, I still find apps that require IE6 to function. What about their attempt to re implement java and make it incompatible. ... the list goes on but show me a similar list from Google.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I do remember the late 90s where every document had to be in .doc format How did this happen? Was Bill Gates president and make that the law? There's no way you could use WordPerfect? That was illegal? Oh, WordPerfect start sucking in the 90s didn't it, so you stopped using it like I did? But that didn't have anything to do with it, did it? Try transfering your ad campaign from Google to Bing? It is incredibly poor fidelity. Support for the .doc format in 1997 was better than the support you get porting your ad campaign. I'd like to have other search providers use my gmail email data. How do I do that? Oh, it's not supported? I thought it was my email? As an advertiser can I decent placement support or clickfraud data? No. OK, I'll just go to another search ad provider -- oh wait, you're the only game in town. I'll play by your rules.
  - invisible 16y ago
    1) He was saying doc was a standard and that Microsoft was ensuring no one else could create doc files. The latter part is the monopoly. 2) This is totally not a one sided problem. You think Microsoft is emailing Google to work with them on the issues? Ha. 3) You can POP/IMAP into your Gmail and download all of your email. 4) You squashed this into the same paragraph as the email thing, but yeah, that sucks. I agree. Alternatively you can use them until you are big enough and then hire someone to get ads directly from people but that doesn't help the small guy. I don't know what a noble solution is to this is - maybe everyone should agree on a format for moving ad campaigns around? But hell, even Chrome asks on first run what search provider you want to use in a SANE way that encourages people to pick, unlike the IE of today that makes you jump through 15 screens just to get to pick a search provider. I'd hardly say they are being monopolistic (which is the actual illegal part of being a monopoly).
  - nerfhammer 16y ago
    > Try transfering your ad campaign from Google to Bing? It is incredibly poor fidelity. Wat? This is the whole principle of an ad exchange.
  - nkassis 16y ago
    You could download all your emails with pop or imap if you wanted. This has always been supported. It would have been nice to use WordPerfect but as you mention people wanted a conversion that retain the layout of the original .doc When I can't even get a simple table from Office to WordPerfect to work properly what's the point (nothing fancy), where not talking excel formulas. If the document specs had been made available, you bet WordPerfect would have that implemented in no time. Word did have good support for WordPerfect files thus it was a one way street.
  - Natsu 16y ago
    > How did this happen? Was Bill Gates president and make that the law? He used product tying and manipulated vendors into anti-competitive agreements such that they would either use what Microsoft wanted them to use exclusively or they wouldn't be able to offer it at all. As for how they got the initial traction, they managed to get bundled with the IBM PC. IBM back in the day used exactly the same sort of tactics ("Nobody ever got fired for using IBM" & they invented FUD), though they've reformed quite a bit since then. WordPerfect, Borland's compilers, etc. were widely considered the best back in the day, so I don't think it was primarily the strength of Microsoft's products which made people use them.
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  Furthermore, Google actually actively fights user lock in with the "Data Liberation Front". Decide that Google has gone evil and you no longer want to use their services? Grab your data and get out. It's the exact opposite of the kind of crap Microsoft pulled.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    That's not the same thing. With Word and Excel you could always save to RTF, TXT, or CSV. Plus supporting exporting to a huge host of 3rd party proprietary formats as well. But people wanted the full fidelity of the MS file formats on different systems. Like I want the full power of GMail with a different ad provider. Getting the data out is easy. You could do that with any version of Word/Excel. In fact, you could have built automation tools to do this, drop it into an ETL, and have it anywhere you like. The data is rarely the full issue. It's the fidelity of service that people want.
    - nkassis 16y ago
      Even basic fidelity was not possible due to some really complex issues (excel date format) which were not documented anywhere. Look at the PDF format, it's a very complex format that almost no one fully support, but the 95% of features people use are supported in a bunch of non-adobe viewers and creators. This only happened after adobe made the PDF spec open. And they still make a ton of money off Adobe Acrobat.
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        I just exported a bunch of date fields to a CSV. They look fine. Probably 95% of Excel files in use can be exported as a CSV and capture all the data.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      > With Word and Excel you could always save to RTF, TXT, or CSV. Good luck with your formulas in CSV... > Getting the data out is easy. You could do that with any version of Word/Excel. Ken... I have had problems with different releases of Office (PC and Mac) importing Office documents... It was never easy. It wasn't even very predictable.
spot 16y ago
1) actually they did force you to use IE, it was called directly by the OS, and some of their online interactions required it. 2) mostly it wasn't forcing you, just making it very hard for you to leave their ecosystem. exporting your email out of outlook for example was intentionally made difficult.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  1) actually they did force you to use IE, it was called directly by the OS, and some of their online interactions required it. So you were required to use Windows? I used an Amiga until it was on its deathbed, so I find it hard to believe that you had to use Windows.
zem 16y ago
you're forgetting that microsoft actively leaned on hardware manufacturers so that they were forced into deals where they had to exclusively sell pcs with windows installed, or be penalised with higher licensing costs. that in turn meant that yes, you did have to use microsoft's product, or at the very least pay for it.

nkassis 16y ago

Wow, I mean, I'm young but I do remember the late 90s where every document had to be in .doc format (last I checked it's still pretty mendatory) or else no one could open it and Microsoft did everything they could to prevent other from reimplementing that format. Or how microsoft took a protocol like netbios and then smb and made it so that no one could interface with their network protocols without some crazy reverse engineering (thank you Tridge). Or how IE took over and slowly started adding incompatible stuff (look at activex and jscript as a good example) to make it impossible to work without, I still find apps that require IE6 to function. What about their attempt to re implement java and make it incompatible. ... the list goes on but show me a similar list from Google.

kenjackson 16y ago
I do remember the late 90s where every document had to be in .doc format How did this happen? Was Bill Gates president and make that the law? There's no way you could use WordPerfect? That was illegal? Oh, WordPerfect start sucking in the 90s didn't it, so you stopped using it like I did? But that didn't have anything to do with it, did it? Try transfering your ad campaign from Google to Bing? It is incredibly poor fidelity. Support for the .doc format in 1997 was better than the support you get porting your ad campaign. I'd like to have other search providers use my gmail email data. How do I do that? Oh, it's not supported? I thought it was my email? As an advertiser can I decent placement support or clickfraud data? No. OK, I'll just go to another search ad provider -- oh wait, you're the only game in town. I'll play by your rules.
- invisible 16y ago
  1) He was saying doc was a standard and that Microsoft was ensuring no one else could create doc files. The latter part is the monopoly. 2) This is totally not a one sided problem. You think Microsoft is emailing Google to work with them on the issues? Ha. 3) You can POP/IMAP into your Gmail and download all of your email. 4) You squashed this into the same paragraph as the email thing, but yeah, that sucks. I agree. Alternatively you can use them until you are big enough and then hire someone to get ads directly from people but that doesn't help the small guy. I don't know what a noble solution is to this is - maybe everyone should agree on a format for moving ad campaigns around? But hell, even Chrome asks on first run what search provider you want to use in a SANE way that encourages people to pick, unlike the IE of today that makes you jump through 15 screens just to get to pick a search provider. I'd hardly say they are being monopolistic (which is the actual illegal part of being a monopoly).
- nerfhammer 16y ago
  > Try transfering your ad campaign from Google to Bing? It is incredibly poor fidelity. Wat? This is the whole principle of an ad exchange.
- nkassis 16y ago
  You could download all your emails with pop or imap if you wanted. This has always been supported. It would have been nice to use WordPerfect but as you mention people wanted a conversion that retain the layout of the original .doc When I can't even get a simple table from Office to WordPerfect to work properly what's the point (nothing fancy), where not talking excel formulas. If the document specs had been made available, you bet WordPerfect would have that implemented in no time. Word did have good support for WordPerfect files thus it was a one way street.
- Natsu 16y ago
  > How did this happen? Was Bill Gates president and make that the law? He used product tying and manipulated vendors into anti-competitive agreements such that they would either use what Microsoft wanted them to use exclusively or they wouldn't be able to offer it at all. As for how they got the initial traction, they managed to get bundled with the IBM PC. IBM back in the day used exactly the same sort of tactics ("Nobody ever got fired for using IBM" & they invented FUD), though they've reformed quite a bit since then. WordPerfect, Borland's compilers, etc. were widely considered the best back in the day, so I don't think it was primarily the strength of Microsoft's products which made people use them.
jokermatt999 16y ago
Furthermore, Google actually actively fights user lock in with the "Data Liberation Front". Decide that Google has gone evil and you no longer want to use their services? Grab your data and get out. It's the exact opposite of the kind of crap Microsoft pulled.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  That's not the same thing. With Word and Excel you could always save to RTF, TXT, or CSV. Plus supporting exporting to a huge host of 3rd party proprietary formats as well. But people wanted the full fidelity of the MS file formats on different systems. Like I want the full power of GMail with a different ad provider. Getting the data out is easy. You could do that with any version of Word/Excel. In fact, you could have built automation tools to do this, drop it into an ETL, and have it anywhere you like. The data is rarely the full issue. It's the fidelity of service that people want.
  - nkassis 16y ago
    Even basic fidelity was not possible due to some really complex issues (excel date format) which were not documented anywhere. Look at the PDF format, it's a very complex format that almost no one fully support, but the 95% of features people use are supported in a bunch of non-adobe viewers and creators. This only happened after adobe made the PDF spec open. And they still make a ton of money off Adobe Acrobat.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      I just exported a bunch of date fields to a CSV. They look fine. Probably 95% of Excel files in use can be exported as a CSV and capture all the data.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    > With Word and Excel you could always save to RTF, TXT, or CSV. Good luck with your formulas in CSV... > Getting the data out is easy. You could do that with any version of Word/Excel. Ken... I have had problems with different releases of Office (PC and Mac) importing Office documents... It was never easy. It wasn't even very predictable.

spot 16y ago

1) actually they did force you to use IE, it was called directly by the OS, and some of their online interactions required it. 2) mostly it wasn't forcing you, just making it very hard for you to leave their ecosystem. exporting your email out of outlook for example was intentionally made difficult.

kenjackson 16y ago
1) actually they did force you to use IE, it was called directly by the OS, and some of their online interactions required it. So you were required to use Windows? I used an Amiga until it was on its deathbed, so I find it hard to believe that you had to use Windows.

zem 16y ago

you're forgetting that microsoft actively leaned on hardware manufacturers so that they were forced into deals where they had to exclusively sell pcs with windows installed, or be penalised with higher licensing costs. that in turn meant that yes, you did have to use microsoft's product, or at the very least pay for it.