4 ms·

Hacker news is so bipolar on this. I've seen calls on this site for immediate antitrust law cases against google, and now that the Trump DOJ is doing it, immedi

Hacker news is so bipolar on this. I've seen calls on this site for immediate antitrust law cases against google, and now that the Trump DOJ is doing it, immediately, there's a rush to defend Google. It's getting nauseating really. Something being 'political' is not bad, especially when it being 'political' enforces the will of the people against those who ought to be subject to the will of the people. In particular, many Americans believe Google to be engaging in anti-competitive practices, so being political by following what the American populace wants cannot and should not be used as an insult.

AJ007 6y ago
These comments are bizarre. This topic has been discussed ad nauseam in hacker news for many years. The discussion on here was justifiably more extensive and explained more deeply than anywhere else. People on hacker news have used Google services for 15+ years. They’ve built businesses around Google’s platform. They’ve built businesses which compete with Google. They’ve seen Google do things which dismantled other businesses so that Google could earn some incremental revenue in order to continue to pay their executives and employees wildly bloated salaries (e.g. Anthony Levandowski paid over $100m; that’s insane.) Google has a lot of deep problems. They managed to kick the US regulatory can down the road over and over again. Now they have to deal with it. All but 1 state AG was on board for this. They were very cozy with the Obama White House so there is very good justification for this to happen now.
Jtsummers 6y ago
HN isn't an entity. You see discussions here praising Haskell or Lisp as the second coming, and then discussions about how awful they are and how they'll never amount to anything because they don't match the underlying machine as well as C. It's different people with different opinions, experiences, and views expressing them at different times.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  HN is an entity. Among other things it’s a community. As a community it has prevailing opinions about certain things, and you can measure that with how things are up/down voted. It’s also true that many of the prevailing opinions here are completely at odds with each other.
  - lizardmancan 6y ago
    hah, i wonder at what level of self-censorship we actually are (if there is a we) in theory the hn opinion could be very different from the users.
geofft 6y ago
> I've seen calls on this site for immediate antitrust law cases against google, and now that the Trump DOJ is doing it, immediately, there's a rush to defend Google. Well, that's my actual position. "The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason." I think it's important to enforce the laws we have fairly. However, going after political opponents because they are political opponents, and retroactively figuring out what laws you can use against them, is very different from enforcing the laws fairly. I think we should be going after many more companies than we do on antitrust grounds (and I think society would be better if we had even more stringent antitrust laws). Going after a single company and saying "Hmmm, antitrust?" does not actually succeed at maintaining the rule of law. (I do, for what it's worth, agree that "political" is not an insult. It's a descriptor, and it applies to just about anything involving the government or the shape of society. In this case, I think it happens to be a descriptor for something bad. It is entirely good and proper for politics to influence what laws we have; it is improper for politics to influence against whom we choose to enforce them.)
- nitrogen 6y ago
  This comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24369239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24369239) has mentioned that multiple major companies are being investigated, so maybe the investigation into Google just happens to be further along.
  - geofft 6y ago
    That's a good point, but also, given that "and Facebook and Amazon" are often Trump's next words after "Google," it doesn't do much to convince me that this isn't politically-motivated selective enforcement. (Though, on the other other hand, I'm not sure what big tech companies Trump isn't mad at, so maybe this is a low-selectivity filter.)
- tathougies 6y ago
  But Google is not a political opponent of trump and if biden were to go after facebook one could make the same accusation. This is a ridiculous standard. Those with opposing political views (and it's not clear Google really has political views) are not exempt from the law.

AJ007 6y ago

These comments are bizarre. This topic has been discussed ad nauseam in hacker news for many years. The discussion on here was justifiably more extensive and explained more deeply than anywhere else. People on hacker news have used Google services for 15+ years. They’ve built businesses around Google’s platform. They’ve built businesses which compete with Google. They’ve seen Google do things which dismantled other businesses so that Google could earn some incremental revenue in order to continue to pay their executives and employees wildly bloated salaries (e.g. Anthony Levandowski paid over $100m; that’s insane.) Google has a lot of deep problems. They managed to kick the US regulatory can down the road over and over again. Now they have to deal with it. All but 1 state AG was on board for this. They were very cozy with the Obama White House so there is very good justification for this to happen now.

Jtsummers 6y ago

HN isn't an entity. You see discussions here praising Haskell or Lisp as the second coming, and then discussions about how awful they are and how they'll never amount to anything because they don't match the underlying machine as well as C. It's different people with different opinions, experiences, and views expressing them at different times.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
HN is an entity. Among other things it’s a community. As a community it has prevailing opinions about certain things, and you can measure that with how things are up/down voted. It’s also true that many of the prevailing opinions here are completely at odds with each other.
- lizardmancan 6y ago
  hah, i wonder at what level of self-censorship we actually are (if there is a we) in theory the hn opinion could be very different from the users.

geofft 6y ago

> I've seen calls on this site for immediate antitrust law cases against google, and now that the Trump DOJ is doing it, immediately, there's a rush to defend Google. Well, that's my actual position. "The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason." I think it's important to enforce the laws we have fairly. However, going after political opponents because they are political opponents, and retroactively figuring out what laws you can use against them, is very different from enforcing the laws fairly. I think we should be going after many more companies than we do on antitrust grounds (and I think society would be better if we had even more stringent antitrust laws). Going after a single company and saying "Hmmm, antitrust?" does not actually succeed at maintaining the rule of law. (I do, for what it's worth, agree that "political" is not an insult. It's a descriptor, and it applies to just about anything involving the government or the shape of society. In this case, I think it happens to be a descriptor for something bad. It is entirely good and proper for politics to influence what laws we have; it is improper for politics to influence against whom we choose to enforce them.)

nitrogen 6y ago
This comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24369239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24369239) has mentioned that multiple major companies are being investigated, so maybe the investigation into Google just happens to be further along.
- geofft 6y ago
  That's a good point, but also, given that "and Facebook and Amazon" are often Trump's next words after "Google," it doesn't do much to convince me that this isn't politically-motivated selective enforcement. (Though, on the other other hand, I'm not sure what big tech companies Trump isn't mad at, so maybe this is a low-selectivity filter.)
tathougies 6y ago
But Google is not a political opponent of trump and if biden were to go after facebook one could make the same accusation. This is a ridiculous standard. Those with opposing political views (and it's not clear Google really has political views) are not exempt from the law.