4 ms·

Exactly what's "dumb" about this? You've got Google, who are now pretty much running the world high street as the quintessential evil rentier, providing little

Exactly what's "dumb" about this? You've got Google, who are now pretty much running the world high street as the quintessential evil rentier, providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits. They are constantly moving the goal posts, which can ruin businesses overnight, with no oversight. Now they have to tell businesses beforehand before they make them bankrupt, so the business at least has a chance to change. Does that sound less dumb and more reasonable if written that way?

username90 6y ago
Remove Google and you'll likely see the open web slowly dying as the remaining big corps reduces its power and moves everything to walled gardens.
- username90 6y ago
  To explain further, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Amazon would be happy if the open web died and people had to use apps instead. The only big player with self interest in ensuring the open web continues to exist and be a good user experience is Google.
  - kaba0 6y ago
    Google is the single most dangerous entity when it comes to the open web. Basically the current web is more or less the walled garden of google and it has the power to decide the future of web technologies
    - username90 6y ago
      Right, but remove that Google "garden" and you close the web to many people. It might become more open to some people like you, but the average user likely will stop using it entirely. With that many will just stop maintaining a web page since the users are found elsewhere, and from there it is just going downhill until we are at current linux adoption rates. It will be alive, but only for enthusiasts.
- graeme 6y ago
  Not an idle risk either. Search engines are not a big feature of the net in China for example. At least not relative to the rest of the world.
chipgap98 6y ago
No it really doesn't. > providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits This is a wildly inaccurate statement. Users have every opportunity to visit the news sites directly and yet they choose not to. So clearly search and social media sites are providing value. > They are constantly moving the goal posts, which can ruin businesses overnight We're only talking about news businesses for the purposes of this law. If a news outlet is entirely dependent on google search traffic for their revenue then they don't have a stable business to begin with. This whole law makes the assumption that Google and Facebook are the reason new outlets are losing revenue, but I have yet to see any evidence of that.
- acct776 6y ago
  > Users have every opportunity "But that's how I get to the website, I type it into the Google!"
  - danShumway 6y ago
    If you want to ban Google, then just ban Google. You don't need to set this kind of awful precedent while you're doing it. This weird, "we hate Google, so we're going to pass this massive indirect law that reinterprets fair use, but only applies to them" is pointless and counterproductive. If you don't believe that Google is providing any value, then ban search engines and see how the people of Australia react. But I don't actually believe that the problem people have here is that they think users are forced to look up websites through Google. If that was the problem, then people on both sides would be encouraging Google to pull out of Australia. It's nonsensical to say that indexing websites isn't a valuable service.
    - nwienert 6y ago
      Do you think Google has any strong competition? I think a lot of what’s not being discussed in this thread is that in a competitive market consumers could vote with feet, and the resulting competitive pressure would naturally drive better behaviors, but because that’s lacking governments are now poorly attempting to “fight back”. In a sense, with enough kludgy regulation, eventually there may be enough daylight for a competitor to pop up, and until then people will argue passionately past each other, one libertarian side worried about libertarian things, and the other populist side worried about populist things, etc.
UncleMeat 6y ago
> You've got Google, who are now pretty much running the world high street as the quintessential evil rentier, providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits. They can't be providing little value, because the law here demands that Google link to news articles. If there was no value in the search traffic then news media companies would be fine with "okay, we will simply drop google news and stop linking to news media" but they aren't okay with that.

username90 6y ago

Remove Google and you'll likely see the open web slowly dying as the remaining big corps reduces its power and moves everything to walled gardens.

username90 6y ago
To explain further, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Amazon would be happy if the open web died and people had to use apps instead. The only big player with self interest in ensuring the open web continues to exist and be a good user experience is Google.
- kaba0 6y ago
  Google is the single most dangerous entity when it comes to the open web. Basically the current web is more or less the walled garden of google and it has the power to decide the future of web technologies
  - username90 6y ago
    Right, but remove that Google "garden" and you close the web to many people. It might become more open to some people like you, but the average user likely will stop using it entirely. With that many will just stop maintaining a web page since the users are found elsewhere, and from there it is just going downhill until we are at current linux adoption rates. It will be alive, but only for enthusiasts.
graeme 6y ago
Not an idle risk either. Search engines are not a big feature of the net in China for example. At least not relative to the rest of the world.

chipgap98 6y ago

No it really doesn't. > providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits This is a wildly inaccurate statement. Users have every opportunity to visit the news sites directly and yet they choose not to. So clearly search and social media sites are providing value. > They are constantly moving the goal posts, which can ruin businesses overnight We're only talking about news businesses for the purposes of this law. If a news outlet is entirely dependent on google search traffic for their revenue then they don't have a stable business to begin with. This whole law makes the assumption that Google and Facebook are the reason new outlets are losing revenue, but I have yet to see any evidence of that.

acct776 6y ago
> Users have every opportunity "But that's how I get to the website, I type it into the Google!"
- danShumway 6y ago
  If you want to ban Google, then just ban Google. You don't need to set this kind of awful precedent while you're doing it. This weird, "we hate Google, so we're going to pass this massive indirect law that reinterprets fair use, but only applies to them" is pointless and counterproductive. If you don't believe that Google is providing any value, then ban search engines and see how the people of Australia react. But I don't actually believe that the problem people have here is that they think users are forced to look up websites through Google. If that was the problem, then people on both sides would be encouraging Google to pull out of Australia. It's nonsensical to say that indexing websites isn't a valuable service.
  - nwienert 6y ago
    Do you think Google has any strong competition? I think a lot of what’s not being discussed in this thread is that in a competitive market consumers could vote with feet, and the resulting competitive pressure would naturally drive better behaviors, but because that’s lacking governments are now poorly attempting to “fight back”. In a sense, with enough kludgy regulation, eventually there may be enough daylight for a competitor to pop up, and until then people will argue passionately past each other, one libertarian side worried about libertarian things, and the other populist side worried about populist things, etc.

UncleMeat 6y ago

> You've got Google, who are now pretty much running the world high street as the quintessential evil rentier, providing little value while extracting virtually all the profits. They can't be providing little value, because the law here demands that Google link to news articles. If there was no value in the search traffic then news media companies would be fine with "okay, we will simply drop google news and stop linking to news media" but they aren't okay with that.