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Google controls the vast majority of the web search market. More than 90%. What exactly a monopoly constitutes is something that people can disagree about, bu

Google controls the vast majority of the web search market. More than 90%. What exactly a monopoly constitutes is something that people can disagree about, but "has 90% market share" is not by any means a crazy definition of a monopoly.

yeetman21 5y ago
Google doesnt make money of web searches, it makes money off ads, which it competes with fb and others for
- loup-vaillant 5y ago
  Maybe a lawyer can say that with a straight face, but I'm a human being. Google ad revenues mostly come from 3 services: Gmail, which holds a disproportionate share of all email for what started out as a federated network. YouTube, which basically holds a monopoly on video sharing. And Google search, which basically holds a monopoly on regular web searches. I count at least 2 monopolies here, both held by Alphabet. The fact that Facebook is able to make advertisement in some other part of the web is immaterial, the same way TV ads are immaterial.
bananabreakfast 5y ago
But market share of what? No one pays for web search so that's not really a market. Facebook has 90%+ market share of social media. Do they have a monopoly? GitHub has a 90%+ market share of open source code hosting. Do they have a monopoly?
- cpu_architect 5y ago
  Markets are not necessarily based on money; they are about exchange. In the web search market, users exchange their attention for search results. I don’t know whether this kind of market dominance factors into the legal determination of monopoly, but conceptually I think it makes sense to say that Google has a monopoly in the web search market.
- anders_p 5y ago
  > But market share of what? No one pays for web search so that's not really a market. The customer in a web search isn't the USER. It's the BUISINESSES whose ads are placed on the search results page. THEY are certainly paying for the web search.
- ping_pong 5y ago
  If a business gets deindexed by Google or its search ranking drops, their income plummets. It's pretty obvious they are a monopoly and have monopolistic power.
minsc__and__boo 5y ago
Just having dominant market share does not make one a monopoly. Google would have to control the supply of all the search engines to have a monopoly (which they don't).

yeetman21 5y ago

Google doesnt make money of web searches, it makes money off ads, which it competes with fb and others for

loup-vaillant 5y ago
Maybe a lawyer can say that with a straight face, but I'm a human being. Google ad revenues mostly come from 3 services: Gmail, which holds a disproportionate share of all email for what started out as a federated network. YouTube, which basically holds a monopoly on video sharing. And Google search, which basically holds a monopoly on regular web searches. I count at least 2 monopolies here, both held by Alphabet. The fact that Facebook is able to make advertisement in some other part of the web is immaterial, the same way TV ads are immaterial.

bananabreakfast 5y ago

But market share of what? No one pays for web search so that's not really a market. Facebook has 90%+ market share of social media. Do they have a monopoly? GitHub has a 90%+ market share of open source code hosting. Do they have a monopoly?

cpu_architect 5y ago
Markets are not necessarily based on money; they are about exchange. In the web search market, users exchange their attention for search results. I don’t know whether this kind of market dominance factors into the legal determination of monopoly, but conceptually I think it makes sense to say that Google has a monopoly in the web search market.
anders_p 5y ago
> But market share of what? No one pays for web search so that's not really a market. The customer in a web search isn't the USER. It's the BUISINESSES whose ads are placed on the search results page. THEY are certainly paying for the web search.
ping_pong 5y ago
If a business gets deindexed by Google or its search ranking drops, their income plummets. It's pretty obvious they are a monopoly and have monopolistic power.

minsc__and__boo 5y ago

Just having dominant market share does not make one a monopoly. Google would have to control the supply of all the search engines to have a monopoly (which they don't).