6 ms·

I think you're making a category error in your analogy. DuckDuckGo is much more like Google than "dig a well" is like municipal water.

tigerBL00D 5y ago
Are those the right categories? Utilities are built (at least partially) and maintained using taxpayer money. Google acquired dominance by collecting user data. In both cases users, as a class, get access to essential services that what wouldn't have been possible without their contributions.
- vxNsr 5y ago
  Utilities were also originally private competing companies and then they consolidated and the gov decided to make them regulated monopolies bec it made more sense then 10 different companies running their own electric lines. It’s possible to argue that one good search engine makes more sense vs 10 different small ok ones, the gov should step in and regulate.
sbazerque 5y ago
I think he's not - when you look at it from the point of view of someone who wants to buy search advertisements. Duck Duck Go doesn't come nearly close to the kind of reach Google has.
- sangnoir 5y ago
  The difference between DDG and Google ads is quantitative - not qualitative.
dumbfoundded 5y ago
There are at least a dozen companies you can buy water from and have it delivered to a giant storage tank made by at least 5 different companies. Or you could use a number of companies to dig a well for you. Many people don't have access to municipal water and when I didn't, this is what I did.
- duck 5y ago
  Those companies aren't utility companies though.
  - dumbfoundded 5y ago
    The main, monopolistic solution of municipal water certainly is. The point is that options can still exist in a monopoly. Google still has a monopoly despite the existence competitors.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Most apartment buildings won't let you store large amounts of water on property.
  - anders_p 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure those same apartment buildings wouldn't let you set up the large scale server farm required for you to set up your own search engine alternative to Google either.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    That's not even remotely comparable. Firstly it's not structurally practical to store giant tanks of water on private property. So the comparison makes no practical sense anyway. But more, there is a significant market for private water in other properties. It's a non-trivial market which serves a significant proportion of the US population. There is no significant market for private/non-Google search. Not only is DDG a footnote, but Google's dominance forces businesses to take steps to optimise their Google rank - or face penalties by losing access to potential customers. Google can also remove businesses who aren't even customers from its rankings on a whim, with no redress. It's clearly a monopoly.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      When I lived in China, I didn't have the luxury of having access to Google, so I used Bing instead. It was actually quite reasonable for most of my needs, I'm not sure why more people don't give it a go. Of course, now that I live in the states again, I use Google, but most of my searching is on YouTube anyways (which was something else I didn't have access to in China).
Beached 5y ago
I disagree, wells are equal to or better than municipal water, and can often be cheaper while being higher quality. the inverse can be true. the analogy holds imo.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  I would like to learn more. Why is a well cleaner or higher quality than a big city municipal water supply? Is it because city water requires harsher treatment because it comes from a huge pool of waste while a well comes from a clean watershed?
  - dntrkv 5y ago
    It’s not. There are a ton of variables that determine the quality of your water. In many cases, well water will be significantly worse (my childhood home being a great example).
  - toomanybeersies 5y ago
    Untreated borehole water is often unsafe to for humans to drink, at least that's usually the case here in Australia. As for cities, it depends entirely on the specific city. The city I grew up in was supplied by a river that was unsafe to even swim in due to agricultural runoff and high levels of heavy metals from volcanic activity. Our drinking water was so heavily chlorinated that you practically needed a water filter to make it drinkable. The city I went to university was supplied by an aquifer and modern, high quality piping. The water was such high quality, it required no treatment at all.
- seemaze 5y ago
  I'm sure there are different geographical and utility costs, but every well I've ever priced was between 25-100 years to break-even .
  - throwaway_kufu 5y ago
    How long to break even after building your own search engine?
Workaccount2 5y ago
People talking like drilling a well in your backward is on par with typing in a different URL. So how about this, the upfront cost and effort of typing in a different URL is at least a few orders of magnitude easier than drilling a well.
- jlarocco 5y ago
  > So how about this, the upfront cost and effort of typing in a different URL is at least a few orders of magnitude easier than drilling a well. That's missing the point. Regardless of whether you personally type google.com or duckduckgo.com, most people use google and so they get directed to other Google products and don't see competing products, and that hurts competition in those spaces.
  - cout 5y ago
    So why then isn't this an anti-trust case instead of trying to make google a public utility? It seems Ohio is throwing cases and seeing what sticks.
    - jlarocco 5y ago
      That's a good question, and I don't know. Can a state bring an anti-trust case or does it have to be done by at the federal level?
- anders_p 5y ago
  > People talking like drilling a well in your backward is on par with typing in a different URL. So how about this, the upfront cost and effort of typing in a different URL is at least a few orders of magnitude easier than drilling a well. You talking like BUILDING A POWER PLANT is on par with drilling a well in your backward. So how about this, the upfront cost and effort of DRILLING A WELL is at least a few orders of magnitude easier than BUILDING A POWER PLANT. --- Does that mean water shouldn't be a utility? Or what was your point exactly?
  - 5y ago
akiselev 5y ago
Wells dug with modern equipment are a perfectly good alternative to municipal water - they can free one from over-regulated or poorly managed utilities. Even in the outskirts of California metros it's sometimes the only option without shelling out hundreds of thousands for extensions. DuckDuckGo, on the other hand, is just Google with bangs, an insignificant spec compared to the latter. Edit: DuckDuckGo US market share: 2.5% [1], US population getting their water from a well: 13% [2] [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1220046/duckduckgo-search-engine-market-share-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1220046/duckduckgo-searc... [2] https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/contamination-us-private-wells?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/scie...
- pjc50 5y ago
  > Wells dug with modern equipment are a perfectly good alternative to municipal water ... in certain geologic areas. And this doesn't work if you live in an apartment. I do feel like this is a big example of the "why don't you just" discussion from last week.
  - akiselev 5y ago
    "Why don't you do something that works for over 40 million people all over the US" is a very far cry from "why don't you build your own power plant, datacenter, and networking infrastructure." It's a far better argument than DDG which - if my usage is anything to go by - is just a frontend for Google with convenient shortcuts to specialized searches like Github. If you live in an apartment, you live in a multi-family building built by a developer with a lot more money than a single family can spend. They're exactly the ones who can afford alternatives, like paying the city to tear up roads and lay down a pipe to municipal water. The point is that a well supports a tiny number of people compared to a municipal water system, but it's a real alternative. In the search engine space, DDG is just token opposition and there is no one analogous to a property developer that can afford a competitor to municipal water so it's Google or nothing.
    - 5y ago
ttt0 5y ago
Isn't DDG just a frontend for Bing? I can host my own searx instance, but that's not a real search engine and it shouldn't count IMO.
- viraptor 5y ago
  No, or at least not only. They mix a few sources.
mdoms 5y ago
I am on my own rainwater tanks. I don't see any reason it's not a viable alternative considering how many of us use it.
- bumby 5y ago
  You can also go buy books and search for information without using electrons but the analogy is flawed. Your rainwater tanks do not have the economy of scale necessary to produce a natural monopoly until you build a tank and distribution system large enough to supply fresh water to an entire town, at which point it makes it difficult or impractical to compete.

tigerBL00D 5y ago

Are those the right categories? Utilities are built (at least partially) and maintained using taxpayer money. Google acquired dominance by collecting user data. In both cases users, as a class, get access to essential services that what wouldn't have been possible without their contributions.

vxNsr 5y ago
Utilities were also originally private competing companies and then they consolidated and the gov decided to make them regulated monopolies bec it made more sense then 10 different companies running their own electric lines. It’s possible to argue that one good search engine makes more sense vs 10 different small ok ones, the gov should step in and regulate.

sbazerque 5y ago

I think he's not - when you look at it from the point of view of someone who wants to buy search advertisements. Duck Duck Go doesn't come nearly close to the kind of reach Google has.

sangnoir 5y ago
The difference between DDG and Google ads is quantitative - not qualitative.

dumbfoundded 5y ago

There are at least a dozen companies you can buy water from and have it delivered to a giant storage tank made by at least 5 different companies. Or you could use a number of companies to dig a well for you. Many people don't have access to municipal water and when I didn't, this is what I did.

duck 5y ago
Those companies aren't utility companies though.
- dumbfoundded 5y ago
  The main, monopolistic solution of municipal water certainly is. The point is that options can still exist in a monopoly. Google still has a monopoly despite the existence competitors.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Most apartment buildings won't let you store large amounts of water on property.
- anders_p 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure those same apartment buildings wouldn't let you set up the large scale server farm required for you to set up your own search engine alternative to Google either.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  That's not even remotely comparable. Firstly it's not structurally practical to store giant tanks of water on private property. So the comparison makes no practical sense anyway. But more, there is a significant market for private water in other properties. It's a non-trivial market which serves a significant proportion of the US population. There is no significant market for private/non-Google search. Not only is DDG a footnote, but Google's dominance forces businesses to take steps to optimise their Google rank - or face penalties by losing access to potential customers. Google can also remove businesses who aren't even customers from its rankings on a whim, with no redress. It's clearly a monopoly.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    When I lived in China, I didn't have the luxury of having access to Google, so I used Bing instead. It was actually quite reasonable for most of my needs, I'm not sure why more people don't give it a go. Of course, now that I live in the states again, I use Google, but most of my searching is on YouTube anyways (which was something else I didn't have access to in China).

Beached 5y ago

I disagree, wells are equal to or better than municipal water, and can often be cheaper while being higher quality. the inverse can be true. the analogy holds imo.

ipaddr 5y ago
I would like to learn more. Why is a well cleaner or higher quality than a big city municipal water supply? Is it because city water requires harsher treatment because it comes from a huge pool of waste while a well comes from a clean watershed?
- dntrkv 5y ago
  It’s not. There are a ton of variables that determine the quality of your water. In many cases, well water will be significantly worse (my childhood home being a great example).
- toomanybeersies 5y ago
  Untreated borehole water is often unsafe to for humans to drink, at least that's usually the case here in Australia. As for cities, it depends entirely on the specific city. The city I grew up in was supplied by a river that was unsafe to even swim in due to agricultural runoff and high levels of heavy metals from volcanic activity. Our drinking water was so heavily chlorinated that you practically needed a water filter to make it drinkable. The city I went to university was supplied by an aquifer and modern, high quality piping. The water was such high quality, it required no treatment at all.
seemaze 5y ago
I'm sure there are different geographical and utility costs, but every well I've ever priced was between 25-100 years to break-even .
- throwaway_kufu 5y ago
  How long to break even after building your own search engine?

Workaccount2 5y ago

People talking like drilling a well in your backward is on par with typing in a different URL. So how about this, the upfront cost and effort of typing in a different URL is at least a few orders of magnitude easier than drilling a well.

jlarocco 5y ago
> So how about this, the upfront cost and effort of typing in a different URL is at least a few orders of magnitude easier than drilling a well. That's missing the point. Regardless of whether you personally type google.com or duckduckgo.com, most people use google and so they get directed to other Google products and don't see competing products, and that hurts competition in those spaces.
- cout 5y ago
  So why then isn't this an anti-trust case instead of trying to make google a public utility? It seems Ohio is throwing cases and seeing what sticks.
  - jlarocco 5y ago
    That's a good question, and I don't know. Can a state bring an anti-trust case or does it have to be done by at the federal level?
anders_p 5y ago
> People talking like drilling a well in your backward is on par with typing in a different URL. So how about this, the upfront cost and effort of typing in a different URL is at least a few orders of magnitude easier than drilling a well. You talking like BUILDING A POWER PLANT is on par with drilling a well in your backward. So how about this, the upfront cost and effort of DRILLING A WELL is at least a few orders of magnitude easier than BUILDING A POWER PLANT. --- Does that mean water shouldn't be a utility? Or what was your point exactly?
- 5y ago

akiselev 5y ago

Wells dug with modern equipment are a perfectly good alternative to municipal water - they can free one from over-regulated or poorly managed utilities. Even in the outskirts of California metros it's sometimes the only option without shelling out hundreds of thousands for extensions. DuckDuckGo, on the other hand, is just Google with bangs, an insignificant spec compared to the latter. Edit: DuckDuckGo US market share: 2.5% [1], US population getting their water from a well: 13% [2] [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1220046/duckduckgo-search-engine-market-share-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1220046/duckduckgo-searc... [2] https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/contamination-us-private-wells?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/scie...

pjc50 5y ago
> Wells dug with modern equipment are a perfectly good alternative to municipal water ... in certain geologic areas. And this doesn't work if you live in an apartment. I do feel like this is a big example of the "why don't you just" discussion from last week.
- akiselev 5y ago
  "Why don't you do something that works for over 40 million people all over the US" is a very far cry from "why don't you build your own power plant, datacenter, and networking infrastructure." It's a far better argument than DDG which - if my usage is anything to go by - is just a frontend for Google with convenient shortcuts to specialized searches like Github. If you live in an apartment, you live in a multi-family building built by a developer with a lot more money than a single family can spend. They're exactly the ones who can afford alternatives, like paying the city to tear up roads and lay down a pipe to municipal water. The point is that a well supports a tiny number of people compared to a municipal water system, but it's a real alternative. In the search engine space, DDG is just token opposition and there is no one analogous to a property developer that can afford a competitor to municipal water so it's Google or nothing.
  - 5y ago

ttt0 5y ago

Isn't DDG just a frontend for Bing? I can host my own searx instance, but that's not a real search engine and it shouldn't count IMO.

viraptor 5y ago
No, or at least not only. They mix a few sources.

mdoms 5y ago

I am on my own rainwater tanks. I don't see any reason it's not a viable alternative considering how many of us use it.

bumby 5y ago
You can also go buy books and search for information without using electrons but the analogy is flawed. Your rainwater tanks do not have the economy of scale necessary to produce a natural monopoly until you build a tank and distribution system large enough to supply fresh water to an entire town, at which point it makes it difficult or impractical to compete.