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Yes, obviously, you as a user are free to find another search engine. However, you as a creator are not free to find another universe in which the leading sear

Yes, obviously, you as a user are free to find another search engine. However, you as a creator are not free to find another universe in which the leading search provider does not use their position of influence to squash any competing products by ranking their own products higher.

mbreese 5y ago
But that’s not an argument for making Google a public utility. That’s an argument that they are being anti-competitive. That’s a whole other discussion. And even then, the question isn’t are competitors being harmed, but are consumers being harmed. So long as their products are free, it’s hard to argue that consumers are suffering harm. (I haven’t heard privacy brought up as a legal measure of harm to consumers, which would be an interesting angle, but I’m not sure how that plays with current law…)
- wyattpeak 5y ago
  > So long as their products are free, it’s hard to argue that consumers are suffering harm. Is it? There's an increasing antipathy towards the amount of data Google collect, many people on this forum, if not so much in the world at large, would consider that harm. If Google's hiding from me a better service that's also free, or even has an acceptable cost, I'd consider that harm. It's only hard to argue there's no harm if their product is identical to its competitors, which is basically never true.
- _jal 5y ago
  > So long as their products are free, it’s hard to argue that consumers are suffering harm Well, that is the (Borkian) dominant understanding of antitrust right now, but it hasn't always been, and I think that view is under pressure again. It has never been clear to me why we must limit our view to consumers when looking at antitrust - there is always much more going on than how much things cost. It effects competitors (actual and would-be), the environment, related industries, available jobs, sometimes national security - monopolies can have huge impacts on lots of things. Why exactly is this super-reductive, artificially crabbed view the only measure of a monopoly's harm? Medium-term, I think the pendulum is swinging back.
  - ErrrNoMate 5y ago
    A sea of comments and this one is the only one mentioning Bork. Well played. Hopefully we can swim closer to looking at things in the round rather than this very narrow and very conservative view of the structures in which we live and operate.
- josefx 5y ago
  > So long as their products are free, it’s hard to argue that consumers are suffering harm. It kills competition since most of them are financed by an unrelated service (Googles ad network) and without competition we get such nice things like randomized automated life time bans, non existent customer service, products that are randomly killed, overly anti competitive licensing agreements (Android apparently cannot survive on its own merits) etc. . Privacy is just one of many many issues.
minsc__and__boo 5y ago
There are entire businesses that run entirely on instagram or etsy, which don't even touch SEO.

mbreese 5y ago

But that’s not an argument for making Google a public utility. That’s an argument that they are being anti-competitive. That’s a whole other discussion. And even then, the question isn’t are competitors being harmed, but are consumers being harmed. So long as their products are free, it’s hard to argue that consumers are suffering harm. (I haven’t heard privacy brought up as a legal measure of harm to consumers, which would be an interesting angle, but I’m not sure how that plays with current law…)

wyattpeak 5y ago
> So long as their products are free, it’s hard to argue that consumers are suffering harm. Is it? There's an increasing antipathy towards the amount of data Google collect, many people on this forum, if not so much in the world at large, would consider that harm. If Google's hiding from me a better service that's also free, or even has an acceptable cost, I'd consider that harm. It's only hard to argue there's no harm if their product is identical to its competitors, which is basically never true.
_jal 5y ago
> So long as their products are free, it’s hard to argue that consumers are suffering harm Well, that is the (Borkian) dominant understanding of antitrust right now, but it hasn't always been, and I think that view is under pressure again. It has never been clear to me why we must limit our view to consumers when looking at antitrust - there is always much more going on than how much things cost. It effects competitors (actual and would-be), the environment, related industries, available jobs, sometimes national security - monopolies can have huge impacts on lots of things. Why exactly is this super-reductive, artificially crabbed view the only measure of a monopoly's harm? Medium-term, I think the pendulum is swinging back.
- ErrrNoMate 5y ago
  A sea of comments and this one is the only one mentioning Bork. Well played. Hopefully we can swim closer to looking at things in the round rather than this very narrow and very conservative view of the structures in which we live and operate.
josefx 5y ago
> So long as their products are free, it’s hard to argue that consumers are suffering harm. It kills competition since most of them are financed by an unrelated service (Googles ad network) and without competition we get such nice things like randomized automated life time bans, non existent customer service, products that are randomly killed, overly anti competitive licensing agreements (Android apparently cannot survive on its own merits) etc. . Privacy is just one of many many issues.

minsc__and__boo 5y ago

There are entire businesses that run entirely on instagram or etsy, which don't even touch SEO.