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> Market share does not a monopoly make That's a common refrain from the people holding the monopoly. It's simply untrue. If you are the market leader by a wid

> Market share does not a monopoly make That's a common refrain from the people holding the monopoly. It's simply untrue. If you are the market leader by a wide margin, you end up dictating the landscape. > Do you really consider Bing to be so bad that you don't even count it as a competing product in the same product category as Google Search? I can create a car in my garage, but I'm not competing with Honda. What's the point here? That because something exists it is a market force that influences others? Search (and the associated advertising, data collection, etc) exists as a momentum driven product^ via the network effect. How easy it is to switch to Bing or buy the car I made, is wholly irrelevant. ^That wasn't always true, as in the beginning of search circa the 90s, but it's true enough today.

roenxi 5y ago
> That's a common refrain from the people holding the monopoly. It's simply untrue. If you are the market leader by a wide margin, you end up dictating the landscape. So you've missed the actual argument here - how is Google doing that? What are the downsides? Because speaking as someone who switched to DDG out of concern both at Google's social policies and the sheer amount of data they collect, I have been unable to detect any impediments. I do believe nonetheless that Google has a slightly better search index - the results when I check there seem a little more reliable (slightly more varied results, maybe. Hard to put a finger on the difference). They make a really good search engine and fight hard for that 90% market share. But if we decide the word "monopoly" means "makes a good enough product to command 90% of the market" I don't see what the intellectual argument against monopolies is going to be. Sounds like something we want to encourage. When IE was a monopoly way back at the dawn of the internet, the main complaint was it really sucked as a product but people couldn't switch away even if they wanted to because banks and stuff (tax office in my case I think :S) required Windows/IE-only features. That is what I'm against.
- Rastonbury 5y ago
  Economically a monopoly harms customers with the ability to dictate prices via market power, think OPEC controlling oil supply. In an ideal world, there would be multiple companies offering search ads who compete to give advertisers the best RoI. There would be multiple realistic options at good prices for companies who need office productivity software, Microsoft still has nearly 90%. If I wanted to sell in-app purchases, there would be multiple payment processors I should be able to use and I can chose who takes the smallest cut which would be way less than Play Store and App store
  - dodobirdlord 5y ago
    > In an ideal world, there would be multiple companies offering search ads who compete to give advertisers the best RoI. There are multiple companies that offer search ads, and they compete aggressively, they just compete primarily on the consumer experience so that they will be in a position to charge a higher price to advertisers because satisfying consumers makes their corporation-facing product (search ad slots) more valuable. This is what we as a society want. Consumer protection laws do not exist to protect businesses. Nobody is owed a viable business model. The cost of buying search ads is (mostly) dictated by how much other businesses are willing to bid for those ad slots. > There would be multiple realistic options at good prices for companies who need office productivity software, Microsoft still has nearly 90%. There are. It's a hard market to compete in, but Microsoft has several competitors in this space, notably Google Workspace, but also some lesser known ones like Amazon WorkDocs. Recently Apple has been targeting this market as well. > If I wanted to sell in-app purchases, there would be multiple payment processors I should be able to use and I can chose who takes the smallest cut which would be way less than Play Store and App store This topic has been beaten to death on HN, and nothing valuable will come of further discussing it. I'll suffice it to say that Apple's product is the iPhone ecosystem in its entirety, and defining a market as a single company's product and declaring them to be engaged in anticompetitive practices within that market amounts to a misuse of terminology.
    - Rastonbury 5y ago
      We won't agree so I'll leave it but I encourage you to read the economic definition of monopoly power, as its not based on terminology or legal definitions

roenxi 5y ago

> That's a common refrain from the people holding the monopoly. It's simply untrue. If you are the market leader by a wide margin, you end up dictating the landscape. So you've missed the actual argument here - how is Google doing that? What are the downsides? Because speaking as someone who switched to DDG out of concern both at Google's social policies and the sheer amount of data they collect, I have been unable to detect any impediments. I do believe nonetheless that Google has a slightly better search index - the results when I check there seem a little more reliable (slightly more varied results, maybe. Hard to put a finger on the difference). They make a really good search engine and fight hard for that 90% market share. But if we decide the word "monopoly" means "makes a good enough product to command 90% of the market" I don't see what the intellectual argument against monopolies is going to be. Sounds like something we want to encourage. When IE was a monopoly way back at the dawn of the internet, the main complaint was it really sucked as a product but people couldn't switch away even if they wanted to because banks and stuff (tax office in my case I think :S) required Windows/IE-only features. That is what I'm against.

Rastonbury 5y ago
Economically a monopoly harms customers with the ability to dictate prices via market power, think OPEC controlling oil supply. In an ideal world, there would be multiple companies offering search ads who compete to give advertisers the best RoI. There would be multiple realistic options at good prices for companies who need office productivity software, Microsoft still has nearly 90%. If I wanted to sell in-app purchases, there would be multiple payment processors I should be able to use and I can chose who takes the smallest cut which would be way less than Play Store and App store
- dodobirdlord 5y ago
  > In an ideal world, there would be multiple companies offering search ads who compete to give advertisers the best RoI. There are multiple companies that offer search ads, and they compete aggressively, they just compete primarily on the consumer experience so that they will be in a position to charge a higher price to advertisers because satisfying consumers makes their corporation-facing product (search ad slots) more valuable. This is what we as a society want. Consumer protection laws do not exist to protect businesses. Nobody is owed a viable business model. The cost of buying search ads is (mostly) dictated by how much other businesses are willing to bid for those ad slots. > There would be multiple realistic options at good prices for companies who need office productivity software, Microsoft still has nearly 90%. There are. It's a hard market to compete in, but Microsoft has several competitors in this space, notably Google Workspace, but also some lesser known ones like Amazon WorkDocs. Recently Apple has been targeting this market as well. > If I wanted to sell in-app purchases, there would be multiple payment processors I should be able to use and I can chose who takes the smallest cut which would be way less than Play Store and App store This topic has been beaten to death on HN, and nothing valuable will come of further discussing it. I'll suffice it to say that Apple's product is the iPhone ecosystem in its entirety, and defining a market as a single company's product and declaring them to be engaged in anticompetitive practices within that market amounts to a misuse of terminology.
  - Rastonbury 5y ago
    We won't agree so I'll leave it but I encourage you to read the economic definition of monopoly power, as its not based on terminology or legal definitions