5 ms·

No, they're making the case for them being a monopoly. Unless Google is preventing others from purchasing compute or hard drives by buying up all of the supply,

by judge2020 4y ago

No, they're making the case for them being a monopoly. Unless Google is preventing others from purchasing compute or hard drives by buying up all of the supply, they are not performing any anti-competitive actions, which would not make them liable under any anti-trust statutes. I don't think anyone's in doubt YT is a monopoly with how big and widely-used it is. It's just that they continue to survive because of how well they execute their plan of making a good service that gives users what they want (fast, instant access to videos that appeal to them) and pays out creators enough to where they can make a living, or even build a media company (LTT), off of the adsense and monetization opportunities YT enables.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
Preferentially giving YouTube access to ressources is indeed an anti-competitive action. That’s part of the vertical restraint kind. YT isn’t a monopoly however. It might be dominant depending of how you define the markets but it does have competitors.
- scarface_74 4y ago
  That's not in any sense of the word how anti-trust works. That's just like saying that car manufacturers can't use idle capacity to help start a new line of vehicles just because a new car manufacturer couldn't create a new car line.
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    No, it’s not comparable in any ways. Car manufacturers sell cars. That’s their main business. Here we have Google using its dominant position in another market to prop up another activity through an advantage. That’s most definitely fall under anti-competitive law at least in Europe (I don’t care about the US. The modern interpretation of American antitrust laws is a complete joke).
    - scarface_74 4y ago
      Apple's main business was selling computers. Should they not have been allowed to branch out to sell phones or before that music players? Netflix had a dominant business in shipping DVDs to customers. Should they have not branched out to streaming? It's silly to say that companies should never be allowed to branch out to other businesses.
      - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        When did Apple ever had a dominant position in the computer market? Ah, yes, never, I was scared that you may have had a point there for moment. Care to highlight exactly how Netflix used its dominant position in film renting in favour of its streaming business? It would indeed be silly to say companies can’t branch out. Thankfully no one is so that’s fine.
        scarface_74 4y ago
        Netflix very much had a dominant position in DVD rentals at its height. Apple had a dominant position in selling music and in music players by 2006. It was the number one music retailer in the US. It very much used that to get into the phone market and part of its early success in the App Store was that it was built on top of iTunes and it already had more credit cards on file than any other company in the US besides Amazon. If you're not arguing that a company shouldn't branch out, are you arguing that once a company gets a certain size, it shouldn't be allowed to invest those profits and resources into another industry? By 2011, Apple was the most valuable company in the US. Should it not have been allowed to start selling watches, home stereo equipment and AirPods?
        Darrengineer 4y ago
        > Netflix very much had a dominant position in DVD rentals at its height. Is this true? My recollection being a netflix DVD customer is that brick and mortar rental stores were dominant until netflix streaming upended the DVD rental dynamic. Would love to see some data on it though!
tshaddox 4y ago
> Unless Google is preventing others from purchasing compute or hard drives by buying up all of the supply, they are not performing any anti-competitive actions, which would not make them liable under any anti-trust statutes. Would the massive subsidization of YouTube’s costs not count? There’s nothing physically preventing a competitor from buying storage and compute, but it’s pretty clear that it would be extremely difficult to compete with YouTube if every user has to pay the actual unit costs to upload, convert, and play videos.
- judge2020 4y ago
  > but it’s pretty clear that it would be extremely difficult to compete with YouTube if every user has to pay the actual unit costs to upload, convert, and play videos. That's on the user side, though. Like AWS and Azure, chances are GCP/Google's internal hardware division bills internal teams similarly to external customers (especially as Sundar continues to demand cost cuts). Of course users themselves can't go and make their own website and experience the same economies of scale that only big companies can achieve, but if competitors come in (like ByteDance) there's nothing stopping them from stealing marketshare from YouTube if they invest in some colocated servers in key markets.
  - rescbr 4y ago
    > Like AWS and Azure, chances are GCP/Google's internal hardware division bills internal teams similarly to external customers (especially as Sundar continues to demand cost cuts) Having worked on such large conglomerates it’s closer to friends & family discount than from large external company discount. There’s also transfer pricing and other accounting ways to improve numbers. This is so widespread that one such company had <company color> dollars (internal purchases) and green dollars (external customers) pricing.
    - scarface_74 4y ago
      That's simple Managerial Accounting 101. Every major company operates the same way. When Disney+ "buys" the right to stream the latest Marvel movie from Marvel Studios, the company as a whole has to back out the revenue so not to count it twice. But still show Disney+'s profit.
Retric 4y ago
The monopoly practice in this case is subsidizing a business with by leveraging a monopoly. Aka YouTube isn’t paying market prices on unused compute therefore Google is leverage its search monopoly to expand into another business. Historically the concern was that railroads might get into say coal mining by charging competitors more to move coal than they charged themselves.
- scarface_74 4y ago
  In that case are you saying it should be illegal for any company to leverage its resources to get into a new business? Should Netflix not been allowed to leverage profits it was making in shipping DVDs to enter streaming?
  - Retric 4y ago
    No, it’s not a question of money but of resources. If Google offers up their compute at market rates and YouTube is treated as any other customer on that compute then it’s not a problem. Microsoft for example could have spent unlimited money on IE and the justice department wouldn’t have cared as long as it was treated as a business investment. However, leveraging the ability to change windows was seen as problematic. Long term subsidies can also run into issues, but it’s believed YouTube is inherently profitable.
    - scarface_74 4y ago
      Actually, you're kind of making my point. Absolutely nothing came of the DOJ case with regards to IE bundling. But that still isn't logical. Are you really going to say that a company shouldn't be allowed to use resources to create a new product? Should it have been illegal for Netflix to use profits from shipping DVDs to later bundle video streaming? Should it also be illegal for companies to "subsidize" open source contributors? Should it be illegal for YC and other VCs to "subsidize" money losing startups based on previous successes? How long should a company be allowed to spend money on money losing products to gain a foothold? Microsoft probably lost money on the first 2 generations of the Xbox. Should that be illegal? Should Microsoft not be allowed to throw billions at ChatGPT?
HDThoreaun 4y ago
You don't need to be a monopoly to get anti-trusted. You just need to use your market power to stifle competition to consumers detriment.
JohnFen 4y ago
Right. And we shouldn't forget that, in the US anyway, it's not illegal to be a monopoly. The "antitrust" laws are about unfairly leveraging your monopoly position.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago

Preferentially giving YouTube access to ressources is indeed an anti-competitive action. That’s part of the vertical restraint kind. YT isn’t a monopoly however. It might be dominant depending of how you define the markets but it does have competitors.

scarface_74 4y ago
That's not in any sense of the word how anti-trust works. That's just like saying that car manufacturers can't use idle capacity to help start a new line of vehicles just because a new car manufacturer couldn't create a new car line.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  No, it’s not comparable in any ways. Car manufacturers sell cars. That’s their main business. Here we have Google using its dominant position in another market to prop up another activity through an advantage. That’s most definitely fall under anti-competitive law at least in Europe (I don’t care about the US. The modern interpretation of American antitrust laws is a complete joke).
  - scarface_74 4y ago
    Apple's main business was selling computers. Should they not have been allowed to branch out to sell phones or before that music players? Netflix had a dominant business in shipping DVDs to customers. Should they have not branched out to streaming? It's silly to say that companies should never be allowed to branch out to other businesses.
    - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
      When did Apple ever had a dominant position in the computer market? Ah, yes, never, I was scared that you may have had a point there for moment. Care to highlight exactly how Netflix used its dominant position in film renting in favour of its streaming business? It would indeed be silly to say companies can’t branch out. Thankfully no one is so that’s fine.
      - scarface_74 4y ago
        Netflix very much had a dominant position in DVD rentals at its height. Apple had a dominant position in selling music and in music players by 2006. It was the number one music retailer in the US. It very much used that to get into the phone market and part of its early success in the App Store was that it was built on top of iTunes and it already had more credit cards on file than any other company in the US besides Amazon. If you're not arguing that a company shouldn't branch out, are you arguing that once a company gets a certain size, it shouldn't be allowed to invest those profits and resources into another industry? By 2011, Apple was the most valuable company in the US. Should it not have been allowed to start selling watches, home stereo equipment and AirPods?
        Darrengineer 4y ago
        > Netflix very much had a dominant position in DVD rentals at its height. Is this true? My recollection being a netflix DVD customer is that brick and mortar rental stores were dominant until netflix streaming upended the DVD rental dynamic. Would love to see some data on it though!

tshaddox 4y ago

> Unless Google is preventing others from purchasing compute or hard drives by buying up all of the supply, they are not performing any anti-competitive actions, which would not make them liable under any anti-trust statutes. Would the massive subsidization of YouTube’s costs not count? There’s nothing physically preventing a competitor from buying storage and compute, but it’s pretty clear that it would be extremely difficult to compete with YouTube if every user has to pay the actual unit costs to upload, convert, and play videos.

judge2020 4y ago
> but it’s pretty clear that it would be extremely difficult to compete with YouTube if every user has to pay the actual unit costs to upload, convert, and play videos. That's on the user side, though. Like AWS and Azure, chances are GCP/Google's internal hardware division bills internal teams similarly to external customers (especially as Sundar continues to demand cost cuts). Of course users themselves can't go and make their own website and experience the same economies of scale that only big companies can achieve, but if competitors come in (like ByteDance) there's nothing stopping them from stealing marketshare from YouTube if they invest in some colocated servers in key markets.
- rescbr 4y ago
  > Like AWS and Azure, chances are GCP/Google's internal hardware division bills internal teams similarly to external customers (especially as Sundar continues to demand cost cuts) Having worked on such large conglomerates it’s closer to friends & family discount than from large external company discount. There’s also transfer pricing and other accounting ways to improve numbers. This is so widespread that one such company had <company color> dollars (internal purchases) and green dollars (external customers) pricing.
  - scarface_74 4y ago
    That's simple Managerial Accounting 101. Every major company operates the same way. When Disney+ "buys" the right to stream the latest Marvel movie from Marvel Studios, the company as a whole has to back out the revenue so not to count it twice. But still show Disney+'s profit.

Retric 4y ago

The monopoly practice in this case is subsidizing a business with by leveraging a monopoly. Aka YouTube isn’t paying market prices on unused compute therefore Google is leverage its search monopoly to expand into another business. Historically the concern was that railroads might get into say coal mining by charging competitors more to move coal than they charged themselves.

scarface_74 4y ago
In that case are you saying it should be illegal for any company to leverage its resources to get into a new business? Should Netflix not been allowed to leverage profits it was making in shipping DVDs to enter streaming?
- Retric 4y ago
  No, it’s not a question of money but of resources. If Google offers up their compute at market rates and YouTube is treated as any other customer on that compute then it’s not a problem. Microsoft for example could have spent unlimited money on IE and the justice department wouldn’t have cared as long as it was treated as a business investment. However, leveraging the ability to change windows was seen as problematic. Long term subsidies can also run into issues, but it’s believed YouTube is inherently profitable.
  - scarface_74 4y ago
    Actually, you're kind of making my point. Absolutely nothing came of the DOJ case with regards to IE bundling. But that still isn't logical. Are you really going to say that a company shouldn't be allowed to use resources to create a new product? Should it have been illegal for Netflix to use profits from shipping DVDs to later bundle video streaming? Should it also be illegal for companies to "subsidize" open source contributors? Should it be illegal for YC and other VCs to "subsidize" money losing startups based on previous successes? How long should a company be allowed to spend money on money losing products to gain a foothold? Microsoft probably lost money on the first 2 generations of the Xbox. Should that be illegal? Should Microsoft not be allowed to throw billions at ChatGPT?

HDThoreaun 4y ago

You don't need to be a monopoly to get anti-trusted. You just need to use your market power to stifle competition to consumers detriment.

JohnFen 4y ago

Right. And we shouldn't forget that, in the US anyway, it's not illegal to be a monopoly. The "antitrust" laws are about unfairly leveraging your monopoly position.