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I'm still suspicious of the idea that Google can have a monopoly anywhere except maybe in the Android ecosystem. It is too easy to move away from their products
by roenxi 3y ago
I'm still suspicious of the idea that Google can have a monopoly anywhere except maybe in the Android ecosystem. It is too easy to move away from their products and go use something else. Nobody is under any pressure to use Google's search. Literally Google "alternatives to google search" and get a list of reasonable alternatives. If they have outstanding market share it is because they are just better, not because they have a monopoly [0].
But the problem I'm looking at here is the phrase "...you're under investigation for abusing monopoly power..." anticipates the result to some degree. This is a an exhaustive list of the guidance lawyers can provide. Both seem to anticipate that some wrongdoing has been done. It leads to shallow thinking:
... you're under investigation for abusing monopoly power and lawyers tell employees not to use phrases like "We'll crush the competition".
... you're under investigation for abusing monopoly power and lawyers provide no guidance, then employees use phrases like "We'll crush the competition".
Most of the work is actually being done by the initial frame, not what the employees are told.
[0] I wouldn't know, I don't use Google search.
- paulddraper 3y agoChrome defaults to Google Search. ChromeOS comes with a bundled browser, the big no-no that cost Microsoft.
- TylerE 3y agoWindows had about 90% consumer market share at that point. ChromeOS… doesn’t.
- roenxi 3y agoAre you suggesting that ChromeOS of all things has a monopoly position in the market? I'm happy to be proven wrong if the year of the Linux desktop has finally come!
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago> if the year of the Linux desktop has finally come No, I think that's next year. ;)
- scarface_74 3y agoChromeOS is like 3% of the market.
- AlphaSite 3y agoGoogle used the search monopoly to grow chrome into another monopoly, placing it on their front page, a place where absolutely no one else can ever get advertising.
- roenxi 3y agoChrome's engine is open source, and there is literally nothing stopping someone from installing Brave, Firefox or Opera. They all render the same pages and are all standards compliant enough. Did Google give Chrome a boost? Yes. Was that a good thing? Also yes. Chrome was the better browser at the time they did that - still arguably is. But that doesn't mean monopolies are involved. Apple gives privileged advertising to the iPhone, iPod and iPad on their website and they aren't a monopoly in any sense. Google is arguably less of a monopoly in pushing Chrome because they sell advertising to other people. I'm sure Samsung would pay an absurd amount of money to get an ad on apple.com with any URL path. In theory Google could be a monopoly and put a chrome ad on google.com but the fact is that they aren't a monopoly and pushing chrome did good for the world, not harm. They're just providing exceptional products and people trust the brand [0]. [0] Trusting brands in software is silly.
- Cheezewheel 3y agoNothing that you said addressed what the person above you wrote.
- roenxi 3y agoroenxi: "Google doesn't have a monopoly. [argument]" AlphaSite: "Google has a monopoly and used it to build a second monopoly [argument]" There isn't much there to address. But I did directly address it. (1) He claimed that Google had a monopoly, I ignored that because I'd addressed that in my original comment. (2) He claimed that Chrome had a monopoly. I provided an argument that it wasn't (it is really easy not to use Chrome. You give up literally nothing switching to Brave for example). (3) He claimed that Googe used monopoly tactics to build Chrome's market share. I provided a counterexample that the tactics used aren't monopoly tactics because other companies do more or less the same thing. Advertising your own products on your own site isn't monopoly behaviour. And even if Google was a monopoly and that is monopoly behavior - both of which I don't think are true - that isn't exactly an abuse of monopoly power, it is pretty tame. It'd be helpful for me if you pointed out why you don't think that is addressing the comment. It seemed pretty direct to me.
- junofan 3y agoIt’s an ad company. Good luck running a local plumbing business without forking over 10% to the big GOOG.