3 ms·

> why didn't somebody else just do that Yeah, who doesn't have a half-decent web search engine a couple of hundred billion dollars lying around.

elicash 3y ago
Microsoft, whose testimony has gotten the most attention in this case, has $111.26 B on hand. Google pays Apple between $18 billion to $20 billion a year, supposedly, and of course makes money back in search revenue. And even more by being number one in search. If you thought I was suggesting a random person on the street would have the money, then you misunderstood. The actual answer to the question I posed, which you quoted, is that it's actually quite difficult and not a matter of just writing a check.
- pie420 3y ago
  The implication is that in capitalist society without enough regulation, the monopolies will collaborate to maintain their own monopolies rather than fight each other and try to compete. Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon all could compete, but it's more profitable to have a gentlemen's agreement to not compete and to kill any challengers. Same as Standard Oil, J.P. Morgan, US Steel, Armour Meats, etc. last century.
  - elicash 3y ago
    I don't have an issue with a law that says companies that create phones have to show X number of search options for the user to select on first startup. But the central argument in this legal case, that just paying to be the default means you then automatically become highest quality and therefore dominate the entire market even on other devices, doesn't strike me as being... true. "Regulation can be good" is a principle I agree with. That is separate from whether the central argument being made about whether being the default is all it takes to create the highest quality search engine.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      That's one of the cruxes of the lawsuit: whether that kind of thing is true, and if it is, whether it constitutes antitrust to take advantage of it. If search engines overlap 99.9% in quality, default might win purely because users are lazy and uninterested in understanding the application domain. Personal opinion: it sticks in my craw a little if it turns out you can be a monopolist by just working to be the default search engine because users are too lazy to try switching. That's a weird way to interpret the "consumer harm" cornerstone of American antitrust.
      - elicash 3y ago
        > If search engines overlap 99.9% in quality, default might win purely because users are lazy and uninterested in understanding the application domain. What Microsoft is saying in this case is that their search engine sucks by comparison to google and lacks quality because they don't have the same number of queries since they aren't the default. That whoever has the most queries will automatically be the highest quality and win across all platforms, not just Apple where it's the default. Your argument is very different! You're essentially arguing that Microsoft is wrong about not being nearly as good as Google. See https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/2/23900233/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-us-google-antitrust-trial-testimony https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/2/23900233/microsoft-ceo-sa...
        shadowgovt 3y ago
        Ah, okay! That is actually very clever and I tip my hat to their lawyers for coming up with that approach. Granted, one could I suppose have some concerns with an argument that says " We can't be as good because we don't have the ability to harvest nearly as much private data that users don't just hand you unless you intermediate yourself in their lives..." ... But there's meat on the bones of that being a roundabout way to argue consumer harm.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  History around this is actually part of the case, with some more details in articles like this https://www.pymnts.com/big-tech/2023/microsoft-eyed-apple-deal-make-bing-default-search-engine-safari/ https://www.pymnts.com/big-tech/2023/microsoft-eyed-apple-de... Also worth mentioning Firefox didn't always choose Google's bid historically.
  - elicash 3y ago
    The article reads to me like Microsoft either didn't think it was worth the high price, or that they couldn't sell the price tag to shareholders. And that contrary to just being an Apple thing, they also didn't want to pay Samsung, undercutting the idea that this is just a matter of Apple and Google being too cozy. I get the impression Microsoft doesn't believe its own argument that all you need to do is write a check.
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      Or that they also knew Google, who already has the lead in search revenue, also has 100 billion in cash on hand so trying to buy the market out wouldn't actually work, even with 100 billion yourself.

elicash 3y ago

Microsoft, whose testimony has gotten the most attention in this case, has $111.26 B on hand. Google pays Apple between $18 billion to $20 billion a year, supposedly, and of course makes money back in search revenue. And even more by being number one in search. If you thought I was suggesting a random person on the street would have the money, then you misunderstood. The actual answer to the question I posed, which you quoted, is that it's actually quite difficult and not a matter of just writing a check.

pie420 3y ago
The implication is that in capitalist society without enough regulation, the monopolies will collaborate to maintain their own monopolies rather than fight each other and try to compete. Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon all could compete, but it's more profitable to have a gentlemen's agreement to not compete and to kill any challengers. Same as Standard Oil, J.P. Morgan, US Steel, Armour Meats, etc. last century.
- elicash 3y ago
  I don't have an issue with a law that says companies that create phones have to show X number of search options for the user to select on first startup. But the central argument in this legal case, that just paying to be the default means you then automatically become highest quality and therefore dominate the entire market even on other devices, doesn't strike me as being... true. "Regulation can be good" is a principle I agree with. That is separate from whether the central argument being made about whether being the default is all it takes to create the highest quality search engine.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    That's one of the cruxes of the lawsuit: whether that kind of thing is true, and if it is, whether it constitutes antitrust to take advantage of it. If search engines overlap 99.9% in quality, default might win purely because users are lazy and uninterested in understanding the application domain. Personal opinion: it sticks in my craw a little if it turns out you can be a monopolist by just working to be the default search engine because users are too lazy to try switching. That's a weird way to interpret the "consumer harm" cornerstone of American antitrust.
    - elicash 3y ago
      > If search engines overlap 99.9% in quality, default might win purely because users are lazy and uninterested in understanding the application domain. What Microsoft is saying in this case is that their search engine sucks by comparison to google and lacks quality because they don't have the same number of queries since they aren't the default. That whoever has the most queries will automatically be the highest quality and win across all platforms, not just Apple where it's the default. Your argument is very different! You're essentially arguing that Microsoft is wrong about not being nearly as good as Google. See https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/2/23900233/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-us-google-antitrust-trial-testimony https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/2/23900233/microsoft-ceo-sa...
      - shadowgovt 3y ago
        Ah, okay! That is actually very clever and I tip my hat to their lawyers for coming up with that approach. Granted, one could I suppose have some concerns with an argument that says " We can't be as good because we don't have the ability to harvest nearly as much private data that users don't just hand you unless you intermediate yourself in their lives..." ... But there's meat on the bones of that being a roundabout way to argue consumer harm.
zamadatix 3y ago
History around this is actually part of the case, with some more details in articles like this https://www.pymnts.com/big-tech/2023/microsoft-eyed-apple-deal-make-bing-default-search-engine-safari/ https://www.pymnts.com/big-tech/2023/microsoft-eyed-apple-de... Also worth mentioning Firefox didn't always choose Google's bid historically.
- elicash 3y ago
  The article reads to me like Microsoft either didn't think it was worth the high price, or that they couldn't sell the price tag to shareholders. And that contrary to just being an Apple thing, they also didn't want to pay Samsung, undercutting the idea that this is just a matter of Apple and Google being too cozy. I get the impression Microsoft doesn't believe its own argument that all you need to do is write a check.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    Or that they also knew Google, who already has the lead in search revenue, also has 100 billion in cash on hand so trying to buy the market out wouldn't actually work, even with 100 billion yourself.