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Google Pays $21B for Search Monopoly: How "Free" Tech Markets Repress
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoAlthough ideally we shouldn't have got into this position, is there a realistic, practical solution? How many of the general public wouldn't just choose Google if shown a list to choose a search engine? What would this do to the Firefox, Mozilla, Opera etc browsers who get a large chunk of revenue from Google?
- makeitdouble 3y agoYou seem to be asking for a prediction of the future once the current roadblocks are lifted. Would be cool if people had actual answers, but it would have been hard for instance to assume that Microsoft anti-trust ruling would make them miss the boat on the mobile trend and give an edge to Apple. In that respect, I kinda hope we see something that wasn't obvious, but has a huge positive impact on our landscape that would have been delayed or anhilated if nothing changed.
- Retric 3y agoGoogle is paying 21B because they expect to lose more than that if they stop. Which suggests they don’t think people would choose them.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoExactly and they know this. The biggest market is mobile now, and people on mobile don't open their web browser on their phone and start typing google.com before they search for something like people used to do on desktops 20 years ago, but they search for something directly in the built-in browser's address bar whichever search engine that might be, as most people stick to the default on their device whichever those might be. Defaults matter. Apple could probably switch the default search engine in Safari to anything else and most users wouldn't bother changing it back to Google unless the results were to be absolutely terrible.
- neuronerdgirl 3y agoHow well does that hypothesis fit the maps experience?
- RandomDistort 3y agoThe maps experience was terrible, if the search isn't terrible, it will survive.
- utopcell 3y agoOr, the most likely scenario, especially in the Apple case: Google is made to pay these obscene amounts and has no alternatives other than abandoning a part of the market.
- asah 3y agowhat? um no: they are paying 21B because * Apple * has a monopoly on their platform and would divert users to another search engine who paid $1 more.
- prepend 3y agoYou’re not using the word monopoly correctly. Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on their platform. They make a platform that’s part of a market. And they have a minority portion of that market. That’s like saying Folgers has a monopoly on Folgers coffee. The sentiment is kind of right, they are the only ones who make Folgers, but it’s not the right term as being an exclusive manufacturer is not a monopoly in terms of anti trust or this conversation.
- spot5010 3y agoI don’t know why you are getting downvoted. You’re right. Not justifying apples tactics though.
- bogwog 3y agoI'm not an expert on this in any way, but I've been following this Google case and have learned a few things. In antitrust lawsuits, a critical part is to define the "relevant market" over which a company is being accused of doing illegal anti-competitive things. This isn't straightforward or easy to define, but I do think it's very easy to make a strong argument that Apple has enough market power over some markets to justify enforcement action against them. > Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on their platform. They make a platform that’s part of a market. And they have a minority portion of that market. I don't think "a minority portion" means anything, since illegal activities are still illegal. I.e. collusion doesn't become legal just because you're a small company. And again, I think it'd be pretty easy to identify more than a few markets where Apple very clearly has an overwhelming market share.
- fallingknife 3y agoCan you name any of those markets? I can't think of any.
- cherrycherry98 3y agoI my guess is that what's really happening is that Apple is being paid off not to compete in search. As Google has shown, search can be incredibly lucrative. The profit motive would be pushing Apple to this end. They have a large base of loyal users that Apple Search could be be pushed out to as the default. Google pays Apple enough not to take the risk in trying. If Apple Search was a hit it would be a threat to Google. There's always the possibility that it would be the next Bing or Apple Maps, an inferior money pit, so Apple is happy to take the cash.
- bogwog 3y agoI can't think of a more in your face example of anti-competitive business practices harming innovation.
- janmo 3y agoVery correct, although Apple controls only a minority of the Smartphone and Desktop market, they have most of the high income individuals, which advertisers love. If Apple loses that sweet 21B USD, they will come up with their own search engine for sure.
- kmlx 3y ago> Google is paying 21B because they expect to lose more than that if they stop. google is paying that much because otherwise microsoft would be paying close to that. there is no innovation in the search space, there is only a battle of cash.
- carlosjobim 3y agoMost people would choose Google, but they are too incompetent or too indifferent to select the search engine on their device. If you study normal people using a computer or smart phone, they will panic and instantly click "OK" or "Continue" on any alert or dialog that shows on their device.
- jasode 3y ago>How many of the general public wouldn't just choose Google if shown a list to choose a search engine? Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admits the most common search query on Bing is "google": https://www.google.com/search?q=nadella+bing+most+%22common+search+query%22+is+google https://www.google.com/search?q=nadella+bing+most+%22common+...
- varispeed 3y agoIt's primarily to do with users not being cognisant that Bing is a search engine. For example, I set my friend's default search engine to Bing, and if she wants to find something, in her mind, she needs to "google it". So she types: "google supermarket opening times" and so on.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoBing's issue (as a layperson) is that it's regressed to 90's internet start page; I just opened it up, starts off alright with a pretty picture and a search bar, but then an advert opens up for its Dall-E / AI integration and a list of recent news shows at the bottom. Then searching, a cookie banner shows, a popup points me to a feature on the top right, and the main content suddenly vanishes (probably because I have an adblocker, which blocked 35 items). The "New Bing" opens up another thing where you can ask the AI things... just like Ask Jeeves did 25 years ago.
- ourmandave 3y agoAt least they have a hide arrow for the Recent News. Each headline can only be a few words so they have to get right to the point, with keywords like "missing", "shooting", "died", "convicted", etc. Compact doom side scrolling.
- jasode 3y ago>It's primarily to do with users not being cognisant that Bing is a search engine. For example, I set my friend [...] she types: "google supermarket opening times" and so on. I'm not debating you because I don't have the raw usage data but I observe a different behavior with non-HN non-techie crowd: they deliberately want to go to the "google.com" home page to also navigate to Google's webapps like Gmail, Google Calendar, etc example screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/X0pFgAs https://imgur.com/a/X0pFgAs The users have Google sign-ins and they don't know (or haven't memorized) direct urls like "gmail.com" or "calendar.google.com". What they do know is the colorful icons on Google's main page to click on to get to those apps. In these use cases, the Google landing page -- which has a search bar -- is also acting as a modern-day version of America Online's "portal to the internet". That's what I personally observe people typing "google" into Bing is trying to accomplish. Of course the prominent search field is still front-and-center so they'll naturally use Google Search because of familiarity. The search text field PLUS the Google web apps reinforce each other's continued usage habits.
- mrweasel 3y agoOne thing, except the paying to be default, that keeps the general public on Google is that they just want answers, and Google provides. I'd guess that the majority of Google "searches" probably isn't even hitting their index all that hard anymore. It's either directly yanked from Wikipedia, IMDB, Stack Overflow or some other Google partner or property. If you're looking to buy something it's even better, Google Adwords is excellent that finding the right products for your query.
- LeonB 3y agoThere’s plenty of practical solutions to monopolies who abuse their power. - First up, stop their tax avoidance by supporting governments that engage in strong international tax treaties. - Support governments who will provide effective deterrents to Google (and Facebook) monetising scams. Day in day out there are scammy advertisers that I, one measley person, am capable of spotting… but they (Google and Facebook), with all their wisdom and money, are incapable of booting from their platforms.
- MrThoughtful 3y agoHow many of the general public wouldn't just choose Google if shown a list to choose a search engine? I start each of my searches with such a list: https://www.gnod.com/search/ https://www.gnod.com/search/ And I rarely choose Google.
- pama 3y agoThis may not be exactly what you’re asking about: in my mind, a realistic and practical solution is to have large language models do the search, look up many of the top hits, avoiding the advertisements and clear SEO, and then report back with any actual hits for your personalized search. Indexing the web is not that hard if you don’t have to give a perfect solution as the first answer because there is an LLM that can do the selection at a second stage. Furthermore, a lot of the trivial search is not a search for new things but a knowledge lookup for which there are also better solutions once you can combine LLM in the mix.
- helf 3y ago[dead]
- weego 3y agoI mean, that's literally the result of this practice. They've been paying for ubiquity and coaching people's minds into thinking "I can google that". Saying "oh well, we're too far down the path now to change anything" just compounds the issue across generations, which is a level of apathy towards humans that we've come to expect, but shouldn't tolerate.
- prepend 3y ago> How many of the general public wouldn't just choose Google if shown a list to choose a search engine? Do you think google is stupid for paying $21B? I don’t know the answer to your question, but I suspect Google does, and maybe Apple. And it’s a lot of people. So many people that Google would lose more than $21B in profit.
- drivingmenuts 3y agoSeeing as how “google” is now a generic word for search, I suspect most people would choose it. DDG may be a good search engine, but the name doesn’t roll off the tongue like google.
- goodbyesf 3y agoMost people don't 'choose' anything. They take what is given to them or the easiest option. Netscape found that out the hard way when microsoft leverage their OS to push IE on everyone. People can 'google' on bing, ddg, etc. They don't care whether they are actually 'googling' on google.
- manojlds 3y agoThat's choose vs something else being default scenario right?
- dartos 3y agoI wouldn’t just assume that people working and making decisions at big companies always are rational.
- goodbyesf 3y agoMaybe. But if irrational people at big companies are just throwing $21 billion away, the shareholders will hold them responsible. Especially the major shareholders.
- prepend 3y agoI would if it’s $21B involved. There are massive incentives to fix that. I’m not saying it’s impossible that Google is acting irrationally. But I’m saying it’s stupid to assume they are.
- giancarlostoro 3y agoI remember why I started using Google, and it was because I could type anything and get exactly what I wanted. YouTube before Google bought them out was this good (although it was mostly clips from movies and TV shows) and then it got crippled over the years. I often have to re-type my search query into Google way too many times before I find something relevant. It's really frustrating looking up something technical and getting really old Stack Overflow answers that are severely dated, and this one's a jab at StackOverflow itself: even more frustrating when you find a more modern question and some SO mod locks it because it's a duplicate question, and then they link you to the legacy answer which no longer works, or works with a very dated approach. And then there's Pinterest on Google Images, not to knock the hard work the fine folks at Pinterest do, but if you don't have an account, its the most toxic experience as an end-user, and I'm shocked at how Google arrives to putting them so high pagerank wise. My only conclusion is Google profits from Pinterest (maybe google ads idk, never looked deep into it) in some way.
- lopis 3y agoYoutube search at this point is incapable of showing relevant results past the first page or results. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of relevant results, after the first page it seems to show more and more what Youtube thinks you're interested in watching, instead of the relevant videos to your query.
- giancarlostoro 3y agoWhatever change they did last, I can't find a single thing. Their little "please turn off your adblocker" thing is cute, but I'm basically done using YouTube at this point, I literally cannot find content. I don't know what Google keeps doing to their search, but it astounds me people use it anymore, I seem to be getting the most regressed form of their search.
- vasdae 3y ago[flagged]
- s_dev 3y agoWhy?
- Lacerda69 3y agoSome people - mostly anti-woke Americans - think that there is reduced freedom of speech in Germany because you can go to jail for denying the holocaust or Nazi slogans. Not sure if OP meant that but I saw that opinion around.
- logicchains 3y agoYou can also go to jail in Germany now for expressing support for Hamas.
- vasdae 3y agoBasically for having the wrong political opinion. If that's not a limitation on the freedom of speech... Germany probably has the least free speech of the developed world.
- Lacerda69 3y agoIf you actually believe the holocaust was an invention and spread this belief in public you should be jailed IMO. Not sure what other "opinions" you are alluding to. Who has been jailed for that in Germany? Genuinely curious.
- vasdae 3y ago> If you actually believe the holocaust was an invention and spread this belief in public you should be jailed IMO. I mean, as long as you are aware of how autoritarian this is...
- kapsteur 3y agoInstead of DuckDuckGo and Ecosia whose use Bing Search, they should share real alternative like https://kagi.com/ https://kagi.com/ or https://search.brave.com https://search.brave.com
- mrweasel 3y agoKagi uses Google(1)... so, how is that different from DuckDuckGo using Bing? It is different than say Ecosia that's pretty much just reskinned Bing. 1 ) https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.html#external https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.htm...
- andrewinardeer 3y agoBe that as it may, with Kagi at least I can choose to omit sites from search results or "pin" high quality sites. Plus, privacy
- mrweasel 3y agoSure, but that's wasn't the context. It was about real alternatives, which excludes Bing or Google and Kagi doesn't do that.
- freediver 3y agoWhen we are talking about search alternatives we are really talking about alternatives to bussiness model (otherwise why bother?), and Kagi is the only alternative out there in the sea of ad-supported search engines.
- carlosjobim 3y agoOf course Kagi is a real alternative. It's not Google search and you can verify that by trying searches and comparing the results you get from either engine.
- 3y ago
- mortehu 3y agoWouldn't Google love it if paying became illegal for everyone? After all, if nobody could pay Apple for placement, Apple would probably choose Google, and Google would save $20 billion per year.
- r0fl 3y agoOr Apple would build a search engine. Even if not as good as Google, it would not be good for Google gross revenue
- barelyauser 3y agoWhy does Google currently pays Apple then? If Google could not pay then Apple would just push its own search products. Why choose Google if they don't benefit from it?
- parker_mountain 3y ago> Why does Google currently pays Apple then? Because Apple knows how to play hardball. > Why choose Google if they don't benefit from it? They benefit about $20B a year.
- barelyauser 3y agoMy comment was in response to the nonsensical logic of parent post, not about the current working logic of the industry. If paying was illegal then Apple has no reason to choose Google, as OP stated. Apple is incentivized to push its own search products.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- toyg 3y agoThose $18bn Google pays to Apple are not meant to dissuade them from choosing alternatives, but to stop them creating their own - because why leave money on the table?
- 3y ago
- wslh 3y agoIt seems like a crazy idea to start a search engine competitor in 2023 but the innovation dilemma is always present. We lack innovation, it seems nobody is trying? Do you know of some existing project even at an early stage?
- the_common_man 3y agokagi?
- danpalmer 3y ago> We lack innovation, it seems nobody is trying? What about the inclusion of LLM based results in Google and Bing search? Regardless of what you might feel about those results, it's certainly an attempt at innovation.
- gumballindie 3y agoHopefully that doesnt become a thing, first because llms are by their nature unreliable, second because content makers would lose traffic.
- wslh 3y agoCertainly they are trying but the issue is to perform "daily" updates on LLMs and not be fixed to older scrapings. For some reason, business wise, Google has been prioritizing current information more than older ones.
- ggpsv 3y agoNot exactly an alternative to mainstream search engines, but Marginalia Search [0] has been trying for the non-commercial side of the web. [0] https://search.marginalia.nu/ https://search.marginalia.nu/
- johannes1234321 3y agoMicrosoft is trying with Bing and while owning a large desktop OS and thus market share of Internet users and large budgets for development and operations can't compete in a significant ways. Yahoo! tried to compete, but failed. Even if you have the required capital it's hard to get into the market. Especially as Google also owns the ad market, thus the way to make it profitable. Only ones I see able to pull that off were Apple, as they have the budget and a platform and with maps were somewhat successful, even though users complained about poor quality initially (I don't have an apple device, thus no personal experience with recent maps), but Google pays them well for not even trying. Facebook/Meta also stays away from that market and focusses on more "social" platforms.
- tomohawk 3y agoNo market is free when a monopolist controls it. For a market to be free, there must be actual competition. If the goal is to keep the market free, then the role of the government is to intervene to ensure a state of competition when such state does not exist. If the goal is not to have a free market, then the role of government is to intervene and regulate the monopoly/oligopoly to ensure that people's constitutional rights are preserved and the monopoly is not used to obtain additional power or additional monopolies. AT&T was such a monopoly for many decades. They were prohibited from entering other businesses as it would just result in them expanding their monopoly.
- anon23432343 3y agoThis is a free market. One company can pay another company to set a default. I remember last year this was full of blockchain bros and so an. What hapend to the free the people from the gov people here?
- zirgs 3y agoIt's scary that the amount of money that they pay is bigger than the whole annual budget of my country. You can run a whole country of 2M of people with the money that google pays to apple just for making their search engine the default one. How do you regulate a corporation that's bigger than the government?
- anon23432343 3y ago"The free market will regulate itself"
- vincnetas 3y agoYes, but not to the advantage of the weakest participants.
- anon23432343 3y ago"The Free Market" does not have this concept. Libertarians don't have this concept. Right wing is the opposite they love to attack the weakest. The hustle culture only thinks about money. The Blockchain boys only think about money. Who has time for the weak? Not the free market.
- zirgs 3y agoWell in this case many governments are weaker participants than big corporations.
- zirgs 3y agoIt's scary that someone somewhere at google can decide what to do with larger amounts of money than many governments of sovereign countries. Who exactly decided to pay 19B to apple? What is their decision making process? Do they vote on it or what?
- matthewfelgate 3y agoWhy are people concerned about Google dominating search but not Microsoft owning 80%+ of the desktop OS market?
- williamdclt 3y ago> Why are people concerned about Google dominating search but not Microsoft owning 80%+ of the desktop OS market? Lots of people are concerned about that too. Probably the same sort of people actually.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoWho isn't concerned about that? Have you forgotten all the anti-trust lawsuits aimed at Microsoft and their bundled software (like browsers, media players) from the past two decades? Your whataboutism is unsubstantiated.
- matthewfelgate 3y agoSource? The last significant Microsoft anti-trust lawsuits are from the 90s.
- cubefox 3y agoThis raises the question why Microsoft didn't simply outbid Google. It would certainly be possible given that Microsoft earns significantly more money.
- izacus 3y agoIf you read the testimony from Nadela, their search was so bad that Apple didn't want it even if they paid more money. Which... kinda cancels out the thesis from this article.
- mrweasel 3y agoIt was pretty hard to read exactly what deal Microsoft proposed to Apple, because for some sources it seemed like they wanted Apple to buy Bing, as in all of it, not just have it be the default in Apple products. I do wonder if Apple would choose Bing today, if the price was right? I can understand not wanting to choose Bing back then, but Googles search has stagnated and even regressed in some cases, Bing has just kept improving.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pharmakom 3y agoAlternative take: would we rather be without all those projects that Google supports via such deals?
- carlosjobim 3y agoI pay for YouTube Premium already. And I would rather pay directly to Google for other services from them that I use. For E-Mail, search and browsers there are excellent alternatives to Google, so I don't know what else except YouTube that would be interesting from their offerings. Although it's easy to forget, considering the thousands of projects they have.
- pharmakom 3y agoOnly a tiny percentage are willing to pay.
- carlosjobim 3y agoYes, but why should they be served at all? I think we would have had a better internet in every way if the default was to pay for the services you use. That would eliminate spying and tracking, eliminate clickbait and low-quality dishonest material, and just in general increase trust and security online. I see it happening a little bit with ISPs including certain subscriptions with their plans, but it's still done in a clumsy way.
- pharmakom 3y agoYou think that because you’re paying they won’t spy on you? See smart TVs
- carlosjobim 3y agoWhat's the reason for spying if there are no advertisements to sell?
- zpeti 3y agoIf they had an actual monopoly, they wouldn't have to pay $21bn. Why do all our words meaning's have to get inflated away? Sigh.
- renegat0x0 3y agoIt really surprises me that it takes so long. This has been a talking point at least since 2018 [1]. 5 years and nothing has changed. How is that possible, and acceptable? Secondly, why is it so difficult to use other App stores for mobile? why section 4.5 of [2] exist at all? As a user I really really would like to be able to install any app store I like. I do not like that Google play stored is installed by default, while there are so many hurdles to install f-droid. It all looks like monopolistic actions that are against the law. I feel that we are repeating history. Microsoft has already gone through processes with bundling up of Internet Explorer. Links [1] https://www.axios.com/2018/11/19/tim-cook-interview-apple-google-axios-on-hbo https://www.axios.com/2018/11/19/tim-cook-interview-apple-go... [2] https://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-agreement.html https://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-agreeme...
- bogwog 3y ago> It really surprises me that it takes so long. This has been a talking point at least since 2018 [1]. 5 years and nothing has changed. > How is that possible, and acceptable? That's because the FTC came under new leadership in 2021, and the previous leadership were incompetent/lazy/possibly-corrupt morons.
- moralestapia 3y agoHanlon's revisited: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by corruption.
- steamer25 3y agoThat dovetails nicely with: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” --Upton Sinclair
- bartwr 3y agoSadly things take so long because democratic rule of law law "has to" work slowly (you would not want "innocent" businesses closed overnight or citizens arrested because of allegations). It's not great, obviously, and both false positives and negatives happen. The issue is that people and companies exploit it, "better ask for forgiveness than permission", and after years they clean up evidence, their CEOs say they "don't remember", and even if they get fined - it's too late and will not save destroyed, monopolized market. All those gig economy "disruptors" are the worst, but probably all the biggest companies do this. I wish that there could be a possibility of a retribution payment - a monopolistic payment destroyed an $xyz bln competitor? They need to pay this amount of money, maybe to some publicly owned alternative/open source competition if it's too late.
- balboah 3y agoI often replace searching for something on google with ChatGPT these days. I expect the way we interact with information to be replaced completely in the future. Why would I skim through all those clickbaits and ads instead of getting a tailored result of exactly the information I was looking for
- znt 3y agoSame here, Google's "How to" search share will be eaten by ChatGPT and similar products in about 5 years maybe.
- sharemywin 3y agopeople won't switch to a "free" sponsored chatbot?
- toasted-subs 3y agoWould have been cheaper to keep paying me.