5 ms·

Google is a very strange monopolist

34 points by Bostonian 2y ago

Bostonian 2y ago
https://archive.is/qkWUQ https://archive.is/qkWUQ 'The judge says 90% of search queries are run on Google, and its only major general search competitor is Microsoft (now valued at $3 trillion). However, the judge concedes that Microsoft was slow in adapting its search engine for mobile devices, causing it to lose ground. “Google has not achieved market dominance by happenstance. It has hired thousands of highly skilled engineers, innovated consistently, and made shrewd business decisions,” Judge Mehta writes. “The result is the industry’s highest quality search engine, which has earned Google the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users.” So what’s the antitrust problem? The judge says Google’s advertising revenue-sharing payments to Apple, Mozilla and others for default placement have made it harder for potential startups and Microsoft to compete. Yet users can switch to other search engines if they want. And Judge Mehta notes that Apple and Mozilla have “promotional deals” with other search engines. Microsoft pitched Apple “on making Bing the default multiple times.” Startup Duck Duck Go also “made a bid to be the default for private browsing mode searches on Safari,” but neither it nor Microsoft “succeeded in part due to their inferior quality.” This makes for a very strange monopolist—one that does better by consumers because its search engine is superior. “Google’s partners value its quality, and they continue to select Google as the default because its search engine provides the best bet for monetizing queries,” the judge explains, adding that Google “has continued to innovate in search.”'
- notarobot123 2y ago
  > The law is supposed to protect consumers from a monopolist that uses its power to raise prices or restrict choices. This is a very narrow view of what antitrust is all about. Are monopolies essentially fine as long as they don't abuse their power too much?
  - pram 2y ago
    Historically “yes” they’ve been “fine” if they’re regulated, like the Bell System. Although obviously Google/Apple/Microsoft/Meta would prefer to be monopolies without “government interference”
  - gotorazor 2y ago
    I think the suit points out that google does restrict choice. For pricing, Google's search dominance raises the prices of word advertising.
  - choilive 2y ago
    In short, yes. Monopolies are not illegal in the US per se. It is only illegal if they exploit their position via what is known as "anticompetitive conduct".
    - Narhem 2y ago
      I’d say all the technology companies are relatively anticompetitive due to the nature of the work.
      - starspangled 2y ago
        What nature of it?
        Narhem 2y ago
        Fighting over limited resources by definition of the type of work.
        starspangled 2y ago
        Fighting over limited resources is basically what competition is, and I would say most (all?) industries could be characterized this way too. I think it's more the issue that compatibility extremely difficult in technology in a lot of important ways that makes competition and regulation hard. But more importantly, at least on the internet/search/social media side of things, because it is extremely pervasive and holds huge influence on the population and has a lot of data on the population, which makes it an incredible tool to influence political opinion, so it has become very corrupt.
- massysett 2y ago
  > Yet users can switch to other search engines if they want. Advertisers can’t. What are the other choices - Bing, maybe Facebook? Furthermore, search users aren’t even Google’s customers. Advertisers are. So whether users can switch is not an interesting question.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    This suit [1] specifically is about users, not advertisers. It was brought in 2020. There is a separate suit [2] that is specifically about advertisers, not users. It was brought last year. You assert that only the second one is an interesting question. I'd say they both are. Contrary to your statement, search users are absolutely Google's customers. But a company can have more than one set of customers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2023) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2...
    - massysett 2y ago
      Google Search users absolutely are not Google customers. It fails even a basic dictionary definition: Merriam-Webster says a customer is “one that purchases a commodity or service.”
      - tweenagedream 2y ago
        Who says you have to purchase a service with dollars?
        Joker_vD 2y ago
        The FTC, apparently: [0]. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/240.4 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/240.4
- znpy 2y ago
  > Yet users can switch to other search engines if they want. This hasn't always been the case though. On both iOS and Android, Google was the un-changeable default for a long time (this has helped google keep its dominant position).
stubish 2y ago
As a Duck Duck Go user, I find it strange Google is still considered a better search to the point it can be argued objectively in court. Every time I fail with DDG and add a !g to do an actual Google search, I fail there too. I don't know if I have terrible search-fu, or awesome search-fu.
- diffxx 2y ago
  This is my experience too. I switched about five years ago and haven't looked back but many people still feel strongly that Google is better so like you I'm not sure if I'm doing it right or wrong. What I will say though is that I do not feel limited in any way by my choice of search engine. Every time I try Google, I genuinely hope it will be better than DDG (otherwise why even bother?), but it isn't.
- marssaxman 2y ago
  I concur; DDG is fine. It's been years since I have bothered falling back to !g.
jjeaff 2y ago
Something interesting that I think will come of this is that Google will no longer be able to pay companies like Apple for their default. The $20B a year they pay Apple accounts for about 20% of their net profit. I'm confident Apple will find just about exactly that amount in their books to replace that loss. On a separate note, does this mean the end of Firefox? almost 100% of their revenue is from google paying to be the default. Will Microsoft pay anything close to that if they don't need to bid against Google for the space?
- wodenokoto 2y ago
  Revenue from Google is down to 80% of Mozilla revenue. Yahoo was willing to pay more than Google, so it is not unthinkable that MS might be willing to come close.
- stubish 2y ago
  I expect Mozilla will become the default search engine, redirecting queries to the search engine that pays the highest referrer fee or cut of the ad revenue. Which will be Google.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  So your solution is to keep the whole world hostage to Google so Firefox can still be profitable? (to develop nothing relevant and keep paying the highest salaries for their executives). But hey Mozilla just announced they are thinking about adding Web Apps to Firefox!

34 points by Bostonian 2y ago

https://archive.is/qkWUQ https://archive.is/qkWUQ 'The judge says 90% of search queries are run on Google, and its only major general search competitor is Microsoft (now valued at $3 trillion). However, the judge concedes that Microsoft was slow in adapting its search engine for mobile devices, causing it to lose ground. “Google has not achieved market dominance by happenstance. It has hired thousands of highly skilled engineers, innovated consistently, and made shrewd business decisions,” Judge Mehta writes. “The result is the industry’s highest quality search engine, which has earned Google the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users.” So what’s the antitrust problem? The judge says Google’s advertising revenue-sharing payments to Apple, Mozilla and others for default placement have made it harder for potential startups and Microsoft to compete. Yet users can switch to other search engines if they want. And Judge Mehta notes that Apple and Mozilla have “promotional deals” with other search engines. Microsoft pitched Apple “on making Bing the default multiple times.” Startup Duck Duck Go also “made a bid to be the default for private browsing mode searches on Safari,” but neither it nor Microsoft “succeeded in part due to their inferior quality.” This makes for a very strange monopolist—one that does better by consumers because its search engine is superior. “Google’s partners value its quality, and they continue to select Google as the default because its search engine provides the best bet for monetizing queries,” the judge explains, adding that Google “has continued to innovate in search.”'

notarobot123 2y ago
> The law is supposed to protect consumers from a monopolist that uses its power to raise prices or restrict choices. This is a very narrow view of what antitrust is all about. Are monopolies essentially fine as long as they don't abuse their power too much?
- pram 2y ago
  Historically “yes” they’ve been “fine” if they’re regulated, like the Bell System. Although obviously Google/Apple/Microsoft/Meta would prefer to be monopolies without “government interference”
- gotorazor 2y ago
  I think the suit points out that google does restrict choice. For pricing, Google's search dominance raises the prices of word advertising.
- choilive 2y ago
  In short, yes. Monopolies are not illegal in the US per se. It is only illegal if they exploit their position via what is known as "anticompetitive conduct".
  - Narhem 2y ago
    I’d say all the technology companies are relatively anticompetitive due to the nature of the work.
    - starspangled 2y ago
      What nature of it?
      - Narhem 2y ago
        Fighting over limited resources by definition of the type of work.
        starspangled 2y ago
        Fighting over limited resources is basically what competition is, and I would say most (all?) industries could be characterized this way too. I think it's more the issue that compatibility extremely difficult in technology in a lot of important ways that makes competition and regulation hard. But more importantly, at least on the internet/search/social media side of things, because it is extremely pervasive and holds huge influence on the population and has a lot of data on the population, which makes it an incredible tool to influence political opinion, so it has become very corrupt.
massysett 2y ago
> Yet users can switch to other search engines if they want. Advertisers can’t. What are the other choices - Bing, maybe Facebook? Furthermore, search users aren’t even Google’s customers. Advertisers are. So whether users can switch is not an interesting question.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  This suit [1] specifically is about users, not advertisers. It was brought in 2020. There is a separate suit [2] that is specifically about advertisers, not users. It was brought last year. You assert that only the second one is an interesting question. I'd say they both are. Contrary to your statement, search users are absolutely Google's customers. But a company can have more than one set of customers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2023) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2...
  - massysett 2y ago
    Google Search users absolutely are not Google customers. It fails even a basic dictionary definition: Merriam-Webster says a customer is “one that purchases a commodity or service.”
    - tweenagedream 2y ago
      Who says you have to purchase a service with dollars?
      - Joker_vD 2y ago
        The FTC, apparently: [0]. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/240.4 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/240.4
znpy 2y ago
> Yet users can switch to other search engines if they want. This hasn't always been the case though. On both iOS and Android, Google was the un-changeable default for a long time (this has helped google keep its dominant position).

stubish 2y ago

As a Duck Duck Go user, I find it strange Google is still considered a better search to the point it can be argued objectively in court. Every time I fail with DDG and add a !g to do an actual Google search, I fail there too. I don't know if I have terrible search-fu, or awesome search-fu.

diffxx 2y ago
This is my experience too. I switched about five years ago and haven't looked back but many people still feel strongly that Google is better so like you I'm not sure if I'm doing it right or wrong. What I will say though is that I do not feel limited in any way by my choice of search engine. Every time I try Google, I genuinely hope it will be better than DDG (otherwise why even bother?), but it isn't.
marssaxman 2y ago
I concur; DDG is fine. It's been years since I have bothered falling back to !g.

jjeaff 2y ago

Something interesting that I think will come of this is that Google will no longer be able to pay companies like Apple for their default. The $20B a year they pay Apple accounts for about 20% of their net profit. I'm confident Apple will find just about exactly that amount in their books to replace that loss. On a separate note, does this mean the end of Firefox? almost 100% of their revenue is from google paying to be the default. Will Microsoft pay anything close to that if they don't need to bid against Google for the space?

wodenokoto 2y ago
Revenue from Google is down to 80% of Mozilla revenue. Yahoo was willing to pay more than Google, so it is not unthinkable that MS might be willing to come close.
stubish 2y ago
I expect Mozilla will become the default search engine, redirecting queries to the search engine that pays the highest referrer fee or cut of the ad revenue. Which will be Google.
meiraleal 2y ago
So your solution is to keep the whole world hostage to Google so Firefox can still be profitable? (to develop nothing relevant and keep paying the highest salaries for their executives). But hey Mozilla just announced they are thinking about adding Web Apps to Firefox!