6 ms·

Breaking up AT&T was unquestionably the right call. (So to say.) Long distance was expensive for quite a while even after the break-up. If you called up an out

Breaking up AT&T was unquestionably the right call. (So to say.) Long distance was expensive for quite a while even after the break-up. If you called up an out-of-state friend or relative to catch up, you expected the call to cost you at least a few bucks. (And you hoped they would be the ones to call you next time.) Even into the 90's, long distance at $0.10/minute was considered cheap. And in most rural areas, everywhere past a mile or so out of town was long distance. I remember buying long-distance calling cards to bring our phone costs down. For about 5 years, it was cheaper to just get a local-only phone line and then buy your long-distance as phone cards. Each card came with a certain number of minutes pre-loaded. You'd dial the 1-800 number on the back, scratch off your PIN, enter it, and then you'd dial your destination number. Other than the hassle of buying and using the card, the major downside was that your own number didn't (usually) show up on the caller ID. They were also good if you stayed in hotels a lot, since hotels would charge upward of usurious amounts for both local and long-distance calls but they would typically allow toll-free calls to go through without charge.

someluccc 2y ago
This illustrates why breaking up google is a good idea given their egregious charges (free) for things people used to/still spend money on, such as: - An office software suite - Global maps and GPS, City Guides - Video entertainment - Mobile and Desktop OS - Web Browsers Also, pay no mind to their competitors in all of those markets AND in their core business of search, being feeble multi-trillion and multi-billion global corporations
- zuminator 2y ago
  Those things aren't free, they're supported by ad revenue and the sale of personal or aggregated user information. I'm not saying there isn't a place for that type of software, but imo it's wrong and somewhat dangerous to equate that with things that are actually free. And even so, to the extent that any of Google's software is actually free, it's mostly a loss leader for the sake of vendor lock-in, which is intrinsically anticompetitive.
  - someluccc 2y ago
    A) Do you pay them? - No: then yes it is free “But my data” Have your ever sold your data? Would the value you could ever possibly receive for your data ever equate to the value you get from the free services? Likely No and No. Is the free ad supported city newspaper free? Yes it is in fact free, just like FM radio is free, and broadcast television is free, and sidewalks next to billboards are free Someone creating something appealing and giving it away for free in order to make up for it through ads in front of eyeballs does not in any way mean that the free thing isn’t free
    - nomat 2y ago
      if you aren't considering the fact that your data is what enabled these companies to become such massive giants in the first place, you may be living outside of the EU.
    - dartos 2y ago
      > A) Do you pay them? - No: then yes it is free And here we see the ostrich. When faced with the horrors of reality, sticks its head in the sand. It’s simpler in there.
      - someluccc 2y ago
        If I build a movie theater and give away the tickets knowing that I can make money on ads before a movie that does not mean that 5 minutes of your eyesight is now worth something
        nosianu 2y ago
        > that does not mean that 5 minutes of your eyesight is now worth something The advertisers paying to get their ads placed in front of those eyes disagree. And ye, since another comment questions this, data or "eye-time are similar - they can be broken down to the individual. The advertisers pay some price expecting a certain number of people to see the ad, and even if data about people is sold in bulk (too) there is a price per individual. It's a simple division to see the price they pay per person to view that cinema ad, or for one person's data, even if they always purchase those in bulk. After all, they get to the bulk price by multiplying how much they are willing to pay for one individual with the expected (or in the case of data packages known) number of individuals.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  Sorry to repeat the "if you're not paying, you're the product, not the consumer" adage, but I think that's critically important when evaluating Google. These things aren't free, they're paid for by billions in advertising, and it's not like Google was the first to figure out this business model - radio and TV was "free" in the same manner for decades prior. I honestly would love it we would ditch surveillance capitalism and went back to a simpler option of paying for products and services. I think that essentially all of the complaints you here about Google (their lack of any responsiveness/customer support, their constant spying on users, the constant "Google graveyard" of discontinued products, their current corporate ossification, etc.) can be directly linked to the fact that users don't pay for their products.
  - someluccc 2y ago
    Like I said in my comment. All of those things are things you can PAY FOR, today! To multi-trillion dollar corporations! The time you can go back to giving away your money for things google gives away for free is… now! Excellent criticism too that the evil monopolist that devilishly gives away extremely useful and value-add products and services in order to expand its evil monopoly is also famously criticized by the victims of those free data-mining products for sometimes discontinuing them without giving them proper notice! Surely Google can’t just stop mistreating them without adequate prior notice!
- dmonitor 2y ago
  My concern is that breaking up Google without breaking up Microsoft will basically just be giving MS a huge advantage in the multitude of categories in which they compete with each other, so we'll be left in an even worse situation than before.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    Yeah. Google is far less locked in than Microsoft. Gaming across Windows and Xbox vs Sony/Nintendo. Office is used by almost every org in the world. Azure locked in via clickops IT staff always wanting to pick it; you have to make a big case to use GCP or AWS in a lot of companies vs "just" using Azure. Google's search advantage could be taken away with another website that's better. There's no installed base or corporate lockin to contend with. Same with email. Same with maps. While Google uses data from each of these services to better target ads at you, the services are not very tied into each other, and you could easily grab one of those services away from Google if you just provided a better standalone service. To me, that's not a good case for breaking up Google.
    - rafaelmn 2y ago
      Is Microsoft gaming relevant that much these days ? Admittedly I'm not gaming that much but I own PS5 and Mac and I don't really feel I'm missing out on any titles I'd want to play. Big stuff comes out on PS5 and Steam - I did see Microsoft buying a bunch of studios but the impact of that feels irrelevant in grand scheme of things. Office/GCloud does feel like the two big players but I'm sure competition would creep up here if GSuite went away (and I doubt it would, even as a standalone company). Working for big corps these days I see that supporting Apple devices is pretty standard. I'd say Microsoft is way less entrenched than it was 10-15 years ago technically - but they do a great job of selling Azure to enterprises. And even there AWS is a huge competitor without Google.
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        > Is Microsoft gaming relevant that much these days ? Hyper relevant I'd say, although the Microsoft corporate touch seems to kill every studio they buy. > Office/GCloud does feel like the two big players but I'm sure competition would creep up here if GSuite went away (and I doubt it would, even as a standalone company). Office is orders of magnitude bigger than GSuite. It is gigantic. Governments release documents in Word format instead of OpenOffice. It's so big. GSuite is still a minnow in comparison.
kunwon1 2y ago
I was in the USAF in the early 2000s, stationed in Germany. Due to a dispute with DT, I ended up using long distance calling cards to dial (overseas!) into AOL to get online. It was very involved. I imagine I may have been the only person in the country doing this

someluccc 2y ago

This illustrates why breaking up google is a good idea given their egregious charges (free) for things people used to/still spend money on, such as: - An office software suite - Global maps and GPS, City Guides - Video entertainment - Mobile and Desktop OS - Web Browsers Also, pay no mind to their competitors in all of those markets AND in their core business of search, being feeble multi-trillion and multi-billion global corporations

zuminator 2y ago
Those things aren't free, they're supported by ad revenue and the sale of personal or aggregated user information. I'm not saying there isn't a place for that type of software, but imo it's wrong and somewhat dangerous to equate that with things that are actually free. And even so, to the extent that any of Google's software is actually free, it's mostly a loss leader for the sake of vendor lock-in, which is intrinsically anticompetitive.
- someluccc 2y ago
  A) Do you pay them? - No: then yes it is free “But my data” Have your ever sold your data? Would the value you could ever possibly receive for your data ever equate to the value you get from the free services? Likely No and No. Is the free ad supported city newspaper free? Yes it is in fact free, just like FM radio is free, and broadcast television is free, and sidewalks next to billboards are free Someone creating something appealing and giving it away for free in order to make up for it through ads in front of eyeballs does not in any way mean that the free thing isn’t free
  - nomat 2y ago
    if you aren't considering the fact that your data is what enabled these companies to become such massive giants in the first place, you may be living outside of the EU.
  - dartos 2y ago
    > A) Do you pay them? - No: then yes it is free And here we see the ostrich. When faced with the horrors of reality, sticks its head in the sand. It’s simpler in there.
    - someluccc 2y ago
      If I build a movie theater and give away the tickets knowing that I can make money on ads before a movie that does not mean that 5 minutes of your eyesight is now worth something
      - nosianu 2y ago
        > that does not mean that 5 minutes of your eyesight is now worth something The advertisers paying to get their ads placed in front of those eyes disagree. And ye, since another comment questions this, data or "eye-time are similar - they can be broken down to the individual. The advertisers pay some price expecting a certain number of people to see the ad, and even if data about people is sold in bulk (too) there is a price per individual. It's a simple division to see the price they pay per person to view that cinema ad, or for one person's data, even if they always purchase those in bulk. After all, they get to the bulk price by multiplying how much they are willing to pay for one individual with the expected (or in the case of data packages known) number of individuals.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
Sorry to repeat the "if you're not paying, you're the product, not the consumer" adage, but I think that's critically important when evaluating Google. These things aren't free, they're paid for by billions in advertising, and it's not like Google was the first to figure out this business model - radio and TV was "free" in the same manner for decades prior. I honestly would love it we would ditch surveillance capitalism and went back to a simpler option of paying for products and services. I think that essentially all of the complaints you here about Google (their lack of any responsiveness/customer support, their constant spying on users, the constant "Google graveyard" of discontinued products, their current corporate ossification, etc.) can be directly linked to the fact that users don't pay for their products.
- someluccc 2y ago
  Like I said in my comment. All of those things are things you can PAY FOR, today! To multi-trillion dollar corporations! The time you can go back to giving away your money for things google gives away for free is… now! Excellent criticism too that the evil monopolist that devilishly gives away extremely useful and value-add products and services in order to expand its evil monopoly is also famously criticized by the victims of those free data-mining products for sometimes discontinuing them without giving them proper notice! Surely Google can’t just stop mistreating them without adequate prior notice!
dmonitor 2y ago
My concern is that breaking up Google without breaking up Microsoft will basically just be giving MS a huge advantage in the multitude of categories in which they compete with each other, so we'll be left in an even worse situation than before.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  Yeah. Google is far less locked in than Microsoft. Gaming across Windows and Xbox vs Sony/Nintendo. Office is used by almost every org in the world. Azure locked in via clickops IT staff always wanting to pick it; you have to make a big case to use GCP or AWS in a lot of companies vs "just" using Azure. Google's search advantage could be taken away with another website that's better. There's no installed base or corporate lockin to contend with. Same with email. Same with maps. While Google uses data from each of these services to better target ads at you, the services are not very tied into each other, and you could easily grab one of those services away from Google if you just provided a better standalone service. To me, that's not a good case for breaking up Google.
  - rafaelmn 2y ago
    Is Microsoft gaming relevant that much these days ? Admittedly I'm not gaming that much but I own PS5 and Mac and I don't really feel I'm missing out on any titles I'd want to play. Big stuff comes out on PS5 and Steam - I did see Microsoft buying a bunch of studios but the impact of that feels irrelevant in grand scheme of things. Office/GCloud does feel like the two big players but I'm sure competition would creep up here if GSuite went away (and I doubt it would, even as a standalone company). Working for big corps these days I see that supporting Apple devices is pretty standard. I'd say Microsoft is way less entrenched than it was 10-15 years ago technically - but they do a great job of selling Azure to enterprises. And even there AWS is a huge competitor without Google.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      > Is Microsoft gaming relevant that much these days ? Hyper relevant I'd say, although the Microsoft corporate touch seems to kill every studio they buy. > Office/GCloud does feel like the two big players but I'm sure competition would creep up here if GSuite went away (and I doubt it would, even as a standalone company). Office is orders of magnitude bigger than GSuite. It is gigantic. Governments release documents in Word format instead of OpenOffice. It's so big. GSuite is still a minnow in comparison.

kunwon1 2y ago

I was in the USAF in the early 2000s, stationed in Germany. Due to a dispute with DT, I ended up using long distance calling cards to dial (overseas!) into AOL to get online. It was very involved. I imagine I may have been the only person in the country doing this