6 ms·

I think Google should just be split up into baby Google's that each have to cooperate with each other. Like we did with Bell. Also we should do the same thing t

I think Google should just be split up into baby Google's that each have to cooperate with each other. Like we did with Bell. Also we should do the same thing to Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. In fact I think we should do it again to AT&T and also Comcast. This should probably be done every so often as maintenance.

martinsnow 2y ago
Which business units should be broken up?
- SteveNuts 2y ago
  Microsoft and Azure, Bing, Office 365 Amazon (the retailer portion) and AWS, and probably their logistics wing
  - martinsnow 2y ago
    None of those are owned by Google
    - RIMR 2y ago
      And? We were talking about other businesses that should be split up in addition to Google. It would be weird if the only answers were Google-owned ventures...
      - martinsnow 2y ago
        Not in the context of my question. You are welcome to start your own comment thread.
  - jonny_eh 2y ago
    This would kill xbox
    - forrestthewoods 2y ago
      Huh, why? Xbox is a great example of a business unit that should be self-sustainable. Not that it matters.,Microsoft has done a spectacular job of killing Xbox even with its ability to sustain setting money on fire for the past decade. Xbox has been an unmitigated disaster since Xbox One.
    - selykg 2y ago
      Xbox has killed Xbox... have you not seen the sad state of affairs there for, I don't know, the past generation or two of consoles?
      - jonny_eh 2y ago
        I don't disagree with your sentiment, other than the fact that it isn't literally dead… yet.
    - dharmab 2y ago
      Xbox has been nothing more than a budget, low-spec, walled in gaming PC for about 1.5 console generations. It no longer has exclusive games, and the hardware (console and peripherals) are mediocre. (PlayStation is almost in the same boat, except they have significant sales in regions where PC gaming is much smaller than in the US.)
    - alt227 2y ago
      Xbox is now a cross platform brand, and arguably bigger on PC than in the console market.
  - boscillator 2y ago
    I've always thought is should be Azure, Office and XBox, and each should get their own copy of Windows that they could focus on different things while still being largely compatible. Don't know if XBox could survive on it's own.
  - forty 2y ago
    For AWS we should split the platform and the managed services (no one should have to compete with "the platform". See elasticsearch, redis). This also works for Amazon retail, they should not be allowed to sell on their own marketplace (they have to choose, they are either a marketplace or a seller)
- awongh 2y ago
  Chrome, search/ads, youtube, consumer apps - gmail & docs etc.
  - martinsnow 2y ago
    Breaking up workspace would hinder Google in competing with Office and Zoho
    - azemetre 2y ago
      Let me break out my violin for the trillion dollar transnational corporation.
      - martinsnow 2y ago
        Given that the likes of workspace and zoho were born out of Microsofts monopoly. I guess you should.
        AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        If your only reason for not breaking up a megacorp is that you want it it to compete with another megacorp... ¿Por qué no los dos?
        azemetre 2y ago
        That's fine with me. Let's do it so we can establish precedent then hopefully legislate this in Congress. Baby steps bro, they will all have their moment in the sun soon enough.
bsimpson 2y ago
I don't understand how this worldview coexists with countries like Russia and China. If the feds kneecap US companies, it's not going to make the next generation of US companies stronger, just cede influence to worse jurisdictions.
- Ar-Curunir 2y ago
  So competition isn’t actually good for free market economics?
  - creato 2y ago
    A level playing field is good. The playing field includes other countries.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      Why wouldn't antitrust laws apply to companies from other countries? If you ban tying app stores to phone platforms and then China creates a phone platform and wants to tie an app store to it, they're not any less banned from selling that into your market than a domestic company.
      - creato 2y ago
        There's a whole world outside the US and China that companies are competing in.
        AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        A market the size of the US or the EU is large enough to sustain a domestic industry. Competing suppliers can then recover their fixed costs from the markets where they're protected against monopolistic practices, which sustains their existence, and then sell into the other markets with the backing of a stable competitive domestic supply chain that can't be degraded by anti-competitive practices. Example: Right now if you want to create a competing phone without Google, you lose most of the apps in the Play Store because they're encouraged to have dependencies on Google services. If that was prohibited in a large market then app developers couldn't assume those dependencies are available and the APIs would either have to become an open source part of stock Android or developers would use platform-independent third party libraries. Then the apps made for that market could run on a third party device -- but developers aren't going to make separate apps for different markets, they're just going to avoid the proprietary APIs that aren't available in a major market, and then those apps don't have those proprietary dependencies in the other markets either and your domestic competitor can compete there too. Also, the whole world outside the US and China wouldn't even have the excuse of protecting domestic megacorps as a reason not to have strong antitrust laws themselves.
iAMkenough 2y ago
Don't forget the other industries suffering from the same problem: Walmart, UnitedHealth Group, Berkshiere Hathaway, ExxonMobil, JPMorgan Chase, etc.
- stevenwoo 2y ago
  The egg cartel, the potato cartel, the corn cartel, almost every food resource silo has its own monopsony or monopoly of some kind in the USA or globally. In the USA at least it seems many of these things are constructed to avoid the letter of the old laws around monopoly.
- black3r 2y ago
  The problem with Google, Meta, Amazon, et. al. is that they have a steady stream of income from their main business, and use it to enter new markets with loss leader schemes obviously designed to destroy their pre-existing competition... I'm not from the US, but it seems to me like the companies you mention stay in their respective market and don't try to destroy competition in other markets, like Walmart is a supermarket chain, UnitedHealth is just health insurance, Exxon just deals with gas, JPMorgan Chase is just a bank, etc..., meanwhile Google operated YouTube, Chrome, Gmail and other services at significant losses for years up until the point where they basically have monopoly in those areas because the competition couldn't keep up with Google's free products, and now when the competition is destroyed, they are destroying these free services with increased pricing or ads, neither of which were there while they still had competition in those spheres...
  - creato 2y ago
    hotmail, yahoo mail, etc. were also free when google started gmail. gmail won because it was just way better, and it has changed very little in terms of its value proposition in all that time.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    > and don't try to destroy competition in other markets, like Walmart is a supermarket chain Have a look at the list of services offered: https://www.walmart.com/services https://www.walmart.com/services They're not all over the place, but definitely expanding to what's interesting to them.

martinsnow 2y ago

Which business units should be broken up?

SteveNuts 2y ago
Microsoft and Azure, Bing, Office 365 Amazon (the retailer portion) and AWS, and probably their logistics wing
- martinsnow 2y ago
  None of those are owned by Google
  - RIMR 2y ago
    And? We were talking about other businesses that should be split up in addition to Google. It would be weird if the only answers were Google-owned ventures...
    - martinsnow 2y ago
      Not in the context of my question. You are welcome to start your own comment thread.
- jonny_eh 2y ago
  This would kill xbox
  - forrestthewoods 2y ago
    Huh, why? Xbox is a great example of a business unit that should be self-sustainable. Not that it matters.,Microsoft has done a spectacular job of killing Xbox even with its ability to sustain setting money on fire for the past decade. Xbox has been an unmitigated disaster since Xbox One.
  - selykg 2y ago
    Xbox has killed Xbox... have you not seen the sad state of affairs there for, I don't know, the past generation or two of consoles?
    - jonny_eh 2y ago
      I don't disagree with your sentiment, other than the fact that it isn't literally dead… yet.
  - dharmab 2y ago
    Xbox has been nothing more than a budget, low-spec, walled in gaming PC for about 1.5 console generations. It no longer has exclusive games, and the hardware (console and peripherals) are mediocre. (PlayStation is almost in the same boat, except they have significant sales in regions where PC gaming is much smaller than in the US.)
  - alt227 2y ago
    Xbox is now a cross platform brand, and arguably bigger on PC than in the console market.
- boscillator 2y ago
  I've always thought is should be Azure, Office and XBox, and each should get their own copy of Windows that they could focus on different things while still being largely compatible. Don't know if XBox could survive on it's own.
- forty 2y ago
  For AWS we should split the platform and the managed services (no one should have to compete with "the platform". See elasticsearch, redis). This also works for Amazon retail, they should not be allowed to sell on their own marketplace (they have to choose, they are either a marketplace or a seller)
awongh 2y ago
Chrome, search/ads, youtube, consumer apps - gmail & docs etc.
- martinsnow 2y ago
  Breaking up workspace would hinder Google in competing with Office and Zoho
  - azemetre 2y ago
    Let me break out my violin for the trillion dollar transnational corporation.
    - martinsnow 2y ago
      Given that the likes of workspace and zoho were born out of Microsofts monopoly. I guess you should.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        If your only reason for not breaking up a megacorp is that you want it it to compete with another megacorp... ¿Por qué no los dos?
      - azemetre 2y ago
        That's fine with me. Let's do it so we can establish precedent then hopefully legislate this in Congress. Baby steps bro, they will all have their moment in the sun soon enough.

bsimpson 2y ago

I don't understand how this worldview coexists with countries like Russia and China. If the feds kneecap US companies, it's not going to make the next generation of US companies stronger, just cede influence to worse jurisdictions.

Ar-Curunir 2y ago
So competition isn’t actually good for free market economics?
- creato 2y ago
  A level playing field is good. The playing field includes other countries.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    Why wouldn't antitrust laws apply to companies from other countries? If you ban tying app stores to phone platforms and then China creates a phone platform and wants to tie an app store to it, they're not any less banned from selling that into your market than a domestic company.
    - creato 2y ago
      There's a whole world outside the US and China that companies are competing in.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        A market the size of the US or the EU is large enough to sustain a domestic industry. Competing suppliers can then recover their fixed costs from the markets where they're protected against monopolistic practices, which sustains their existence, and then sell into the other markets with the backing of a stable competitive domestic supply chain that can't be degraded by anti-competitive practices. Example: Right now if you want to create a competing phone without Google, you lose most of the apps in the Play Store because they're encouraged to have dependencies on Google services. If that was prohibited in a large market then app developers couldn't assume those dependencies are available and the APIs would either have to become an open source part of stock Android or developers would use platform-independent third party libraries. Then the apps made for that market could run on a third party device -- but developers aren't going to make separate apps for different markets, they're just going to avoid the proprietary APIs that aren't available in a major market, and then those apps don't have those proprietary dependencies in the other markets either and your domestic competitor can compete there too. Also, the whole world outside the US and China wouldn't even have the excuse of protecting domestic megacorps as a reason not to have strong antitrust laws themselves.

iAMkenough 2y ago

Don't forget the other industries suffering from the same problem: Walmart, UnitedHealth Group, Berkshiere Hathaway, ExxonMobil, JPMorgan Chase, etc.

stevenwoo 2y ago
The egg cartel, the potato cartel, the corn cartel, almost every food resource silo has its own monopsony or monopoly of some kind in the USA or globally. In the USA at least it seems many of these things are constructed to avoid the letter of the old laws around monopoly.
black3r 2y ago
The problem with Google, Meta, Amazon, et. al. is that they have a steady stream of income from their main business, and use it to enter new markets with loss leader schemes obviously designed to destroy their pre-existing competition... I'm not from the US, but it seems to me like the companies you mention stay in their respective market and don't try to destroy competition in other markets, like Walmart is a supermarket chain, UnitedHealth is just health insurance, Exxon just deals with gas, JPMorgan Chase is just a bank, etc..., meanwhile Google operated YouTube, Chrome, Gmail and other services at significant losses for years up until the point where they basically have monopoly in those areas because the competition couldn't keep up with Google's free products, and now when the competition is destroyed, they are destroying these free services with increased pricing or ads, neither of which were there while they still had competition in those spheres...
- creato 2y ago
  hotmail, yahoo mail, etc. were also free when google started gmail. gmail won because it was just way better, and it has changed very little in terms of its value proposition in all that time.
- viraptor 2y ago
  > and don't try to destroy competition in other markets, like Walmart is a supermarket chain Have a look at the list of services offered: https://www.walmart.com/services https://www.walmart.com/services They're not all over the place, but definitely expanding to what's interesting to them.