3 ms·

I have a hard time understanding how this can be considered an antitrust violation when switching is so easy and there is so much competition in the space. Whil

I have a hard time understanding how this can be considered an antitrust violation when switching is so easy and there is so much competition in the space. While a company should be held accountable for harming consumers, it should be held accountable for stupid consumers. I really don't like how Google is including all the links to their own properties inside of their searches. In fact, I like it so little that I pipe most of my searches through DDG now. Yet I still wind up at Google around 20% of the time when I'm searching for terms with many matches. Google gets the ordering better. It is scary to think what might happen if Google is found to be violating antitrust laws.

ams6110 14y ago
Indeed, there are dozens of choices for web browsers, and even if you limit yourself to "mainstream" browsers there are still close to half-a-dozen. Likewise search, and there's nothing other than quality of results limiting any of them (i.e. using Chrome as a browser doesn't prevent you from using DDG or Bing for search, or even make it difficult).
nivla 14y ago
>I have a hard time understanding how this can be considered an antitrust violation when switching is so easy. Switching was never hard even in Microsoft's anti-trust case. You could easily download and install Netscape. Microsoft never forbid anyone from doing it and I can remember distinctly Netscape being included with my ISP's software floppy. What made the case was all about what was available default to the user. Interestingly under the same context you will find anti-trust violations if Chromebook became the majority and Firefox din't come installed by default.
- azylman 14y ago
  It doesn't matter how hard switching is for the browser, what matters is how hard switching was for the OS - that's where Microsoft had a monopoly. In that, switching was very hard. They were trying to leverage that monopoly in a new market (browsers).
  - 001sky 14y ago
    The key point. SW online does not have the charachteristics of natural monopoly. I have 8x choices in my integrated search bar (the default ones on Firefox). There are some network effects, or returns to scale from usage analytics that impact quality, but that is a different animal. MS Dos / Intel x86 technical architecture was actually exclusive. Also, with MSFT was clearly a case of prediatory pricing funded by cross-subsidy from the monoply business. They set out to 'kill' netscape in its infacy as a business stratgy. Google is arguably just doing its job, and doing it better. Advertisers fell like there is "no choice" (because of scale), but they are sock-puppets. The consumer is the searcher. Advertisers have plenty of other places to advertsise online, so there is no monopoly.
dbaupp 14y ago
"Yet I still wind up at Google around 20% of the time when I'm searching for terms with many matches" I'm the same, and, unfortunately, even more often when searching for terms with very few matches. Google actually finds the relevant things.

ams6110 14y ago

Indeed, there are dozens of choices for web browsers, and even if you limit yourself to "mainstream" browsers there are still close to half-a-dozen. Likewise search, and there's nothing other than quality of results limiting any of them (i.e. using Chrome as a browser doesn't prevent you from using DDG or Bing for search, or even make it difficult).

nivla 14y ago

>I have a hard time understanding how this can be considered an antitrust violation when switching is so easy. Switching was never hard even in Microsoft's anti-trust case. You could easily download and install Netscape. Microsoft never forbid anyone from doing it and I can remember distinctly Netscape being included with my ISP's software floppy. What made the case was all about what was available default to the user. Interestingly under the same context you will find anti-trust violations if Chromebook became the majority and Firefox din't come installed by default.

azylman 14y ago
It doesn't matter how hard switching is for the browser, what matters is how hard switching was for the OS - that's where Microsoft had a monopoly. In that, switching was very hard. They were trying to leverage that monopoly in a new market (browsers).
- 001sky 14y ago
  The key point. SW online does not have the charachteristics of natural monopoly. I have 8x choices in my integrated search bar (the default ones on Firefox). There are some network effects, or returns to scale from usage analytics that impact quality, but that is a different animal. MS Dos / Intel x86 technical architecture was actually exclusive. Also, with MSFT was clearly a case of prediatory pricing funded by cross-subsidy from the monoply business. They set out to 'kill' netscape in its infacy as a business stratgy. Google is arguably just doing its job, and doing it better. Advertisers fell like there is "no choice" (because of scale), but they are sock-puppets. The consumer is the searcher. Advertisers have plenty of other places to advertsise online, so there is no monopoly.

dbaupp 14y ago

"Yet I still wind up at Google around 20% of the time when I'm searching for terms with many matches" I'm the same, and, unfortunately, even more often when searching for terms with very few matches. Google actually finds the relevant things.