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I like free services as well as the rest of us. But Google is making money indirectly off all/most of its free services. They certainly aren't creating great

I like free services as well as the rest of us. But Google is making money indirectly off all/most of its free services. They certainly aren't creating great products for us out of kindness. There isn't an easy answer here. The free services are great, I wouldn't want to see them go away. But they are a component of anticompetitive measures into the market. Saying adapt or die simply isn't an acceptable answer here. If you have a great map product but do not own an ecosystem of other products, such as Google has, you are on the short end of things and the market becomes smaller and less competitive.

jacquesm 17y ago
Absolutely. But let's contrast that with a topic that quite a few of us here have probably come up against at some point in the past: I used to sell software, license based. When the open source revolution happened there was not one free competitor for the kind of software that I was writing, there were many. The quality wasn't there, the features were not up to spec but the basic functionality was there so overnight my market dried up. I could have gone and sued the pants of whoever was 'destroying my market', but instead I adapted and found new ways to monetize my skills. Google has a method, and you've correctly identified it as indirectly making money off a service and that is a principle that is out in the open. The same with newspapers that suddenly found themselves faced with free competitors and then on top of that had tons of online competition, also for free. Nobody has a 'right' to their businessmodel, whether you have a great product or not does not enter into the equation, the marketplace is constantly shifting and you have to be prepared for such shifts.
- jhancock 17y ago
  Good points. I have had my market destroyed in a similar fashion to what you describe. I also did not think it was the right course to sue my new competitors that were giving away their product. But if the French want to have more strict and protectionist controls, so be it, its their economy. It will be interesting to see how such lawsuits pan out.

jacquesm 17y ago

Absolutely. But let's contrast that with a topic that quite a few of us here have probably come up against at some point in the past: I used to sell software, license based. When the open source revolution happened there was not one free competitor for the kind of software that I was writing, there were many. The quality wasn't there, the features were not up to spec but the basic functionality was there so overnight my market dried up. I could have gone and sued the pants of whoever was 'destroying my market', but instead I adapted and found new ways to monetize my skills. Google has a method, and you've correctly identified it as indirectly making money off a service and that is a principle that is out in the open. The same with newspapers that suddenly found themselves faced with free competitors and then on top of that had tons of online competition, also for free. Nobody has a 'right' to their businessmodel, whether you have a great product or not does not enter into the equation, the marketplace is constantly shifting and you have to be prepared for such shifts.

jhancock 17y ago
Good points. I have had my market destroyed in a similar fashion to what you describe. I also did not think it was the right course to sue my new competitors that were giving away their product. But if the French want to have more strict and protectionist controls, so be it, its their economy. It will be interesting to see how such lawsuits pan out.