> Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, youtube, drive, waze, where do you think the money for this stuff all comes from?
This needs a citation, as well.
This is assuming Google hasn't starved out potential competitors who would have provided the same service, or better service, had the playing field been more level.
My unsubstantiated opinion is that many talented folks are/have been dissuaded from trying their hand at anything that may go up against Google, et. al., unless their looking for an aquihire. (And we know how Google treats those after a few years.)
And there's another argument to be made: that Google's habit of purchasing competition stifles the innovation since it's nipping it in the bud.
"This is assuming Google hasn't starved out potential competitors who would have provided the same service, or better service, had the playing field been more level."
There are alternatives to many of these already.
Firefox (and other browsers) for Chrome, Openstreetmap for maps. Vimeo for youtube. Flickr for photos. Dropbox for drive. Never heard of waze, so don't know what's an alternative for that, but I would be surprised if there wasn't one.
I'm also of a rare breed who thinks Android is total an utter garbage compared to Palm OS, and much prefer the latter. I wish Google and Apple had never gotten in to the phone business. It's been an utter nightmare of spyware and bloatware ever since.
I personally would not miss any of these products execept for youtube, and that only because of the content which is provided by users, not by Google. That content could be moved to another platform, and I'm sure if Google disappeared entirely and permanently tomorrow, just as good or better a storehouse of video content would be rebuilt to replace it.
Waze is basically Google maps with a Skinner Box on top to make you contribute data to it for points and gold stars.
Since Google bought them, they canibalized the crowdsourced data for Maps anyway, and have never updated the Waze UI so it looks like a Fisher Price toy today. There is really no reason to use it over Google Maps.
I don't know about Google maps in the US but in Europe it doesn't warn of dangers on the road (cars on the side of the road, blocked roads, etc.). Waze do.
It also has better community mapping as of a few years ago. Everyone in Costa Rica uses it because some of the roads just aren't on GMaps. Also works better with e.g. Road closures due to trees falling in the jungle (and because everyone uses it).
Skyrocketing acquisitions by big companies also justify half VC economy (the other half being AirBnb-style dominance over a sector). It would be interesting to know, if the exit events were smaller, whether the seed/VC capital eould redirect to more conservative positions like old industries or emerging markets.
Congrats on your degree in econ. You would think that someone with a degree in econ would believe it wise to first establish what the negative externalities are and what externalities regulating away the existence of large business would produce before defending the idea of doing so.
We already know that with the existence of Google we get free products like search, mail, video, etc. Do you have evidence that when we destroy google that we will still retain all of these benefits?
Even if we assume that allowing Google to exist as a monopoly does bring better services, that's a small price to pay for not having to be subjugated by a conglomerate.
Countries can already barely withstand pressure from big companies, by allowing them grow even further everything would just turn in a way that would allow such companies to make even more money, whilst increasing the gap between the rich and the poor.
And with regards to better services, I think the open source community has shown us that it's possible to make great services without having to work for a company. In many cases even better services because the prime objective is to make a program that would help the user, not make money for the company.
> Even if we assume that allowing Google to exist as a monopoly does bring better services
How is google even a monopoly? Bing exists, yahoo still exists. In Asia Google isn't even the most popular search engine.
Want me to show you how google is not a monopoly? A company with monopoly power would be able to raise the price of its service to the price the market can bear. If google put search behind a pay wall, Bing would destroy it in market share.
> that's a small price to pay for not having to be subjugated by a conglomerate.
So now you are not using economic arguments but appealing to emotion.
I just need to point this out
First you felt the need to off hand mention your (clearly undergraduate) degree in economics which had absolutely zero relevance to the discussion.
Secondly, you are using appeals to emotion without any basis in fact. "Google is an extremely successful company and we use them in so many things! They must be evil!"
Try using evidence. I'm not going to argue against your fear mongering only point out that like almost all fear mongering, it is not based on fact.
> Countries can already barely withstand pressure from big companies
There is absolutely zero evidence of this. None of your arguments are based on evidence. The US just fined Volkswagen billions of dollars. The EU is ready to fine Google billions of dollars. Apple paid japan hundreds millions of dollars in fines. All the banks responsible for the financial crisis in America and the EU paid hundreds of billions
> In many cases even better services because the prime objective is to make a program that would help the user, not make money for the company.
Again you have no evidence of this. If smaller businesses were able to provide better services people would be using dedicated email providers, not gmail. They would be using flickr instead of google and apple photos.
> First you felt the need to off hand mention your (clearly undergraduate) degree in economics which had absolutely zero relevance to the discussion.
That was a different person.
>There is absolutely zero evidence of this. None of your arguments are based on evidence. The US just fined Volkswagen billions of dollars. The EU is ready to fine Google billions of dollars. Apple paid japan hundreds millions of dollars in fines. All the banks responsible for the financial crisis in America and the EU paid hundreds of billions
Precisely, EU, USA and China(ones that I know, there might be more) are the ones who can actually fight back from the pressure. Once they're able to pay enough politicians even more to coax them into bringing laws that help them further, we won't even have that(like that hasn't happened before).
Additionally, you need to consider if the fines are actually painful enough. Sure, sometimes it's enough to make them stop doing offences, but sometimes the companies are left with a net profit from illegal actions.
> Again you have no evidence of this. If smaller businesses were able to provide better services people would be using dedicated email providers, not gmail. They would be using flickr instead of google and apple photos.
Look up Linux. Whilst big companies did have a hand in making it, it's still driven a lot by the community. Compare how Linux performs against Windows(fast, no intentional backdoors, free, almost limitless customisability) and MacOS(no upgrades that make your completely fine hardware useless in 3-4 years after purchase).
I neither use flickr not google/apple photos so can't judge the discrepancy in quality. But I do a lot of messengers, text editors, email clients and so on, and they're completely fine. You need to consider that perhaps people are using them because they didn't bother to look up alternatives and just went with what the company offered them because "hey! it's 'free'! and it's right here."
You seem to be giving off some belligerent vibes, so I'm not going to argue much further, all I'm asking is that you consider that companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft and so on are not in the business of making people happy, but in the business of making money. And if that means the best path to that is to manipulate governments and try to control every aspect of people's lives for their own profit - they'll do it. If you break them apart you give them much less power to do that.
A pattern I notice on this site, and reddit: that it's far easier to ask left-and-right for evidence than it is producing your own or going on a limb to make a point in your own words. Is open discussion discouraged on HN?
Now, I don't provide a lot of hard evidence on HN, if only because this probably isn't the right type of forum for a courtroom. I like to keep it a bit more casual.
> A company with monopoly power would be able to raise the price of its service to the price the market can bear.
The 30% share Google takes from sales of Android applications is completely arbitrary and they could probably even increase it further without suffering any consequences beyond negative PR.
So then under this definition, apple is also a monopoly, as is pretty much any walled garden app store company (ie. Valve, arguably Amazon, Microsoft, and any other company with a platform that allows third parties to use that platform for a cut)?
To be clear, in the US, there is at least one major competitor to Google in that space (Apple), so a price increase would lead developers to leave the platform. And in much of the rest of the world, sideloading APKs is a very, very common way of installing, so google taking 50% or 99% would lead to more third party app stores (note some of these already exist) and users sideloading APKs without Google taking any cut whatsoever.
Apple isn't actually much of a competitor where it matters: OEMs only have one choice which OS to license, which is why without major government trustbusting action, dozens of manufacturers have no choice but to build Android phones.
Google has no competition in this space, and any company that tried to break from them would go under.
That's a different conversation (hardware licensing vs. app store). Also I'm curious, I see you posting pretty often, and about 80% of your comments are anti-Google specifically, is there a reason for that?
First of all, you need to acknowledge the vertical integration. Google has a lock on manufacturers, who have no option put to license Android, and as a requirement of that, must include the Play Store, where Google has a complete monopoly on all devices in that market.
Second, I wanted to address the accusatory notion of the back half of your comment, and point out the hypocrisy of Googler coming in here and suggesting others have ulterior motives for their comments.
- I do not work for nor am paid for any company with skin in this game. My opinions are very literally my own. I speak a lot about Google because a lot of people disproportionately speak positively about Google even though they should not.
- You are paid by a company being directly suggested to be destroyed/broken up, in this article. As Upton Sinclair once said: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
>First of all, you need to acknowledge the vertical integration. Google has a lock on manufacturers, who have no option put to license Android, and as a requirement of that, must include the Play Store,
You mean like the Kindle Fire, which runs a custom version of AOSP and doesn't include the play store? You have it backwards. If manufacturers want to access to the play store on device, they need to meet minimum standards, not the other way.
But again, that's beside the point. No matter what, there's less vertical integration on the android side of things than on the Apple side of things, which has no alternate play stores, and which requires you to pay apple to be able to sideload apps.
And even that's mostly beside the point, because what we're talking about is a cut being taken from purchases of paid apps on the play store. That has nothing to do with devices at all. And what I said is true, if the price that Google took from app manufacturers increased, app developers would raise prices or leave the platform, and as a result users would too, and move to iOS or Windows Phone if it came to that. Or, they'd do what many people already do and sideload APKs via other app stores, like the Amazon App store or F-Droid.
So again, there's one ecosystem with multiple hardware provides, multiple appstores, and the ability to sideload apps entirely, and another ecosystem with one hardware manufacturer, one app store, and no ability to sideload apps without paying additional money, and the manufacturer and app store are the same entity, but your argument is that the first example is more vertically integrated?
>Second, I wanted to address the accusatory notion of the back half of your comment, and point out the hypocrisy of Googler coming in here and suggesting others have ulterior motives for their comments.
What hypocrisy? I don't hide that I worked for google, and generally make an effort to reveal that when I'm posting on google-related topics (and I do so in this thread) Ulterior implies hidden motives. I'm not hiding anything.
>I speak a lot about Google because a lot of people disproportionately speak positively about Google even though they should not.
This cleverly avoids actually explaining why you rail against Google so much. You're begging the question.
>You are paid by a company being directly suggested to be destroyed/broken up
Indeed I am. Given that I'm very forthcoming with that, I don't see why that should matter though. Its not like this thread will have any effect on my livelyhood.
I'm glad you bring up the Kindle: The Fire Phone failed, as I pointed out, because you can't succeed on Android without Google Play. Funny enough, it was rumored their next attempt will support Google Play. And since Google's MADA prohibits manufacturers from selling forks, it means Amazon would also have to give up the Kindle Fire. So Amazon is soon to be another example of how you can't fight Google.
If you'd like a detailed opinion of mine about Google at large, feel free to message me, my contact info is in my profile. I don't think the mods would appreciate an in-depth on my issues with your employer here.
> And since Google's MADA prohibits manufacturers from selling forks, it means Amazon would also have to give up the Kindle Fire. So Amazon is soon to be another example of how you can't fight Google.
This is wrong. The anti-forking clause applies to Open Handset Alliance members only: a group which Amazon does not belong to.
"Company shall not... take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android, including but not limited to the distribution by Company of a software development kit (SDK) derived from Android or derived from Android Compatible Devices..."
Please don't claim people are wrong without any evidence, especially when the evidence that exists disagrees with you. ;)
Also, while the Open Handset Alliance page is no longer updated, OHA members are the companies who have signed the MADA. The OHA is a thinly veiled cartel for Google to exert control over the industry. If Amazon releases a Play Store-supported phone, they'll have to kill the Kindle Fire line... or make them Google Play-included Android devices... which would mean being forced to include a competing eBook store, Play Books, on Kindle devices.
This is the very definition of illegal tying, and hopefully the US government will finally take note.
> If google put search behind a pay wall, Bing would destroy it in market share.... if smaller businesses were able to provide better services people would be using dedicated email providers, not gmail
By using Google services you are Google's product, not Google's customer.
Google's services are free attractions, provided in exchange for highly-profitable surveillance capabilities.
In other words, the value an individual may derive from a interaction with Google is decoupled from the profit Google can derive from that interaction. This breaks the key assumption behind classic "free market" models. For Google, the two are related only in aggregate and in abstract, via network effects, largely as proxies for monopoly status and capital accumulation.
18th C. arguments about "free markets" and competition naturally springing up from animal spirits don't work very well for the modern technology industry.
> There is absolutely zero evidence of [technology monopolies exerting pressure on governments]
Examples of companies paying fines in exchange for breaking the law (a pretty generous punishment considering what happens to non-corporation people) is evidence that companies have not yet taken over from governments, but I don't think that was the parent's point.
The largest gripe from governments is flagrant tax avoidance/evasion. If you need "evidence", I'd recommend keeping tabs on technology news in the 'mainstream media' (e.g. various EU governments re: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple tax evasion; Tim Cook pretty openly asking the US to change tax law for him because he's got a lot of money, and is happy to deprive his countrymen of it).
This needs a citation, as well.
This is assuming Google hasn't starved out potential competitors who would have provided the same service, or better service, had the playing field been more level.
My unsubstantiated opinion is that many talented folks are/have been dissuaded from trying their hand at anything that may go up against Google, et. al., unless their looking for an aquihire. (And we know how Google treats those after a few years.)
And there's another argument to be made: that Google's habit of purchasing competition stifles the innovation since it's nipping it in the bud.
(I majored in Econ in uni.)