Letting "the market do its thing" only works until a few companies accumulate enough power to monopolize the market.
The last two decades have seen being the next Google transformed into being acquired by Google, which has been to the detriment of everyone.
And those four players are more of a cartel than competitors, having agreed to mostly stay out of each other's ways.
The primary overlapping markets between them are consumptive devices and cloud services -- which I presume they're all in because they consider it strategically important enough to their other businesses to incinerate money.
a) can't hope
b) shouldn't hope
I’m not sure why you’re being so sarcastic as it’s not a novel idea and it’s less “figured out the clever game” and more that even the appearance of impropriety removes faith and trust in the institution.
This seems like a nuanced and reasonable take, but a rather generous interpretation of the GP comment. I think it’s reasonable for the parent comment to push back against a definitive statement laying an accusation with no evidence.
On the other hand, he's promised to remove Khan, Kanter, etc, and end antitrust enforcement. So someone may have to actively decide to continue as is, or change tack a bit.
The third concern of course is that Trump is a crook. He might not like Google but I'm sure neither him nor Sundar would have any qualms with figuring out how to slide a billion dollars in Trump's pocket to make the case go away.
What exactly would be driving your hopes here?
What exactly is driving you to think that he'd abort a mission that he and his allies started?
Why are you acting like taking Net Neutrality rules off the table is a bad thing? Have you read what is in the Net Neutrality rules? Or are you just regurgitating what the news and your favorite tubers of the time were telling you to do?
I read through 100 of the 400 pages, that was enough to make me sick. I was disgusted at the crap in there. A full 2/3rds of the rules I viewed were terrible. Many of those rules clearly existed only to enshrine the largest of players from ever being challenged or having any competition. I'm convinced anybody who speaks in favor of Net Neutrality is ignorant and hasn't bothered to read any of the guidelines contained therein. I can't be convinced that any intelligent free thinking consumer would ever want that drek to exist and am appalled that it has any defenders at all.
Is this the 400 page PDF you're meaning?
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-15-24A1.pdf
That's the "Order on Remand" PDF link from this page: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-orde...
Which in turn is the "2015: FCC adopts rules..." link on this page: https://www.fcc.gov/net-neutrality
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There's a more recent 512 page thing too, though I'm not real sure where it fits in:
> Today, millions of Americans rely on the Internet and online platforms for their daily lives. For years, there have been broad, bipartisan concerns about business practices leading to massive concentrations of economic power in our digital economy. Hearing those concerns, I have made it a primary commitment of my tenure as Attorney General for the Department of Justice to examine whether technology markets have been deprived of free, fair, and open competition.
This case has never has been a partisan issue. It was opened by a Republican DOJ and pushed through by a Democratic DOJ, and there's no reason to believe that the Republicans won't see through what they started.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2...
[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/statement-attorney-general-an...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tech-factbox/fa...
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/10/18659748/t...
Trying to describe Trump on a coherent ideological level is a fool's errand, like most strongmen he's just an opportunist.
Presumably he will now want to revoke Section 230 for non-Twitter companies.
Suggesting that Merrick Garland is somehow a "Democratic DOJ" is kind of laughable at this point. He's a Republican. He's been dragging his feet going after the biggest Republican crook in history. Appointing Merrick Garland is one of the biggest mistakes Biden ever made.
Garland is a donator to the Federalist Society. Garland was a gift from Obama to the Republicans, trying to put someone who's right wing enough at the Supreme Court to appease the Rs. (And it didn't even work).
Then administration will throw so much “anti woke” shit and the average American will forget about it.
Depends on how much Google is willing to scratch Trump's back. Remember, Trump is a corrupt quid pro quo President. All he needs is something valuable in exchange for his corrupt powers.
If google gets restrictions, then it makes apple look even more monopolistic. Like a trimming the hedges
That's a weirdly specific way to label the 5th largest public company on the planet, by market cap.
... yes, it is smaller than the 2nd largest public company.
Priority matters, and picking Google as the first high profile target is bizarre.
Like, you can have a free app in the store, with a website where you can purchase premium, and then in the app have an "upgrade" button that just displays the error "You cannot upgrade to premium in the app" and hope users find your website.
You aren't allowed to have "You can upgrade to premium using our site, at https://site.com" message because if you can pay money on site.com, having that error message is seen as evading the app store tax.
In both of those cases though, apple did the same amount of work, so the justification you sometimes hear, that "30% is fair because you're paying for app store resources and apple to advertise your app", seems like it doesn't really apply.
Like, spotify is a perfect example of this. They don't let you upgrade on iOS because paying 30% to apple would mean they'd lose money on every sell (music has very thin margins), and spotify isn't even allowed to display a good error message because linking to their webpage, or mentioning the app store tax, would be against app store ToS.
And then apple music also exists, and ignores the 30% tax. It seems so blindingly obviously harmful to consumers.
This all applies to the google play app store too, but at least on the google play app store, there's no "thought crime" of informing your users they can go punch in a credit card on the web.
As others have mentioned, the government can do more than one thing at a time. Here is a list: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/business/antitrust-.... Perhaps Google's case had just progressed faster, and perhaps it was more clear-cut or easier to prove.
Google's records retention policies were also over the top and perhaps hurt it: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/technology/google-antitru...:
> But Google has faced the broadest criticism for its actions, with the judges in all three antitrust cases chastising the company for its communications practices.
And they engaged in some pretty sketchy practices:
> If using the right words and deleting messages did not keep Google out of the courthouse, the company concluded, invoking the lawyers would....
> A message surfaced in the Epic trial in which a Google lawyer identified the practice of copying lawyers on documents as “fake privilege” and seemed rather amused by it. Mr. Walker said he was “disappointed” and “surprised” to hear that term....
> Last month, three advocacy groups, led by the American Economic Liberties Project, asked for Mr. Walker to be investigated by the California State Bar for coaching Google to “engage in widespread and illegal destruction” of documents relevant to federal trials.
> Google's records retention policies were also over the top and perhaps hurt it: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/technology/google-antitru...:
If you're intentionally hiding things from government investigators, the legal presumption is there's a good reason. Judges are allowed to impute things from destroyed evidence. Otherwise, everyone would destroy evidence.
"The suit alleges that Google has violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by illegally monopolizing the search engine and search advertising markets, most notably on Android devices, as well as with Apple and mobile carriers."
Where will be the search monopoly by Google in 2025? If search monopoly slowly evaporates, where will be the advertising monopoly?
The latter part also happens to conveniently be true when you buy all the available space that a competitor would need -- default placement in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Android.
You don't get to rig the game and then claim the results actually demonstrate everyone naturally loves you.
Furthermore, ChatGPT reaching 100m users in 2 months also suggests that browser placement isn't the biggest factor into where users send their queries.
Same with the factors- ok, let it be the second-biggest factor, so?
Google search usage is not going to drop 50% just because it's not the default.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Bell_Operating_Compan...
To me, it doesn't feel extreme at all, relative to former antitrust regulations or to what's needed for a functioning market. I would have felt bad about these about two decades ago, but Google has not been a good player in recent years.
Geopolitically, it feels off.