[HN Gopher] A Post-Google World?
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       A Post-Google World?
        
       Author : toomuchtodo
       Score  : 131 points
       Date   : 2024-09-07 15:39 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.thebignewsletter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.thebignewsletter.com)
        
       | wslh wrote:
       | Before reading the article, I assumed it was about LLMs. It looks
       | like the regulators have perfectly timed their focus on Google's
       | business. Is Microsoft laughing at this point?
        
         | kmeisthax wrote:
         | Only in the narrow sense that Microsoft managed to avoid
         | structural remedies due to Bush Jr. shenanigans that were
         | forgotten because the case was settled three days before 9/11.
         | In the broader sense they've got loads of consent decrees on
         | them, first from the US, then from the EU. They can't even kick
         | CrowdStrike out of the NT kernel!
         | 
         | Even among big tech, Google is an unusually meaty target
         | because:
         | 
         | 1. Literally all but two of their consumer product lines are
         | acquisitions. A significant part of their ads network is also
         | acquisitions. Most of those product lines and ad network
         | divisions were preceded by internally-developed business units
         | that were marketplace failures. Google does not build, it buys.
         | 
         | 2. Android is FOSS, which neatly tidies away a lot of the "we
         | have a right to monetize our IP" arguments that Apple loves to
         | trot out.
         | 
         | 3. They paid Facebook bucket-loads of money to keep them from
         | launching a competing ad network under the "Jedi Blue" program.
         | This is textbook illegal behavior and doesn't require any new
         | theories of antitrust like, say, the Epic lawsuit did.
         | 
         | 4. Google doesn't comply with litigation holds. Civil
         | litigation is a Constitution-free zone, you can't take the 5th
         | in this kind of trial, meaning that you can be forced to self-
         | incriminate, and if you do not do so, the judge is free to make
         | adverse inferences.
         | 
         | 5. Google doesn't have a single charismatic(?) leader. Apple
         | had Steve Jobs, who could invent the monopolistic business
         | model and then conveniently die[0] before anyone with power
         | started to question it. Google has a bunch of executives that
         | all have to e-mail one another, which means that even with
         | their cavalier attitude towards recordkeeping, _something_
         | winds up getting recorded, making the missing information even
         | more incriminating.
         | 
         | The one thing I can't answer with this set of answers is why
         | Facebook isn't getting as much scrutiny as Google is,
         | especially since Facebook has proven to be such a good conduit
         | for scammers and disinformation. Facebook has even less ability
         | to leverage "copyright disclaims antitrust" than Google does.
         | 
         | [0] Constitution or no, a judge can't compel a corpse to
         | testify.
        
           | fallingknife wrote:
           | Besides 3, what does any of this have to do with anti-trust
           | law?
        
           | wslh wrote:
           | Regarding point 1, and in comparison to Microsoft, the
           | company has historically acquired other businesses to fuel
           | its growth (DOS, cough cough...). This is a normal playbook.
        
       | LegionMammal978 wrote:
       | > At some point, they will give up and realize that the writing
       | is on the wall for their current business model.
       | 
       | I'd sooner think hell would freeze over than Google would ever
       | 'give up' on its business model of its own accord. I can hardly
       | imagine half of its services being viable as separate businesses.
       | Which might well be a boon for competitors (especially in
       | adtech), but not for any of Google's current employees or
       | stakeholders.
        
         | tmpz22 wrote:
         | If profits degrade for Google society will feel the impact
         | pretty quickly. Think about how many schools rely on Google for
         | Education for email, SSO, and Chromebooks. Think about people
         | who rely on Google Maps, Sheets, Docs, and other loss-leading
         | products. Think about all the data they scoop up in all their
         | apps.
         | 
         | Late game capitalism applied to Google's portfolio would be
         | catastrophic.
        
           | tylerrobinson wrote:
           | That bad, huh? I reckon everything you mentioned has a
           | perfect substitute. What am I missing?
        
             | sethjgore wrote:
             | I would think the sense of seamless integration contributes
             | to the experience. Almost all third party software systems
             | have integrations and plugins that make crossing over
             | between Google suite and these near painless.
             | 
             | Obviously this would be solved if we had a way to
             | centralize our identity and file storage and such across
             | platforms and systems. Yet at the moment the silo is what
             | makes it seems painless and increases its value beyond the
             | fact there's a substitute to each platform and product.
        
             | Arainach wrote:
             | Integration, management, accessibility, auditing and
             | compliance for starters.
             | 
             | Tech folks love to say "X is is perfect substitute for Y"
             | in the same way they say "what's so hard about X, I could
             | write that in a week" by considering only simple ideal
             | workflows.
             | 
             | The real value, and the real moat for these products, is
             | that they're tied in with SSO and other products, easy for
             | organizations small to huge to manage, have dozens or
             | hundreds of specialized features crucial to large
             | organizations. They comply with legal regulations,
             | accessibility standards (which ARE legal regulations in
             | many jurisdictions such as if you want to sell to the
             | government), and more.
             | 
             | Writing an email server is perhaps 2% of the work involved
             | in building an email _product_.
        
           | jayrot wrote:
           | Miss me with that "Too big to fail" nonsense.
        
           | mbrumlow wrote:
           | I think about this a lot and feel like we are in a horrid
           | position.
           | 
           | All of our core service and software is locked up in a
           | handful of companies.
           | 
           | For humanity and the future of software's sake we need to go
           | back to users of software owning their software, preferably
           | by being free and open source.
           | 
           | It hurts me as somebody who wants to make money off software,
           | but SaaS is just a bad deal for everybody. My compromise is
           | in prim solutions.
        
             | pestaa wrote:
             | SaaS is not a bad deal when users pay for the service
             | directly.
             | 
             | And Google have provided tremendous value with their free
             | tools. People forget what it was like before Gmail and
             | Docs.
             | 
             | I sincerely hope we can move away from their business
             | model, but looks to me consumers rather pay with anything
             | but their money.
        
               | adamm255 wrote:
               | So many people have never known any different. Gmail
               | launched in 2004. Google Docs in 2006.
               | 
               | So anyone who's 18 today has never known a world without
               | it.
               | 
               | People don't know what the save icon is in reality.
               | 
               | Paying for things is interesting as media streaming is
               | frequently valued by paying for it, collaboration and
               | things like Google Maps not so much.
               | 
               | I remember using a Palm Pilot with Tom Tom, and an old
               | maps pack that didn't have half the new main roads
               | included in the UK! I'd honestly pay for Google Maps for
               | the value I get from it.
        
               | jcgrillo wrote:
               | OTOH something you pay for is much safer and more
               | reliable in multiple ways. I've been in "interesting"
               | situations before with Google Maps, here's one scenario:
               | 
               | You begin a trip with driving directions, but 2/3 of the
               | way in your phone shuts off because you forgot to plug it
               | in. When you get it going again you have no service. You
               | open Google Maps and... nothing. Your directions are
               | gone, and you can't load them again because you don't
               | have network connectivity. I believe due to the restart
               | this is even the case if Maps happens to give you the
               | "download offline directions" option and you accept
               | (which they don't always do). AFAICT there is no way to
               | "reload" downloaded offline directions, only a search bar
               | which does nothing without network connectivity.
               | 
               | Google only really makes things that serve Google's
               | interests, that's why they'll never fix this. If you, the
               | user, put yourself in a situation where you depend on
               | them, you're the sucker. Google has no incentive to
               | actually make the product _good_ for users, they just
               | have to make it good enough that a sufficiently large
               | number of users look at the advertisements in it. I 'd
               | much rather buy software and services from a company that
               | has better aligned incentives. That's why I keep a
               | paperback road atlas in my car.
        
               | patrickdavey wrote:
               | For maps specifically, OpenStreetMap is free and better
               | in a lot of ways (not least being able to easily download
               | everything offline)
        
               | CatWChainsaw wrote:
               | I can only speak as one consumer, but I definitely prefer
               | paying for things once instead of multiple times and also
               | I don't actually own them.
        
               | create-username wrote:
               | Google used to be Writely and Google has improved it very
               | little after the acquisition and integration.
               | 
               | We had Google docs before Google released it and it would
               | have prevailed as an independent company if the
               | authorities had had any interest in preventing trust and
               | oligarchy
        
               | magicalist wrote:
               | > _Google used to be Writely and Google has improved it
               | very little after the acquisition and integration._
               | 
               | I don't think you're correctly remembering Writely or
               | early Google docs. Expectations were very different back
               | when ajax was still a cutting edge buzz word.
        
             | johnchristopher wrote:
             | > For humanity and the future of software's sake we need to
             | go back to users of software owning their software,
             | preferably by being free and open source.
             | 
             | That ship has sailed in my opinion. I am under the
             | impression most enterprise and public facing open source
             | projects are fauxpen-source and use FOSS as bait for
             | commercial support and freemium plugins. I am at the point
             | where between two solutions, one fully commercial where I
             | don't even host but can export data out and has strong GDPR
             | compliance and an open source one with a locked-in scheme
             | then I'd rather go with the commercial one because at least
             | I am not under the delusion that I am financing feature-
             | parity open source alternatives to commercial products. I
             | draw the line at formats and protocols, maybe ? /rant
        
             | dijit wrote:
             | I'm reminded of a situation that happened in a small town
             | in Sweden.
             | 
             | Lots of boutique stores in the city centre moved into the
             | newly created mall (due to the economics of malls being as
             | they are)- the mall was also centrally located so: nothing
             | lost.
             | 
             | Almost immediately after this happened; another mall was
             | built outside of town (requiring a car to get to), but as
             | you might expect: rents were substantially cheaper.
             | 
             | All those stores (via peer pressure, cost saving and so
             | forth) moved into the new mall.
             | 
             | Those boutiques never returned and the high-street is dead.
             | 
             | -- we have this same situation in tech,
             | 
             | We have lost the ability to function without loss leading
             | technologies (all US based, tying those needs to whatever
             | economic and political situation is happening in the US to
             | the entire world), and, at some point that will have to
             | end, but the oxygen has already left the room for anything
             | else to exist - everything else is starved.
             | 
             | And, Microsoft will not save us, they are leaning into
             | these practices and will suffer the same if US tech is
             | regulated (as it should be). There's no space for
             | competition.
        
               | cogman10 wrote:
               | We sort of limp along with corporate cooperation on key
               | technologies. Unfortunately, there are a number of places
               | uncomfortably controlled/owned by single organizations.
               | Think things like the npm repository.
               | 
               | I wonder if something like a NIH style grant system would
               | make sense to keep opensource software funded and
               | supported without needing corporate support. I have xz on
               | the mind. Would that have fallen under the control of a
               | bad actor if the original maintainer (or others) had the
               | financial ability to dedicate their time to it's
               | maintenance? Who knows.
        
               | toomuchtodo wrote:
               | The Dept of Commerce should be funding such an effort.
        
               | reisse wrote:
               | > We have lost the ability to function without loss
               | leading technologies (all US based, tying those needs to
               | whatever economic and political situation is happening in
               | the US to the entire world)
               | 
               | Many countries have their own tech stack for what Google
               | provides (think Japan, Korea, China, Russia). It's a
               | shame how EU has completely given up its market for
               | Google.
        
             | aleph_minus_one wrote:
             | > All of our core service and software is locked up in a
             | handful of companies.
             | 
             | > For humanity and the future of software's sake we need to
             | go back to users of software owning their software,
             | preferably by being free and open source.
             | 
             | This sounds like a decent plan. Why not start executing the
             | first step of it today?
        
               | saulpw wrote:
               | What is the first step? Surely you can't mean the author
               | using open source software (which they might already), or
               | writing new open-source software like they envision? In
               | the face of the societal changes they are talking about,
               | one person will accomplish nothing. So the first step
               | must be writing about it, trying to convince other
               | people, or maybe developing their ideas so that instead
               | of just a goal, they have a reasonable mechanism to get
               | there.
               | 
               | Or is that the actual first step to make a societal-level
               | change? Maybe it's better to make millions of dollars
               | under the existing regime, and then found or fund a
               | think-tank to get certain politicians elected.
        
             | oddb0d wrote:
             | >For humanity and the future of software's sake we need to
             | go back to users of software owning their software,
             | preferably by being free and open source.
             | 
             | I'm in the process of setting up a Community Interest
             | Company to facilitate this very thing. I spent a couple of
             | decades in the world of Drupal, which is the largest open
             | source community in terms of contributors, and have spent
             | the last few years following and supporting the ceptr.org
             | project which is rebuilding the tech stack aligning as to
             | how nature works.
             | 
             | One of CEPTR's subprojects is Holochain.org, a distributed
             | agent-centric open source language, and I'm using
             | https://theweave.social/moss/ which is built on Holochain,
             | to collaborate with my as of current one collaborator who
             | is my support worker, funded by an Access to Work grant as
             | I discovered and was diagnosed last year aged 50 as
             | autistic and ADHD.
             | 
             | Free/Libre Open Source Software can work and be
             | sustainable, it just takes more people getting involved in
             | every aspect of it, and I find the biggest issue there is
             | the majority simply don't know this stuff exists, let alone
             | they can use it and adapt it to their needs.
             | 
             | So times are changing, we have the power, we just give it
             | away every day by not making the most of what we have
             | control over.
        
               | mrkramer wrote:
               | >the ceptr.org project which is rebuilding the tech stack
               | aligning as to how nature works.
               | 
               | I like the idea of building communities and software that
               | is inspired by nature. Btw homepage looks nice.
        
             | advael wrote:
             | I honestly think SaaS - which I think is more honestly
             | described as "renting software" - is a business model that
             | would have never worked if we hadn't curtailed so many
             | threats to it with draconian laws
             | 
             | The most natural analogy for software is infrastructure.
             | Lots of money to be made in building, maintaining, and
             | supporting it, but as with any technology, the proposition
             | of renting the right to use it is one that is obviously a
             | bad deal for everyone but the rentier, and all the moreso
             | for the fact that they can constantly make changes to the
             | deal, including how the software functions, what one must
             | pay for it, and what other benefits your use of it may
             | extract from you on the behalf of its owner
             | 
             | I make money building software and think this feudal status
             | quo is a terrible one that we should welcome the
             | destruction of. Its benefits are ill-distributed and
             | temporary, its drawbacks are dystopian, pervasive, and
             | long-lasting, not only creating these awful deals for a
             | wide swath of the economy, but also creating massive
             | incentives for the rentiers in this equation to hoard
             | competence in using these new technologies, stymying untold
             | amounts of innovation and progress by making criminals out
             | of tinkerers and discouraging even non-technical users from
             | adapting them to their own needs
        
           | t0mas88 wrote:
           | Email, SSO and Chromebooks all have competitors. And the
           | Google offerings wouldn't disappear, they're profitable
           | products that can be sold. They compete with Microsoft in
           | that space.
        
           | shaky-carrousel wrote:
           | Meh, they'll switch to Microsoft.
        
             | kibwen wrote:
             | If Google gets broken up (which I'm rooting for, but not
             | even remotely holding my breath for), then Microsoft is
             | next on the chopping block.
        
               | rvz wrote:
               | Microsoft knows this how to _' avoid getting broken up
               | but still continue our monopoly game'_ better than anyone
               | else after escaping getting broken up in US v Microsoft
               | Corp and other huge acquisitions.
               | 
               | There needs to be a _very_ strong case this time to go
               | after Microsoft to argue for a break up of their
               | business. Whoever is to bring the case (either the DOJ or
               | the FTC), would have to go after Meta and Amazon first
               | before targeting Microsoft.
               | 
               | It won't be easy, but Microsoft has been able to avoid
               | scrutiny for years.
        
               | thesuperbigfrog wrote:
               | >> If Google gets broken up, ... then Microsoft is next
               | on the chopping block.
               | 
               | Many regulatory agencies would target Microsoft next, but
               | they have played this game and are willing to do whatever
               | is needed to avoid extreme measures like forced break ups
               | and sell offs.
        
           | forrestthewoods wrote:
           | lol no. There already exists alternatives to every Google
           | service. The only moat any of them have is that Google can
           | give them away for free as a loss leader.
           | 
           | There's nothing special about Gmail in 2024. But Gmail is
           | totally free which prevents anyone from investing in a
           | significant competitor.
           | 
           | Society will be just fine.
        
             | mrkramer wrote:
             | >There already exists alternatives to every Google service.
             | The only moat any of them have is that Google can give them
             | away for free as a loss leader.
             | 
             | The irony behind Google is that Google in the early days
             | was the antonym for Yahoo; just a simple looking search
             | engine with a search box, minimalistic UI and a better
             | search ranking compared to Yahoo which was crammed internet
             | portal which looked and felt messy.
             | 
             | Nowadays Google still has minimalistic UI but lousy search
             | and shit ton of web apps that try to capture as much
             | attention as they can while sucking your data and doing God
             | knows what with it.
             | 
             | >There's nothing special about Gmail in 2024. But Gmail is
             | totally free which prevents anyone from investing in a
             | significant competitor.
             | 
             | Yea, Gmail is free and it somewhat feels OK to use so many
             | people use it but I don't see how Gmail evolved
             | substantially over the let's say last 10 years, there is
             | still room for competition. And there are competitors, idk
             | how "significant" they are but they do exist e.g. Proton
             | Mail, Tuta, Fastmail, GMX Mail etc.
        
               | forrestthewoods wrote:
               | I personally pay for Hey email. But almost all people
               | aren't interested in paying for email when gmail is free.
        
               | fhdsgbbcaA wrote:
               | Hey now - any day now Gemini is going to pop off!
               | 
               | It will read your email for you, reply, make major life
               | decisions (eg respond to marriage proposals, banking
               | transactions, etc), and much more - all in the inbox you
               | know and love!
               | 
               | If there's one thing I know about Google under Sundar
               | it's that he's a man of rare vision, foresight, and
               | leadership. I'm sure things are going to go great!
        
           | gopkarthik wrote:
           | > Late game capitalism applied to Google's portfolio would be
           | catastrophic.
           | 
           | This is probably my biggest fear about the eventual fate of
           | Google. The amount of data they have is staggering and would
           | be very short-term profitable for PE firms looking to make a
           | quick buck.
        
             | coryrc wrote:
             | How would they make more money off it than what Google is
             | already doing?
        
               | viraptor wrote:
               | Google may not be a privacy champion, but they still have
               | some rules. A PE company will do anything for more money
               | if they're in the value extraction mode.
        
               | onion2k wrote:
               | By doing what Google is doing and _also_ charging users
               | to use services.
        
           | zelphirkalt wrote:
           | We lived well without Google knowing everything we do, and I
           | live well without almost any Google. I only have contact with
           | Google on shitty-made websites, that for some reason I have
           | to use. For everything Google does we have alternatives, and
           | better ones than what Google is offering at that. So yes,
           | society would quickly feel the positive impact of Google no
           | longer being.
        
             | IncreasePosts wrote:
             | Why isn't everyone using these better alternatives already?
        
               | viraptor wrote:
               | Inertia and lack of knowledge. Alternatives to Gmail are
               | better in ways that must people don't understand and/or
               | care about. And even if they do, the improvement may not
               | be worth the effort. But, they're definitely good enough
               | if people have to make a switch for some reason.
        
           | viraptor wrote:
           | I don't think it's going to be bad at all. These are not
           | irreplaceable things and they're not even the best options.
           | Email, SSO can be found from many providers, or self hosted.
           | Docs/sheets have lots of online and offline alternatives.
           | There's at least 4 large maps providers including
           | OpenStreetMaps. I think there would be some pain for a few
           | months as other companies deal with the user influx and then
           | we'd get over it.
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | You got the causality wrong. Profits would degrade _because
           | these services stop getting used_ , not the other way around.
        
           | emrah wrote:
           | There are many alternatives, some better than others. They
           | would swoop in and fill the void. Sure, some things would
           | take longer than others to replace and get up running but
           | it's not like Google is the only provider of such services
        
           | xboxnolifes wrote:
           | If google suddenly disappeared, it would suck... for a year
           | or two. Then everyone would have figured out how to operate,
           | just like pre-google.
        
       | talldayo wrote:
       | > Neither case is finished. In the Epic Games case, Judge Donato
       | is likely to come out with a proposed remedy shortly, which will
       | basically force Google to allow other app stores to exist.
       | 
       | Android users are all glancing at each other like John Travolta
       | in _Pulp Fiction_ right now.
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | I don't see how this is a problem. Back in the days when we
         | used to buy software for PCs you could go pick up WordPerfect
         | or Lotus or whatever at any number of bookstores, office supply
         | stores, or mail order outlets.
         | 
         | Fundamentally I see no problem with multiple app stores, it
         | will be a boon for developers as the stores will have to
         | compete over how much of a cut they take. Or developers can
         | sell direct.
        
           | wiseowise wrote:
           | Android already has alternative app stores.
        
             | webstrand wrote:
             | Nevertheless you can't install a Kindle app that you can
             | actually buy books through: Google's monopoly has prevented
             | this.
        
               | oasisaimlessly wrote:
               | You definitely can; just get the Kindle app from
               | anywhere[1][2] besides Google Play Store. I installed it
               | via Samsung's "Galaxy Store" and I buy books in-app
               | often.
               | 
               | * [1]: https://galaxystore.samsung.com/detail/com.amazon.
               | kindlefs?l...
               | 
               | * [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-Kindle-for-
               | Android/dp/B004...
        
         | throwaway48540 wrote:
         | Except for the Android users who actually tried not using
         | Google Play and know it usually results in a "Play Services are
         | required" error message.
        
           | wiseowise wrote:
           | An application written using Play Services requires Play
           | Services - shocking.
        
             | throwaway48540 wrote:
             | Even applications not using any of these services often
             | require it.
        
               | wiseowise wrote:
               | Can you provide an example how would that work?
        
           | izacus wrote:
           | Huawei phones are still popular in my part of the world and
           | users can pretty much use everything on them, including the
           | banking apps. In the end, increased popularity of non-Google
           | phone just made developers not require Play Services.
           | 
           | I guess the only notable exception is the... YouTube app? So
           | what are you talking about exactly?
        
           | viraptor wrote:
           | https://microg.org/ can replace services as needed.
        
             | throwaway48540 wrote:
             | It can't replace Play Services.
        
               | talldayo wrote:
               | It can replace pretty much everything that isn't explicit
               | DRM, in my experience. Google's own lawsuit against
               | Oracle actually set the precedent for the legality of
               | programs like microG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googl
               | e_LLC_v._Oracle_America%2....
        
               | viraptor wrote:
               | That's a shallow dismissal. Which part, why, for how
               | long?
        
         | cubefox wrote:
         | That passage doesn't make sense. Android already allows other
         | app stores, just not entirely without friction. It's iOS which
         | doesn't allow them.
        
           | ocdtrekkie wrote:
           | Sort of but not in any practical reality. Besides the scare
           | screens to make any alternatives look like malware, Google
           | _has actively paid developers to not compete with the Play
           | Store_ and launched secret codenamed projects to undermine
           | individual third party stores. Google has even tasked
           | security teams with finding exploits in competing solutions
           | to try to destroy the reputation of anyone who could launch
           | an effective competing store.
        
             | talldayo wrote:
             | That doesn't seem like abuse of monopoly positioning,
             | though. It's dirty, but bug-hunting for your adversaries
             | and responding to the proliferation of competitors is
             | entirely normal and accessible. Google's biggest "scare
             | screen" is the developer menu which _rightfully_ warns you
             | of the danger associated with third-party packaging. The
             | only other mandatory menu is the one that asks for user
             | consent to install a package, which is not scary so much as
             | mandatory to prevent obvious exploit chains.
             | 
             | Google's approach to sideloading is borderline inscrutable,
             | and I say that as someone that will gladly sell them out
             | for their abuse of the advertising market. This lawsuit
             | exists to grant faux parity for the Apple lobbyists due in
             | their government mandated reaming. As long as the AOSP
             | exists, it is literally impossible for Google to abuse
             | Android as an anticompetitive environment for other
             | companies. OEMs control Android as much as Google does. The
             | same cannot be said for Microsoft or Apple.
        
           | BadHumans wrote:
           | Google's sin was paying other people off which Apple doesn't
           | do because the option to create a competing store doesn't
           | exist.
        
       | soared wrote:
       | Generally an excellent and accurate write up, nervous/excited to
       | see where this goes.
       | 
       | A bit over the top with some of the things google has done in the
       | programmatic space, but aligns with reality. I disagree with the
       | display/programmatic space innovations being held back by google
       | - there are an insane amount of small players who are doing
       | different things and it's easy to integrate them into the
       | existing space. IE if I want to measure foot traffic, there are
       | like 6 vendors who all do it slightly differently, 1 huge and 5
       | small companies, some super anti-privacy and some very pro
       | privacy.
       | 
       | Its is called out in the article but not made extremely clear -
       | the vertical integration google has is insane. They own the sell,
       | intermediary, buy, measure, and operations software for a large
       | percentage of the space. Imagine if NYSE owned Fidelity, SP500,
       | and the SEC.
        
       | victor106 wrote:
       | This is a well written article. What resources are available for
       | someone to understand more about the online ad tech space?
        
         | layer8 wrote:
         | https://clearcode.cc/adtech-book-pdf-download-hardcover/
         | 
         | https://www.playwire.com/blog/adtech-landscape
        
       | danjl wrote:
       | Nothing will really change. Even if they are found to be a
       | monopoly. The appeals process and the commensurate change in the
       | world during those years will allow Google to work around any
       | proposed remediation before it is enacted.
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | Now we have to get rid of "Log on with Google" for non-Google
       | properties. Google has to get out of the authentication-provider
       | business. That allows Google to cross-link usages or other
       | services.
       | 
       | Need to raise this issue with the California PUC, about Waymo
       | wanting a Google login.
        
         | jeffbee wrote:
         | Three assertions, no supporting argument. Why do "we" need to
         | eradicate Google as an authentication service?
        
           | dredmorbius wrote:
           | "That allows Google to cross-link usages or other services"
           | is the justification, or argument, if you prefer.
        
         | abraae wrote:
         | Simple authentication is not as strong a chokehold as it
         | appears, and most "log on with" integrations are very simple,
         | just doing auth and passing across name and email.
         | 
         | You wouldn't see e.g chatgpt having login with Google if it was
         | such a threat.
        
           | Animats wrote:
           | You have to have a Google account. This is a problem if you
           | cancelled Google.
        
       | walterbell wrote:
       | _> John Maynard Keynes had penned a private letter to Franklin
       | Delano Roosevelt about business leaders. He wrote, "You could do
       | anything you liked with them if you would treat them (even the
       | big ones), not as wolves or tigers, but as domestic animals by
       | nature, even though they have been badly brought up and not
       | trained as you would wish." FDR tamed big business. Anti-
       | monopolists today are nowhere near that level of accomplishment
       | broadly speaking, as we don't have a political consensus. But in
       | a few areas, we can start to see the outlines of what a world run
       | with some element of the public interest in mind might look
       | like._
       | 
       | How is "public interest" defined after _Citizens United_ ,
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC?
        
       | daedrdev wrote:
       | I think reddit recently signing an exclusive deal with google for
       | crawling its website is quite anticompetitive and will be a
       | surprisingly big draw to google.
        
         | mastodon_acc wrote:
         | It was not an exclusive deal. Other companies can also sing
         | similar deals.
        
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