[HN Gopher] A Post-Google World?
___________________________________________________________________
A Post-Google World?
Author : toomuchtodo
Score : 255 points
Date : 2024-09-07 15:39 UTC (1 days 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.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| Very off-topic by now, but I have Organic Maps as a
| backup on Android. Downloaded the entire Eastern US and
| that works surprisingly well in a pinch.
|
| It's hard to beat Google Maps for POI discovery though
| 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.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| So should Google be regulated as a public utility? I am
| leaning towards search being a natural monopoly due to
| the huge resources required to build an
| index/algorithms/etc
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| I have been wondering how hard modern search would be to
| implement. More and more of the world is getting hidden
| behind walled gardens denied to search.
|
| Reddit, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter, are all locked
| down or heavily restricted. I am sure there is still a
| burgeoning small web, but it is increasingly hard to
| find. Would many consumers notice/care if your search
| engine only surfaced pages from the top 1000 highest
| ranked domains? You would actually decrease the amount of
| SEO garbage you hit from Stackoverflow clones, Amazon
| listicles, or Grandma's cookie recipe #9381.
| Rodeoclash wrote:
| We should create non-profit versions of each of the
| archetype sites that exist. Reddit (forums), Twitter,
| Search, Email hosting should all have non profit versions
| ala Wikipedia.
| 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.
| bwock wrote:
| Run for office, propose a bill. Do anything other than
| just sit here and complain about it on a forum.
| 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
| curl-up wrote:
| Isn't most infrastructure rented? I fail to see how SaaS
| is special in this respect. You rent internet access from
| your ISP, you rent roads when you pay tolls, you rent
| sewage access, etc.
|
| Saying that software is infrastructure only supports the
| renting model.
| advael wrote:
| From the perspective of thinking that this model of
| infrastructure is working well, I suppose. ISPs are a
| great example of where it kind of isn't, and the degree
| to which the municipality imposes regulations on
| infrastructure-providing companies basically predicts the
| degree to which the service functions well
| eastbound wrote:
| Even the city kind of rents the maintenance to
| maintenance companies. Everything is a subscription, for
| example the maintenance of traffic lights.
| alexashka wrote:
| It's not so horrid once you realize _physical_ resources we
| all need for daily existence are locked up by a handful of
| countries, run by buffoons who have no interest in or
| understanding of philosophy, science or engineering.
|
| Your existence is contingent upon people the best of whom
| (ones who at least _read_ ) think 48 laws of power is a
| how-to manual. You _live_ among people who know less than
| nothing.
|
| Software is a land of idealistic, _capable_ angels by
| comparison.
| 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.
| NAHWheatCracker wrote:
| I honestly feel like that would be a good thing. It would
| push people towards alternatives and create competition.
|
| If Gmail had a $5/10/20 per month fee, I would probably
| migrate to a more privacy/security focused provider.
|
| I wouldn't pay much for YouTube, but video hosting is
| relatively easy and YouTube has degenerated so much that
| I'd like to watch content elsewhere.
|
| I would pay for Kagi and ChatGPT each twice before I
| would pay the same amount for Google Search.
|
| Good luck charging for Chrome and any of their developers
| tools.
|
| I know there's a million services by Google and I would
| probably demean most of them and I'm not near the typical
| consumer. However, if the typical consumer at least had
| to consider whether to pay, there would be so much
| breathing room in many industries. Something as large as
| Google trying to explicitly monetize all those services
| could also tremendously change consumer attitudes towards
| being willing to pay for things thus making more
| businesses viable that do less of the shitty stuff that
| Google does. For a bit, there would be some bad will as
| people notice extra bills. It sucks that those extra fees
| would disproportionately affect the poor. The most likely
| case would be something like Google Prime with a monthly
| $15 or yearly $140, which I don't think is a gross value
| proposition for an individual of even low means.
| 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.
| vrc wrote:
| Cost too.
| 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.
| AceFromOttawa wrote:
| More like Microsoft would just swoop in and fill the void.
| Lammy wrote:
| "If the system breaks down the consequences will still be
| very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more
| disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is
| to break down it had best break down sooner rather than
| later."
| cpeterso wrote:
| From the Unabomber Manifesto: https://archive.nytimes.com/w
| ww.nytimes.com/library/national...
| tacocataco wrote:
| Nationalize it and fold the services into the post office.
| kccqzy wrote:
| And one of the main political parties here is dead set on
| strangling the post office's finances by requiring it to
| prefund retiree health benefits. It's a cash strapped
| organization that's barely hanging on. If the
| nationalization comes to fruition, you can count on them to
| strangle its finances until it's dying a slow death.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Lots of people I know have been migrating away from these
| Google services though without much trouble.
|
| They are a lot more replaceable than most people think.
| tryauuum wrote:
| maps and email are solved technologies. Even I can deploy a
| great email service given time. The hard part is managing
| reputation of public ips and scanning _outgoing_ mail for
| spam
|
| SSO is also solved. People will survive
| datavirtue wrote:
| Rip the band-aid off.
| 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.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| At least with NYSE, Fidelity, SP500 and the SEC, one could
| avoid them, eg., by choosing not to invest, working for
| unlisted employers, etc.
|
| But avoiding the web or mobile apps is becoming nearly
| impossible. Google tentacles are all over this stuff. No
| escape. For example, one visits a US government website and it
| needlessly sends data to "google-analytics.com".
|
| The blog tends to be a bit hyperbolic but the author does do
| the research. If his facts were wrong and he was notified, I
| suspect he would publish a correction.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Can't wait for Google to be broken up and made an example of.
| Same with Amazon soon, I hope.
| eastbound wrote:
| And the CIA not being able to read the Google Docs
| spreadsheets of all companies, NGOs and diplomats of the
| world?
| dcl wrote:
| Why would that stop if they got got broken up?
| datahack wrote:
| The issue is not whether startup alternatives exist, it is more
| in my mind that no mid-market companies exist because they are
| taken out at the knees before they threaten the incumbents
| through acquisitions.
|
| It eventually becomes impossible to avoid doing business with
| them.
| soared wrote:
| I guess it's hard to know if there should be significantly
| more mid market companies or not - I work in the space and am
| aware of hundreds of them, but perhaps with the size of
| adtech that number should really be thousands
| whatever1 wrote:
| In general I do not understand how auctioning for a thing with
| fixed cost aligns with the principles of free market.
|
| Google owns the infrastructure of search, maintaining them and
| showing ads has a finite cost. How does piting ad buyers in an
| auction is different than price gauging?
|
| Imagine apple every year introducing the new iPhone without a
| price and when you go to the cart it asks for your credit
| limits before it creates a unique price that magically matches
| exactly your credit limits.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > In general I do not understand how auctioning for a thing
| with fixed cost aligns with the principles of free market.
|
| Isn't it kind of like real estate?
|
| In theory, it should cost roughly the same amount to build a
| house in the middle of nowhere versus the center of
| Manhattan. But more people want to live in Manhattan, and
| there's a limited amount of space, so buyers effectively bid
| up the price.
|
| On any given website, there is a limited amount of ad space.
| soared wrote:
| An ad for a specific user is worth a different amount to each
| advertiser for a couple reasons. You don't sell something
| based on what it costs, you sell it based on what it worth.
|
| Search is a bit different than display which is covered in
| the article, but imagine 2 jewelry companies that are exactly
| the same. A user searching for "necklaces" you'd think each
| company would bid the same amount to advertise there. But say
| one company is trying to raise a round of funding and needs
| to drive sales, they'll bid higher to increase sales but at a
| lower roas. The other company is satisfied with their revenue
| and doesn't bid higher.
|
| In display each bidder has different information about a user
| (they may have their own data about a users behavior on their
| website, or it may be provided by a vendor that other bidders
| aren't using). So the difference in price is largely a
| difference in information.
| azurezyq wrote:
| "a thing with fixed cost", just imagine the billboard in
| downtown. The cost is finite. But you'll know that the price
| would be aligned with ups and downs of the demand. You may
| use auction model, or you can continuously tune the price.
| Actually they may converge similarly, to the principles of
| free market.
|
| Same thing with real estates, or stocks.
|
| However the iPhone example you mentioned follows a different
| scheme. iPhone is not something people competing for, as long
| as stock lasts.
| 627467 wrote:
| Why is it wrong for apple to charge differently.fpr different
| people? This already happens I'm different geographic
| regions. Apple devices are not essential goods. Why not
| charge people who get more value out of a product more?
| mystified5016 wrote:
| > In general I do not understand how auctioning for a thing
| with fixed cost aligns with the principles of free market.
|
| Simple: the 'free market' exists to maximize the price for a
| given good or service with respect to the demand for such.
| That's really the whole story here.
|
| > Imagine apple every year introducing the new iPhone without
| a price and when you go to the cart it asks for your credit
| limits before it creates a unique price that magically
| matches exactly your credit limits.
|
| This is how sevreral 'free' markets work already. Anything
| involving credit or finance, real estate.
|
| It is a grave mistake to assume that the actions of a free
| market have anything whatsoever to do with what is morally
| right, or even what is _legal_.
|
| The market makes line go up and that is the _only_ thing it
| cares about. Capitalism does not give one good goddamn about
| who or what it may hurt, it can only ever consider the bottom
| line.
| 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.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| In the end we will all lose, in my opinion. Google will start to
| charge more for access to YouTube, along with increasing ads.
| They will begin to pay creators less due to the increased cost in
| serving the ads. We will see a decline in the quality and
| quantity of high production video education.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| If we get independence in ad space, we may see publications
| flourish again, which is a net win. I would prefer a local
| newspaper be profitable than have youtube creators be paid
| more.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| It's difficult to imagine margins in advertising and app
| store management would remain as high as they are when opened
| to competition.
|
| The primary reason Google has fought so hard is because it
| knows, even if left whole, its margins would drastically
| shrink once it has to compete on price.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| They won't be as high, but the profit will be more
| dispersed.
| 39896880 wrote:
| Google will charge more for access to YouTube, which makes
| competitors like Nebula more appealing.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| The problem here is Nebula doesn't have to do any more
| innovation to attract customers. There are two ways to
| compete; sell the same product for a better price, or sell a
| better product for the same price. You can sell the same
| product for a better price by innovating on
| technology/business, but when we artificially increase the
| cost of Google's product, it makes competitors artificially
| cheaper. The competitors don't need to actually do anything
| better than Google and they win out at the expense of the
| consumer.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| > video sharing, mapping, mobile phones, and the other Google
| infrastructure. These are all areas ripe for innovation and
| disruption,
|
| This is incredibly wrong. We've had mountains of innovation in
| all of these areas under Google's leadership and from competitors
| like Apple, Mapbox, Microsoft, AWS, etc. When Google ends up
| costing more to use, competitors will _not_ need to innovate to
| attract customers to their platforms, and the technology will
| stagnate.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| What innovation has happened in Maps in the last 19 years?
|
| Aside from buying Waze in 2013?
| Mochsner wrote:
| Anti-features like copying a location being a gmaps unique
| URL instead of the actual location
| 8organicbits wrote:
| Ads in the map is another.
| tantalor wrote:
| Streetview was only 17 years ago.
| tikhonj wrote:
| One thing I appreciate is how much better maps have gotten
| for non-drivers: bike and pedestrian paths, public transport
| (especially live schedules, delays, alerts) and _legitimately
| good_ directions generated for walking, biking and taking
| transport.
|
| I believe that using wifi to improve localization on phones
| also happened within the last 19 years--quick Google found me
| an article from 2010 about how they started gathering data
| for this in 2007. I definitely remember this having a real
| improvement on how accurate my phone's location could be,
| which made using maps much nicer day-to-day.
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| Didn't better pedestrian maps come as a result of the size
| of the market, really? Suddenly everyone in the world had a
| smart GPS device in their pocket and adding some more
| routes onto existing maps would have made sense for any map
| maker, regardless if it was Google or some other
| hypothetical company.
| accurrent wrote:
| Pedestrian navigation, much better quality maps, faster load
| times etc.
|
| I also occassionally enjoy the AR features for walking in
| cities.
| dimator wrote:
| Mobile, gps navigation, transit features, ride hailing, fuel
| efficient routes, pedestrian routes, live traffic, to name a
| few.
| seanhunter wrote:
| SEO for maps. [1] I didn't say the world has got better.
|
| [1] Yes this is a thing. A "maps SEO consultant" popped up
| offering me his services a few months back, and after a bit
| of digging it's clear this is a new and hideous barnacle of a
| subsector has appeared to make money out of making maps and
| everyone's lives worse
| wildrhythms wrote:
| Street View
| animal_spirits wrote:
| Not just innovation with Google's Maps product, but
| innovations among all competing map products. For one,
| wildfire maps and air quality maps have been important for me
| living in the PNW. Trail maps, terrain. Mapbox has innovated
| a lot, creating a whole developer platform focused on map
| creation, direction APIs. Apple Maps has been improving a lot
| too. OSM is incredibly well built out, and all the related
| technologies built on top of OSM. Weather maps from DarkSky
| now Apple Weather. There's so much
| isodev wrote:
| Apple is not really a competitor though, is it? The post was
| focused on search but let's not forget Apple is experiencing
| their own version of sinking deeper into anti-trust lawsuits
| following years of market abuse.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| Apple competes with Google's loss-leader products, which will
| be impacted by these anti-trust lawsuits
| winddude wrote:
| > However, it does mean that Google will have to give up on its
| mission, "to organize the world's information." Though that
| slogan looks benign, it is in fact anything but. Being the
| organizer of the world's information is far far too much power
| for anyone to have. It's time to give up on it.
|
| Giving up on that is stupid, and would set society back. We need
| more companies and organisations doing it. AI has brought a few
| new startups into the search space, but yes, splitting the
| companies up may make more opportunities for them.
|
| That said, if you can raise the capital you can get into search,
| because of opportunities presented by AI, and google has been
| sacrificing quality for optimising ad revenue. Email has also
| seen some startups making big leaps by adopting AI. I wouldn't
| touch video sharing platforms, or ad networks.
| eastbound wrote:
| After traveling through the middle east: Google is far from
| present here, it's Yandex territory. And I bet Asian countries
| can be conquered by Chinese companies the same way.
| metadat wrote:
| I have to use Yandex almost daily, because Google has stopped
| indexing a massive amount of the Internet.
|
| It's almost more useless than Yahoo was after Google came
| along, which is crazy.
| dimator wrote:
| What kind of stuff do you find missing? Is it strictly
| regional/firewalled content?
| ghssds wrote:
| While my main search engine is still Google, I use Yandex
| more and more. I have no specific example right now but
| it's not unusual for Y to give me meaningful result when
| G, with the same search string, give me crap.
| accurrent wrote:
| China, Korea and Japan have never depended on google for
| search. Baidu, Naver and Yahpo reign supreme. Their bussiness
| model is very similar to goofle tbf.
|
| ASEAN and India however rely on google heavily. Googles ad
| based subsidies for their other products mean that less well
| of consumers can have access to technology as well. I worry
| that the freebies will be very hard for many people to ween
| of.
| metadat wrote:
| _> Google 'a mission "to organize the world's information"_
|
| Google already gave up on this long ago. Their mission now is
| to print as much money as possible (late stage capitalism).
|
| It's unfortunate, because 2004-2014 was unlike anything we'd
| seen before, even in the dot-com days. Compared to anything
| before or since, ElGoog was Incredibly good for the 10's of
| thousands of rank-and-file employees.
|
| Thanks Ruth Porat! (For serving as the instrument that ended
| the party.. at the board's request, ofcoz.)
| cratermoon wrote:
| Being _the_ organizer of the world's information is far far too
| much power for any _one_ to have
| nutrie wrote:
| It's what _they_ said their mission was. It 's not like it's
| true or anything :)
| Havoc wrote:
| It does seem like their cash cow is facing a bit of an
| existential risk. Things like kagi and perplexity work just as
| well as search if not better.
|
| And if google search collapses then the rest of the empire won't
| be far behind
| joaovitorbf wrote:
| Google is so unusable right now that I couldn't care less. I just
| started paying for Kagi and it's excellent. I forgot how it's
| possible for a search engine to just find the information I want
| without blasting my eyes with corporate slop.
| accurrent wrote:
| Not every tom, dick and harry is going to be able to pay for
| services. Personally, If I dont own the software and cant
| change its source code I dont trust the company. Hopefully at
| some point in the far future computing and AI will become so
| efficient that we will be able to own our own search
| infrastructure.That being said once this future arrives Im
| probably going to have to search for a new job as I dont see
| software engineering as being particularly lucrative.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I am unsure about that last bit. From website design (style)
| to UX to how a given application works, I have found the
| people who want these things to be unable or unwilling to
| articulate what it is they actually desire, nor are they
| likely to go anywhere but the Happy Path. Instead, one ends
| up looking at the actual logged usage of previous or similar
| software, doing interviews with a multitude of different
| people who will use the application in different ways, and
| finally a deep contemplation of How This Will Actually Need
| to Work (and Break) to get anywhere.
| MrDisposable wrote:
| I was a paid Kagi subscriber. I unsubscribed due to my
| temporary financial difficulties, but I'm resubscribing as
| soon as I'm able to afford expenses like this. I'm VERY happy
| with them.
| accurrent wrote:
| You do you. To be entirely frank 90% of the world is not
| software engineers. If I were to ask the guy who sells food
| at my local food stall to pay for a search engine where
| free (as in dollars) alternatives exist he is going to pick
| the free one. To be entirely frank he probably does not
| have enough money to pay for yet another service.
|
| My major concern with kagi is that its good now, whos to
| say it will ne good in the future. Plenty of SAaS have
| ebshitiffied. We NEED open infrastructure fpr search. What
| that lools like Im not sure but it may be possible in the
| far future.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| People are addicted to their phones.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| The term "enshittification" is used a lot these days. But there
| is this pattern where human organizations -- be it companies,
| codebases, countries and many other examples -- undergo this
| transformation from simple, humble and efficient systems to
| complex, arrogant and inefficient ones.
|
| I wouldn't dare to speculate on the cause of this devolution.
| There are theories like becoming publicly traded for companies,
| and subsequently execs chasing short term profits to make
| shareholders happy, or elected officials chasing after votes for
| the next immediate election cycle. But it would be nice if there
| was some sort of a large scale in-depth study on the topic and
| research into solutions for it.
|
| Honestly, the more I think about so many issues, the more I feel
| like there needs to be a dedicated field into the study of
| incentives and how they shape the systems and organizations
| humans build and maintain. Everything from google search being
| terrible to climate change feels like it all has a shared root
| cause of misaligned or defective incentives.
|
| Perhaps existing fields like game theory, economics or systems
| design should cover this topic?
|
| Either way, our systems design methodology is faulty and this
| fault is nearly universal and systemic, affecting all humans in
| almost every area of our lives.
|
| One theory I have (full disclosure: subjects I am not too
| familiar with) is economics and game theory, specifically the
| "Nash equilibrium" game theory, which as I understand boils down
| to "everyone should participate in the system, only taking into
| account their own success and profit, and nothing more than that"
| might be at fault. Or maybe, it simply codified the innate faulty
| organizational instinct we have?
| left-struck wrote:
| > Honestly, the more I think about so many issues, the more I
| feel like there needs to be a dedicated field into the study of
| incentives and how they shape the systems and organizations
| humans build and maintain.
|
| That currently falls under economics, sociology and game
| theory. It's not really a dedicated field sure but it's well
| covered
| rldjbpin wrote:
| interesting parallels are drawn for this opinion, but i would be
| with it if it was just limited to web search like most people
| started clamoring after genAI.
|
| some comparisons with past american monopolies were made, but
| there is a key difference between those and google - the direct
| impact to people across the world. to me it came across slightly
| myopic to look only inside one large economy, for things that
| impact everyone's lives but not directly.
|
| we already have large portions of the world not impacted by
| google - just look at china. but even there android in its
| different form has been vital. it is not just a matter of "we got
| a disruptive new tool to replace the current choice". google is
| able to bankroll key internet services that could stand by itself
| even when broken up - android, search (people still use it to
| open websites they literally spell out), youtube, gmail to name
| the key few.
|
| change is inevitable but i don't see it happening the way it is
| envisaged here. pretty much all the "disrupters" are backed the
| same way that made today's big tech. which goes beyond just
| google. the now-subsiding ai boom has shown that big tech is
| still swaying investors for immaterial promises.
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