[TeMPOraL]

I'm inclined to agree, at least a bit. They might be reasonably different markets now, but they should not be in the future.

I think all the following searches:

  - web search for "location X"
  - map search for "location X"
  - current weather in location X
  - businesses of type Y near location X
  - cheapest offers for item Z near location X

are all examples of something conceptually the same. I want to be able to make those queries over one interface, and with minimum (i.e. zero) steps between query results and actual information I'm looking for.

As it is, when I search for "cheapest item Z near X", getting links to price comparison services makes about as much sense as if I googled for something and the results were links to search results of Bing, Yahoo and DDG.

--

I appreciate how today those markets may seem different, and I also don't want to see one company dominating most on-line activity, but I also want more integration and interoperability. There needs to be a balance here.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> I want to be able to make those queries over one interface, and with minimum (i.e. zero) steps between query results and actual information I'm looking for.

Especially with computers, why would that require that they are a single product?

It should be technically outright trivial to have specialized search providers that feed into a common user interface, where earch provider can be swapped out as you prefer.

Isn't that a bit like saying that you don't want ten kinds of wall sockets in your house, therefore, your electricity should be supplied by the company that sells you all your appliances, so you only need to have one type of sockets?

[TeMPOraL]

This has been happening for the past two days in those Google/EU threads. Please help me.

How does "and I also don't want to see one company dominating most on-line activity, but I also want more integration and interoperability" imply that I want one company to handle all of this?

I try to explicitly state in each comment that I don't want that one-company solution. In fact, I very much want what you described - more interoperability through standardization, not through monopoly. Apparently though my comments aren't clear, given that I've been get exactly the same response for days now. Surely I must be making them hard to read somehow.

Could anyone help me discover what's wrong with that particular comment, and in general in what way my comments could be improved so that they more clearly transmit my intent?

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

Hehe, yeah, your comment felt a bit ambiguous.

> They might be reasonably different markets now, but they should not be in the future.

I think that's what made me think you thought it needed to be a one-company solution.

Manufacturers of vacuum cleaners and computers are not in the same market, in the sense that is relevant here, even though both plug into a wall socket. A market is not defined by a common interface, but by whether or not you compete for the same customers. A flight search service is as much a substitute for a mobile phone price comparison service as a vacuum cleaner is for a computer, therefore, those products are not in competition, therefore, they are not in the same market, they are merely technically in some ways similar products with partially overlapping interfaces.

[TeMPOraL]

Thanks. The definition of "the same market" you provided sounds very sensible, and so I retract my belief that those searches should be "the same market" (which is what is relevant to tge EU ruling). I still think they fit the same interface, in the "wall socket" sense.