Any company this big needs to have some outside control. They are clearly monopolizing. I thought the US had a law against monopolies, or does it only apply to the railroads?
Google's power comes from its (a) technical prowess and (b) popularity of some of its products. Many of their products get a large advantage just from being on their own internal platform.
But I can't think of a product of theirs that doesn't have a strong competitor. Search is the strongest they have, and the underlying problem's getting a bit simpler (I believe it's substantially cheaper now to pay for the infrastructure for a good-enough web crawler than it used to be), and competitors give pretty good results as well. I'm a bit surprised Apple hasn't tried going after this beachhead yet.
Android can be avoided by using an iPhone.
I can get an email account for free nearly anywhere. Every ISP I've had in the last 20 yrs has given me one (that I don't use).
Google's got a lot of influence, and I think AMP is quite the overreach, but they don't fit in the monopoly bucket. If you want, it's pretty easy and reasonable to avoid using them. At least as consumer -- I can't speak as an advertiser. But I don't have a lot of sympathy for advertisers.
Google have monopoly on search (up to 90% in some markets). So anything they do with AMP is anti-competitive, for example.
Google have monopoly on business email, close 85% if you trust reports from Datanyze [1]. And now they are pushing AMP for email with exactly 0 external input [2][3]
> the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service.
"his likely motive was to protect his regional monopoly on furs"
In reality, monopolies like Google have repeatedly demonstrated anti-competitive practices and consumer harm. The unspoken reality is: We simply don't do antitrust anymore.
The conception of antitrust regulation has gradually evolved into the idea that if it doesn't directly lead to higher prices for consumers it's harmless, which is a much stricter standard than was applied in periods of vigorous trustbusting.
Google's power comes from its (a) technical prowess and (b) popularity of some of its products. Many of their products get a large advantage just from being on their own internal platform.
But I can't think of a product of theirs that doesn't have a strong competitor. Search is the strongest they have, and the underlying problem's getting a bit simpler (I believe it's substantially cheaper now to pay for the infrastructure for a good-enough web crawler than it used to be), and competitors give pretty good results as well. I'm a bit surprised Apple hasn't tried going after this beachhead yet.
Android can be avoided by using an iPhone.
I can get an email account for free nearly anywhere. Every ISP I've had in the last 20 yrs has given me one (that I don't use).
Google's got a lot of influence, and I think AMP is quite the overreach, but they don't fit in the monopoly bucket. If you want, it's pretty easy and reasonable to avoid using them. At least as consumer -- I can't speak as an advertiser. But I don't have a lot of sympathy for advertisers.