[zjaffee]

This is how they would do it. When Microsoft ware being ruled against for anti trust, they would have forced them to split the operating systems business from the rest of their product businesses.

My guess would be that google would get broken up in a way that separated things that were strategically vertically integrated, say, search+android (their big platforms for directing you at their services) and things like youtube, maps, ect. which are services to be consumed.

[Aunche]

Technically, it would almost be easier to rewrite Google from scratch than to split it up. Google is a giant monorepo, so anything can depend on anything else. Also, all their services run on the same data centers.

[briandear]

How does splitting Google benefit the consumer? Is the consumer being harmed right now? Are they being price gouged or forced to use inferior products?

[zjaffee]

The need to break up monopolies isn't about the consumers as much as it is about having a competitive marketplace, where other businesses didn't have to struggle against googles ability to self promote itself. Markets work best when companies can compete on as close to equal terms as possible (which these days we only really see during the emergence of a new industry).

[xvector]

It benefits the consumer by creating two or more highly competitive organizations, thus leading to a breeding ground of growth and innovation.

This is the basis of all antitrust laws.

[stuckinarut]

> or forced to use inferior products?

Potentially, yes. Google abuses their search monopoly and ads duopoly to kill off competition in other areas.

They use their browser control to control internet standards.

They do things like effectively kill RSS via EEE style tactics.

[notriddle]

I agree with almost everything you said, except that RSS was never as popular as Twitter is now. Copying and pasting a URL is too technical, and Live Bookmarks were the wrong UX all around. Mailing lists are still more popular than RSS ever was.

In retrospect, if Firefox had used a New Tab Page with an RSS driven feed like what they do with Pocket now, we'd probably still be using it today. Too bad 2005 Mozilla didn't have UX designers calling the shots.

[jhall1468]

Do you have any examples of these things taking place in reality or is it just "possible" stuff. And Google did not kill RSS lol, it was always super niche.

[stuckinarut]

and yet the users of RSS continue to lament the loss of Google reader.

[jhall1468]

Never said otherwise. The problem is, there weren't very many of them.