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by asdfasgasdgasdg 2776 days ago
DDG is proof positive that the barriers to entry are extraordinarily low. It is incredibly easy to start a search engine. Now, to make one that is considered good relative to Google, that is hard, because if Google is known for one thing, it's known for executing in search. But if someone wanted to invest billions and billions of dollars, they could take a shot. Microsoft has been taking their shot for years, and so far it isn't working, but that's not because of barriers to entry. It's because they do not execute as well as Google does.

It's also hard to build a new car company, or a new chemical manufacturing conglomerate, or a new anything. That is not a defining feature of a monopoly.
3 comments
kinkrtyavimoodh 2776 days ago
DDG doesn't maintain its own indexes. It uses Bing and Yandex, the only two other global-level English language web indexes. So DDG isn't proof positive of anything.
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sonnyblarney 2776 days ago
"It is incredibly easy to start a search engine"

Yes, but it's impossible to build a quality one, that will compete with Google.

"Microsoft has been taking their shot for years, and so far it isn't working, but that's not because of barriers to entry. It's because they do not execute as well as Google does."

MSFT is one of the greatest companies in the world, with tons of high tech workers, brand recognition and the like. If they can't make a dent in search, then again I hold this up as evidence of monopoly.

When there is only 1 primary player, despite everything else, then that alone is evidence of monopoly.

If VC's could spend 1 Billion and take a piece out of Google - they would in a heartbeat.

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rifung 2776 days ago
> Microsoft has been taking their shot for years, and so far it isn't working, but that's not because of barriers to entry. It's because they do not execute as well as Google does.

I think that's a little unfair to Microsoft.

Google has spent way more engineer team on all the infrastructure required to make Search great. Microsoft's main products were a desktop OS and application, so presumably their existing internal tooling probably wasn't as mature for scalable web services.

I work at Google but opinions are my won.

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