[milemi]

People used to buy consumer electronic magazines for product reviews, and those magazines had pages of flashy ads at the beginning. I guess that was mafia stuff too. Or just one of million examples of an advertising-based business model.

[harry8]

when you rang the shop to buy, did the phone company make them pay to direct the call the way you wanted?

You want your traffic? Pay /us/ for the privilege.

[milemi]

Did the phone company provide the service for free or did you have to pay the phone bill?

Congratulations on discovering how advertising works.

[harry8]

The condescension is unnecessary and against the guidelines around here.

Did the phone company put your calls through to your competitor if you paid them to do that or would they be in big trouble for doing so. It's not "advertising" it's getting between you and your customers and tolling the infrastructure to the highest bidder.

The phone company was regulated very heavily as a utility just like google isn't.

[bagacrap]

Google isn't redirecting DNS lookups. Google is much closer to the yellow pages, which if you hadn't noticed is full of both paid and unpaid content.

[harry8]

Yellow pages is regulated and static - the same for everyone.

Perhaps this is the answer for how to treat google? Regulate them heavily and ensure they show the same thing to everyone?

Interesting suggestion you're making.

[milemi]

How are yellow pages regulated?

[milemi]

Brave edgelords exposing Google mafia for what it is can’t take a little condescension. Heroes just aren’t what they used to be.

Despite my best efforts I can’t follow your overstretched analogy. How does Google redirect anything by putting ads on top of search results?

[harry8]

Best of luck to you in your quest for understanding.