[uptownJimmy]

Google's "search results" are the textbook definition of a monopolized good/service. The whole thing is almost a casino, rigged to the point of absurdity.

There has been nothing in my life so disillusioning as working on a Web app for a company that is more or less required to play Google's game.

[timmg]

> There has been nothing in my life so disillusioning as working on a Web app for a company that is more or less required to play Google's game.

Have you built any iOS apps?

[brookst]

While true and a fair point, iOS is Apple’s platform in a way that the web is most certainly not Google’s.

[isodev]

Just following this thought then the remedy will be forcing Apple to allow alternative OS and firmware on their devices, allowing consumers to choose what they do with the device hardware they purchased?

[brookst]

I’m not a subscriber to the “if I choose to buy a product, I get to dictate product design decisions for the company” school of thought. Buy it or don’t. If you want X there is no right do demand Y turn into X.

[diffeomorphism]

"buy it or don't" does not work with oligopolies. If you had a free market, I would agree, but you very much don't in this case.

[chipdart]

> "buy it or don't" does not work with oligopolies. If you had a free market, I would agree, but you very much don't in this case.

Why do you believe there is no free market on mobile phones? I mean, what exactly forces you to pick an iPhone over anything?

[wil421]

Why should they have to allow it? My smart TVs and video game consoles never allowed it, except that short lived Linux PlayStation. Nintendo is pretty hostile about reverse engineering the switch.

[Cyph0n]

But those are gaming and entertainment devices, not general-purpose computing devices that everyone relies on for day-to-day work and life.

A good way to think about it is this: if Windows was as closed down as iOS, and took a 30% cut on every application purchase, would regulators have intervened?

[labcomputer]

What physical attributes make them not general purpose computers?

[skeaker]

Those should allow it too. Them setting a bad precedent doesn't mean we should continue to abide by it, just that there's more work to be done undoing it.

[amatheus]

I think that would be the right decision, to me that makes more sense than forcing Apple to allow any app to be installed on iOS or allowing alternate stores.

[mouse_]

Ownership and security are at odds. The only remedy would be forcing Apple to allow the owner of the device to run whatever they would like on it, unfortunately this does include malware.

[nolist_policy]

This is a false dilemma thought.

The secure solution is to treat every app as malicious and put it in a sandbox where it can not cause harm. See also Android and ChromeOS.

[CamperBob2]

In the broadest sense, an app that "can not cause harm" can't do anything useful. To the industry's dominant players, "causing harm" means empowering the user to venture outside their walled gardens... or even to see outside them.

So, no, sandboxing everything in sight isn't a useful solution. Your sandbox will just imprison us all.

[ineedaj0b]

No, it would be buying an android phone

[isodev]

Buying a phone from another vendor is only viable if Apple/Google didn't try to lock you in. Of course we know that's not true - you can't just go elsewhere and that's by design.

[lotsofpulp]

I hardly use Google, and I use the internet.

DDG/Kagi/ChatGPT/Reddit/HN/etc for searching. Fastmail/myriad order email providers. Openstreetmap/Apple for maps.

YouTube and Chrome Remote Desktop are what I use Google for, but those have alternatives too.

[jonhohle]

The concern is if you are developing for the web, how much time do you need to spend appeasing Google to show up in search results and be discoverable.

When I was at Amazon the majority of direct product traffic did not come internal search, it came from Google. In some areas they were competitors, Amazon was beholden to Google as the starting point for most customer’s browsing experience.

[EasyMark]

It’s not just monopoly it’s googles abuse. How many times have they been sued successfully and fined by the government for abusing the position as a large corporation, I’d say it’s legion. I wish the government was more vigilant in using their power to kill corporations outright after so many abuses of power

[chipdart]

> While true and a fair point, iOS is Apple’s platform in a way that the web is most certainly not Google’s.

OP was whining over Google's role in Android. Pointing out Apple's control of iOS, and the fact that iPhone is by far the dominant platform for handhelds, does refute OP's personal assertion.

[jonhohle]

It’s odd how this is lost on people. Want to develop a game for PlayStation, Sony will need to approve. Want to develop a Facebook app, FB will gatekeep. If you wanted to make apps for the Danger Hiptop, you published through Danger. iOS is Apple’s consolized OS for their own hardware. It’s not a PC platform that anyone can put on whatever device they want. For better or worse.

[Workaccount2]

I think there is a reasonable breaking point though, where the platform becomes so ingrained in society that you are left out of social groups if you don't join.

"iPhone Families" is a very real thing that Apple has gone out of it's way to solidify. Or try being an (American) 15 year old kid and get included in group chats with an android phone.

It's pretty gross when a mega-corp is so powerful that it can leverage your friends and family against you, forcing you into their walled prison err.. garden.

[consteval]

Personally, I think the breaking point is when the device transitions from "appliance" or niche device to general computer.

I think at a time a phone could be considered an appliance. But that's changed, and for many people their smartphone is their only general personal computer.

[CivBase]

When you're a part of a duopoly on a product that is necessary for participating in the modern economy with as much friction as iOS has for switching to the only viable competitor... what makes it so fundamentally different from the web?

IMO they can either keep the duopoly and deal with regulation or they can keep full control of their platform. One or the other. Same goes for Android.

[jonhohle]

So if a business mode is successful, regardless of whether it’s actively thwarted competition or acted anticompetitively, it should be regulated?

It’s not the web. It’s not a PC. It’s a sandboxed console.

> MO they can either keep the duopoly and deal with regulation or they can keep full control of their platform.

Then they’ll keep they’re platform and not be regulated ;-) (I know what you meant).

[CivBase]

> So if a business mode is successful, regardless of whether it’s actively thwarted competition or acted anticompetitively, it should be regulated?

Yes. If a product becomes essential for participation in the economy and lacks substantial competition, regulation is the only mechanism we have to protect the people. Why should it matter how it got there?

[LeonB]

Ha, well said. Having both of these experiences makes one even more against the tyranny of monopolists.

[bentice]

To exist on the internet you need to pay Google. Google is essentially the government of the open web. The problem is that government like monopolies do arise especially when there are network effects.

We need to regulate search and app stores like it is a public utility. Pricing should be dutch auction or something provably fair. 20-30% for in-app purchases is obviously insane when credit cards do 1.5-3.5%.

I worry that the government will not do sensible regulations and instead play investment banker and try to create spin off companies.

[jonhohle]

Credit card companies do one thing - process payments. What cut do VOD or music hosting sites take? Bandcamp takes 15%. eBay takes 15% on things they never physically touch. It’s hard finding hard data, but it seems like YouTube, on average charges $15CPM and pays $5CPM to the highest paid YouTubers. What is the value of download hosting and store platform?

[bentice]

If the app is free they still have to maintain the app store. I have a free app apple checks it. Running an app store is part of the cost of the phone. No one would buy the phone if they couldn't download apps.

If they must charge 20% why don't they also let apps take credit cards? 20% is for the payment, its a tax. Why should Spotify have to pay 20% and Apple music effectively doesn't.

[serial_dev]

Let's figure it out?

Let's allow anyone to do in-app purchases, and app stores, then the market would tell us. Currently, we need to trust these quasi-monopolies that there is no way they can make it cheaper (and for some strange reason still, they don't want to open things up).

[aembleton]

> Let's allow anyone to do in-app purchases, and app stores, then the market would tell us.

Whats stopping that now on Android? I have a second app store on my phone.

[Workaccount2]

The question then becomes: Are users going to be willing to pay google (or whatever search) now instead?

I don't think the vast majority of the internet understands how the business model of the internet works.

[lmpdev]

Not OP but as a public utility it would be paid for through both taxes and usage

The actual computational resources required to provide search would be a fraction of Google’s operating costs

Added benefit would be pitting private providers against each other so they’re incentivised to provide better outcomes, as opposed to the current decoupling of utility and market position

The current situation is immensely wasteful of everyone’s time and resources (Alphabet shareholders aside)

It really is a Standard Oil situation, but as it’s just inflaming - but not halting -the global economy, it’s been flying under regulators’ radar until a few years ago

No moat is too wide for the flick of sufficiently powerful pens, business models be damned

[bentice]

Let them make profit. We probably should have to pay for traffic and advertisement on the web. But regulate it so that there cannot be price gouging. For instance there are maximum interest chargeable on loans. You should be able to loan money at interest but there is a point where you are just using your power to economically exploit others. Especially if there is no option.

[thehappypm]

What are you even talking about? you actually do not need to pay Google a dime to be on the Internet, if you have good SEO you can be on the top of the page

[bentice]

Why does anyone pay google to advertise? Most people don't have adblocker they get a paid for link often.

There are also a range of topics google will not return the best ranked information. There are a ton of political issues (due to advertiser pressure) where the different results are huge when you search in duckduckgo vs google. This is monopoly power to decide what gets seen and what doesn't get seen.

[ApolloFortyNine]

>Google's "search results" are the textbook definition of a monopolized good/service.

Defining a market as a specific search engine's search results is wild. Wouldn't every search engine have a monopoly over it's results? A grocery store monopoly over its shelves?

Etc.

[Forgeties79]

When you are the only grocery store for 500mi yes you functionally have a “monopoly over your shelves.”

[ApolloFortyNine]

You can switch your search to bing in less time then it took to write this message.

Your 500 mile analogy simply does not apply.

[jonhohle]

As a business owner you can’t tell all of your present and future customers you’re only going to be in Bing results going forward. This isn’t about what an individual chooses to use. Google is effectively the Yellow pages of the internet. In that era you could take out ads in the newspaper, but no one was looking there when they needed to find a resource they needed now.

[lenerdenator]

There's Bing and DDG (aka "Bing without tracking").

[Forgeties79]

Bing barely has 10% of the market despite being owned by Microsoft and DDG has .5%

I am a DDG user and even I recognize they are barely a blip.

[olalonde]

They're not. Textbook definition: "A market structure characterized by a single seller, selling a unique product in the market." Google Search has competitors and is not even selling its search product.

[InsideOutSanta]

In this context, "selling" can't just mean "exchanging for money", it has to mean something like "exchanging for a valuable consideration." The valuable consideration that you provide in exchange for using Google is your attention on their ads, and your behavioral and personal data that can be sold.

And I would say that Google can fairly be called a unique product in the market. They are the default search engine on almost all browsers and operating systems, their mobile phone operating system owns 70% of the global market share, and most of these devices give Google's search engine preferential treatment, their name is synonymous with searching on the web, their market share is over 90%, they have more data on their users than probably any other company and can provide more personalized search results than anyone else, their web index is clearly more complete than e.g. Bing's (if you do a domain-restricted search, Google often finds twice as many results as Bing).

It's true that alternatives to Google exist, but Google's overwhelming market dominance makes it imo difficult to argue that they aren't a monopoly in practice.

[olalonde]

They're dominant but mainly due to the quality/cost of their products, not because competing with them is impossible. Android is open source. There's Bing and many other search engines. Google Mobile Services (Android is open source) and Google Search could disappear tomorrow and would be quickly replaced.

[dml2135]

> Google Search has competitors and is not even selling its search product.

The product is not search, it’s ad placements.

[olalonde]

Your comment specifically called out their search product. If your argument is that they have a monopoly on ads, I don't believe that's true either.

[dml2135]

What I mean is that search is not a product in the sense that you can say “search is free” and not have that be misleading in some way.

YOU are the product, being sold to advertisers, and Google search is the channel through which you are sold.

[olalonde]

That's a bit an unconventional take on what free and selling mean, but regardless that wasn't my main point.

[shadowgovt]

Your problem isn't Google, your problem is capitalism and the limited attention economy.

If you were in a position where you could just put things online and they may or may not be useful to people, you wouldn't be having this problem. But you're not; you're working for a taskmaster that demands attention or they can't justify their existence.

If Google evaporates tomorrow, there's no guarantee that your product gets customers. Indeed, in the absence of Google, most content on the internet is harder to find, not easier. The knob your overseer wants you to turn happens to be attached to Google, but when Google goes away there's going to be a different knob.

[EasyMark]

I’ll take capitalism controlling the internet any day over a communist dictatorship who will censor everything that doesn’t support the regime

[consteval]

False dichotomy

[vouaobrasil]

I disagree with this. Capitalism may be a problem, but Google's specific technology and size, enabling them to reach people at high-speed, is also a problem. The fact is, capitalism on a small scale (trade with money in local communities) is much less damaging than on a global scale due to the anonymizing effects of scale and the economies of scale being much more efficient at effecting tragedy of the commons.

Yes, capitalism is a problem, but it's also true that Google is a problem because Google's scale makes a poor combination with capitalism. Which is worse, the match or the gasoline? Both, if they are used to cause a devastating fire.