[thenewbtg]

I'm sometimes amazed how otherwise competent adults believe that one investor focused for profit corporation isn't capable of behaving just like another investor focused for profit corporation.

When I look at Google services, I see a lot of monopolies forming. For example, Hangouts now takes over SMS messages, and is automatically installed on all Android devices as a system app that cannot be removed. Or, in order to interact with Youtube, one requires a wholly unrelated public Google+ profile.

For someone to say that Google is incapable of abusing monopolies for strategic reasons including profit, while they are already abusing monopolies for strategic reasons including profit, is amazing to me.

[jessaustin]

You would benefit from a sense of proportion. Come back with this noise when there's a Google line running through my front yard that I'm not allowed to dig up. If you don't like the Android that Google built for you, then don't use it. Google haven't been purchasing laws and agencies since 1937. Ma Bell has.

[thenewbtg]

Hey, step out of the 1980's!

I have used telecommunication services for over a decade now, and I have never once done business with AT&T or a Mabell company.

Perhaps it's YOU who needs a sense of proportion. It isn't 1984 anymore. Mabell isn't a massive monopoly: Google, however, is becoming one.

[jessaustin]

...never once done business with...

...Verizon, SBC, CenturyLink, Qwest, FairPoint, Frontier, etc.? Eh, seems unlikely. Or perhaps the extent of your telecom purchasing is cell service from an MVNO? Guess where the majority of your payments are going... Apparently it is difficult for some people outside telecom to separate what's going on from the marketing of what's going on. Don't feel bad: back in the late 1990s I believed the hype too.