DOJ may want to break up Google(zdnet.com)
zdnet.com
DOJ may want to break up Google
https://www.zdnet.com/article/report-doj-may-want-to-break-up-google/
100 comments
> But if Google Cloud Platform can't stand on its own, and merges into AWS or Azure, that's less competition.
The other complexity is the actual infrastructure and IP. Inside, Google is very “vertically integrated” to making software services. They have a huge toolbox of custom software and a ton of custom magic they built into the data centers and infrastructure.
I’m not sure that there have been any modern cases of antitrust breakups that would have as much complexity and nuance. Bell could easily be divided geographically but of course that makes no sense here. I can’t imagine a breakup doing anything but destroy value and competition, even if you support antitrust intervention.
What happens to Google’s famous monorepo? Does it get chopped up? Are the libraries and tools shared and each child company gets a fork?
What about the SRE team that manages the shared database infrastructure for every team at Google?
What happens to the database that stores users accounts? Each user has basically one identity across each Google product. What happens to your YouTube account if it ends up in a different company than your GMail account?
And of course, who gets the physical data centers? If that goes to GCP, does that mean that search needs to negotiate a usage price as part of the breakup negotiations? Imagine the contract YouTube would have to write for renting storage?
The other complexity is the actual infrastructure and IP. Inside, Google is very “vertically integrated” to making software services. They have a huge toolbox of custom software and a ton of custom magic they built into the data centers and infrastructure.
I’m not sure that there have been any modern cases of antitrust breakups that would have as much complexity and nuance. Bell could easily be divided geographically but of course that makes no sense here. I can’t imagine a breakup doing anything but destroy value and competition, even if you support antitrust intervention.
What happens to Google’s famous monorepo? Does it get chopped up? Are the libraries and tools shared and each child company gets a fork?
What about the SRE team that manages the shared database infrastructure for every team at Google?
What happens to the database that stores users accounts? Each user has basically one identity across each Google product. What happens to your YouTube account if it ends up in a different company than your GMail account?
And of course, who gets the physical data centers? If that goes to GCP, does that mean that search needs to negotiate a usage price as part of the breakup negotiations? Imagine the contract YouTube would have to write for renting storage?
None of those issues matters much, to anyone except Google, which is getting broken up anyway.
>I can’t imagine a breakup doing anything but destroy value and competition, even if you support antitrust intervention.
I can, easily.
Value for who, exactly?
And antitrust intervention is supposed to increase competition.
>I can’t imagine a breakup doing anything but destroy value and competition, even if you support antitrust intervention.
I can, easily.
Value for who, exactly?
And antitrust intervention is supposed to increase competition.
>And antitrust intervention is supposed to increase competition.
A few results from a Google search for the word antitrust:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law
(The above was the first result; see the first paragraph at that link.)
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/antitrust.asp
A few results from a Google search for the word antitrust:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law
(The above was the first result; see the first paragraph at that link.)
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/antitrust.asp
It’s supposed to increase competition, but I’m skeptical. I think a lot of the winners will be the other mega-companies, but there will be a lot of loss across the industry. I don’t think the goal should be to punish Google for the sake of punishment, and I see that as happening.
I agree it might increase competition in all the future businesses that Google doesn’t enter, but not in the businesses many complain about Google today.
1. Ending the default-search payments will take away 20% of apples profits, and most of Mozilla’s revenue. Everyone but Apple already uses the chrome rendering engine. This is purely a value-destroyer.
2. Chrome certainly wouldn’t survive a breakup in its current form. There is no way a child company can afford to pay this many engineers, especially if the DOJ adds restrictions like they can’t make money from Google-search defaults. This might kill open-source chromium in the process.
3. Fitbit and nest are some examples of product lines that probably won’t be sustainable on their own. But certainly there is more (Fi?). Any company that ends up with them would probably shutter it for the savings. This would cede both their markets to Chinese crap and other American monopolies. Plus all the random projects people mention like Google Fonts. I’m guessing there are a ton of things in this bucket.
4. We certainly are not about to see a variety in phone operating systems. If Google is chopped up, the new android (parent) company certainly will be far poorer and have far less resources than Apple. This will cause the entire android ecosystem to languishing as new features slow and shift power back to Samsung and existing companies that can afford to push features without Google.
5. Google Cloud Platform would likely be a rare winner here. Theyre profitable (barely) and suddenly getting a whole new massive customer on the books (remaining Google parts) would give them a massive boost.
6. Whatever business owns Gmail in the end will keep those customers. Customers probably won’t change email providers.
7. This would probably accelerate the “new feature not available in Europe” trend, as existing Google had a lot of agreements with EU to maintain old features for “anticompetitive” reasons. The leaner and more competitive businesses certainly would ditch that market to better compete elsewhere.
Personally, I think a better approach is to treat Google more like infrastructure and require them to share their efforts. Open up the search index to others (paid, but for any use). Force their accounting to “buy” it internally with the same public margin. This would allow competitors in AI training, in search engine algos, UX, etc.
Similarly, you can do a similar thing for Maps, YouTube, Play Store, etc. They show off which services they maintain that have billions of users. Target those, not all the markets they still compete in.
I agree it might increase competition in all the future businesses that Google doesn’t enter, but not in the businesses many complain about Google today.
1. Ending the default-search payments will take away 20% of apples profits, and most of Mozilla’s revenue. Everyone but Apple already uses the chrome rendering engine. This is purely a value-destroyer.
2. Chrome certainly wouldn’t survive a breakup in its current form. There is no way a child company can afford to pay this many engineers, especially if the DOJ adds restrictions like they can’t make money from Google-search defaults. This might kill open-source chromium in the process.
3. Fitbit and nest are some examples of product lines that probably won’t be sustainable on their own. But certainly there is more (Fi?). Any company that ends up with them would probably shutter it for the savings. This would cede both their markets to Chinese crap and other American monopolies. Plus all the random projects people mention like Google Fonts. I’m guessing there are a ton of things in this bucket.
4. We certainly are not about to see a variety in phone operating systems. If Google is chopped up, the new android (parent) company certainly will be far poorer and have far less resources than Apple. This will cause the entire android ecosystem to languishing as new features slow and shift power back to Samsung and existing companies that can afford to push features without Google.
5. Google Cloud Platform would likely be a rare winner here. Theyre profitable (barely) and suddenly getting a whole new massive customer on the books (remaining Google parts) would give them a massive boost.
6. Whatever business owns Gmail in the end will keep those customers. Customers probably won’t change email providers.
7. This would probably accelerate the “new feature not available in Europe” trend, as existing Google had a lot of agreements with EU to maintain old features for “anticompetitive” reasons. The leaner and more competitive businesses certainly would ditch that market to better compete elsewhere.
Personally, I think a better approach is to treat Google more like infrastructure and require them to share their efforts. Open up the search index to others (paid, but for any use). Force their accounting to “buy” it internally with the same public margin. This would allow competitors in AI training, in search engine algos, UX, etc.
Similarly, you can do a similar thing for Maps, YouTube, Play Store, etc. They show off which services they maintain that have billions of users. Target those, not all the markets they still compete in.
How is that different from Bellcore [1][2]?
Bell was broken up in the early 1980s, they already had plenty of shared software infrastructure by then. The monorepo is an interesting complication but hardly a dealbreaker that can't be restructured around.
[1] https://journal.businesstoday.org/bt-online/2017/3/18/the-le...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconectiv
Bell was broken up in the early 1980s, they already had plenty of shared software infrastructure by then. The monorepo is an interesting complication but hardly a dealbreaker that can't be restructured around.
[1] https://journal.businesstoday.org/bt-online/2017/3/18/the-le...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconectiv
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I'd split it into at least:
There's just no good reason to have mega-conglomerates that own such huge shares of the market. It leads to regulatory capture and locks out potential new competitors.
Advertising
Google Search
Google Drive/Docs/Gmail/Gemini/Maps i.e. apps and office productivity
Google Cloud
VC activities
Waymo and Robotics
Health Care/Drugs
There's just no good reason to have mega-conglomerates that own such huge shares of the market. It leads to regulatory capture and locks out potential new competitors.
> And I'd do the same with Meta, Apple, etc.
When I worked at Apple in SWE I worked on macOS and iOS (and tvOS and ipadOS). None of the things I worked on were sold as individual SKUs. The money came from selling hardware. Software was a thing that helped sell the hardware since the OS turned it from a hunk of electronics into a product.
How could you possibly propose Apple be split up? The same base OS is used in all their products so you can't split out macOS and iOS. The hardware all comes out of the same hardware engineering group.
All splitting up Apple does is reduce competition because there would be the iPhone company that takes all the engineering resources. The remaining rump companies would need to back fill engineering resources at great expense. If the rump companies "partner" with the iPhone company they're just less efficient versions of the old similar company. Either that or they just get bought by another company and there's less competition or ownership by a geopolitical rival.
The break-ups of Standard Oil and AT&T were workable because they could easily be split among divisional or geographic lines. Splitting up Google or Apple is either completely ineffective as it's just creating "partners" or the rump companies die out because they can't leverage higher margin parts of the larger company.
When I worked at Apple in SWE I worked on macOS and iOS (and tvOS and ipadOS). None of the things I worked on were sold as individual SKUs. The money came from selling hardware. Software was a thing that helped sell the hardware since the OS turned it from a hunk of electronics into a product.
How could you possibly propose Apple be split up? The same base OS is used in all their products so you can't split out macOS and iOS. The hardware all comes out of the same hardware engineering group.
All splitting up Apple does is reduce competition because there would be the iPhone company that takes all the engineering resources. The remaining rump companies would need to back fill engineering resources at great expense. If the rump companies "partner" with the iPhone company they're just less efficient versions of the old similar company. Either that or they just get bought by another company and there's less competition or ownership by a geopolitical rival.
The break-ups of Standard Oil and AT&T were workable because they could easily be split among divisional or geographic lines. Splitting up Google or Apple is either completely ineffective as it's just creating "partners" or the rump companies die out because they can't leverage higher margin parts of the larger company.
The way to hit Apple with antitrust is to break off the App Stores themselves, since that's the point of monopolization.
Make Apple's apps all operate by exactly the same rules as everyone else's—including rules governing private APIs.
Make the formerly-Apple App Store compete with other App Stores in a similar way to what they've introduced in the EU, but on a more even footing.
Personally, I'm still not entirely sold on this being a good idea—but IMO it's the one way of breaking up Apple that actually makes any sense.
Make Apple's apps all operate by exactly the same rules as everyone else's—including rules governing private APIs.
Make the formerly-Apple App Store compete with other App Stores in a similar way to what they've introduced in the EU, but on a more even footing.
Personally, I'm still not entirely sold on this being a good idea—but IMO it's the one way of breaking up Apple that actually makes any sense.
Same, the services and hardware businesses are the only valid breakup case and it’s true that Apple favors its own services.
I’m also in agreement that it’s not clear such a break up would be beneficial.
I’m also in agreement that it’s not clear such a break up would be beneficial.
Services like Apple Music where they're currently able to leverage their ownership of the app store to give themselves a competitive advantage can be spilt off quite easily (in conceptual terms) and stand by themselves. If they can't stand by themselves then they're being bolstered by their market position thus the reason
> And I'd do the same with Meta, Apple, etc.
I agree re Meta, but I am not sure Apple should be in the same category. I think Google and Meta use a small subset of golden goose businesses to subsidize perpetual money losers that prevent competition and actual self sufficient business models from emerging, all for the sake of preventing the emergence of another conglomerate that might come for the original golden goose. Apple doesn’t seem to fit this model - all of its businesses more than 3-5 years old seem to be wildly profitable. It isn’t like the iPhone is subsidizing the Watch, or Services. They are all successful, self sufficient businesses.
I agree re Meta, but I am not sure Apple should be in the same category. I think Google and Meta use a small subset of golden goose businesses to subsidize perpetual money losers that prevent competition and actual self sufficient business models from emerging, all for the sake of preventing the emergence of another conglomerate that might come for the original golden goose. Apple doesn’t seem to fit this model - all of its businesses more than 3-5 years old seem to be wildly profitable. It isn’t like the iPhone is subsidizing the Watch, or Services. They are all successful, self sufficient businesses.
I think yes and no for Apple. It's certainly making a ton of money off of each of its devices (Watch, iPad, Mac, etc.), but none of those devices (with the exception of the Mac, probably) would sell as well without the iPhone's ecosystem.
In some hypothetical universe where the Watch and iPad were from distinct companies, they might have to force interoperability with other products like the Pixel or Galaxy Watch to make the iPhone a compelling product.
In some hypothetical universe where the Watch and iPad were from distinct companies, they might have to force interoperability with other products like the Pixel or Galaxy Watch to make the iPhone a compelling product.
I think the only case for Apple exerting monopoly power is in the App Store and the iOS walled garden model. If the EU DMA was brought to the US, I don’t see a valid antitrust case against Apple for any other business they do.
You could argue separating the services components (App Store, TV+, Apple Music) from the devices business, but I don’t think there’s any validity in segmenting iPhone from anything else or any of their hardware business as a whole.
You could argue separating the services components (App Store, TV+, Apple Music) from the devices business, but I don’t think there’s any validity in segmenting iPhone from anything else or any of their hardware business as a whole.
With iOS I think it is just enough to prohibit Apple from taking 30% cut from App Store installations. Similar how Microsoft cannot ask for 30% from any app installed in Windows (unless it is done from the store). In case of Apple, AppStore is basically Windows comparison - the only way to access "internet" so to say.
I think you have that the wrong way around, artificially limiting their %cut would be a kludge (who even decides what's fair?) and it wouldn't resolve other issues related to their death grip over app distribution such as arbitrary rules and censorship.
In this case there's a perfectly usable market solution to the problem.
Apple should be allowed to ask for any %cut they want, but others should be allowed to compete on equal footing and without Apple positioning themselves in the middle of every transaction, which is how they're trying to work around the EU DMA using notarization requirements and their "core technology" fee.
In this case there's a perfectly usable market solution to the problem.
Apple should be allowed to ask for any %cut they want, but others should be allowed to compete on equal footing and without Apple positioning themselves in the middle of every transaction, which is how they're trying to work around the EU DMA using notarization requirements and their "core technology" fee.
Meta only wishes they were impactful enough to be broken up. Their products aren’t really that important and it’s really easy to avoid them. If all of Meta’s products disappeared they would be replaced in a day.
It’s a little harder to avoid Google or Amazon or Apple in one’s everyday life. If one of these companies disappeared, it would take some time to fill that hole in the market.
It’s a little harder to avoid Google or Amazon or Apple in one’s everyday life. If one of these companies disappeared, it would take some time to fill that hole in the market.
Split off Chrome too, they have already proven it's going to be ugly having them control the most popular browser.
How could the advertising service be uncoupled from search? How would search make money?
Search would sell ad space to whatever company offers the best rate. If it's currently profitable for Google, it still would be, just other ad companies would have the option to offer a better rate.
It was over 10 years ago, but Google did almost exactly this with small experiment Google did (probably related to some suit) where Dealtime (BizRate?) product ads were shown in Google Search results in place of [what was then called] Product Listing Ads.
Charge money to use it.
Google search sucks now anyway. It’s been getting progressively worse in the past few years since they have decided that selling ads is more important than relevant search results, and don’t even get me started on the AI dribble they’ve been pushing. If they can’t keep up in a fair market then they deserve to fail just like everyone else.
Splitting ads off from Search doesn’t mean Search doesn’t show ads.
It just means that now multiple ad networks get to bid for those ad slots. Whoever wants to share the most money with the Search division wins. All their major properties get crazy traffic and will do just fine on their own.
Chrome can make search deals and again they are siphoning off all kinds of data. They can start selling that to data brokers instead of using it internally. Not to mention regional default search engine deals.
Android is on 80% of devices worldwide. You are telling me they can’t monetize that? YouTube isn’t a loss leader anymore.
Google should be broken up. Same for most of Big Tech.
It just means that now multiple ad networks get to bid for those ad slots. Whoever wants to share the most money with the Search division wins. All their major properties get crazy traffic and will do just fine on their own.
Chrome can make search deals and again they are siphoning off all kinds of data. They can start selling that to data brokers instead of using it internally. Not to mention regional default search engine deals.
Android is on 80% of devices worldwide. You are telling me they can’t monetize that? YouTube isn’t a loss leader anymore.
Google should be broken up. Same for most of Big Tech.
I was sort of following you until Android but you completely lost me there. That just doesn't make sense trust me. Disclosure: I work at Google in Cloud but I'm a product manager and I'm used to think about where money goes to do what. Android as a company makes no sense.
I do not work at Google so I am sure you have more inside information than me.
But, here is my thinking. Android is operated the way it is because it cements Googles dominance with its other services. Maps, Chrome, ..etc always ship with the certified Android phones. Google proper doesn’t pay anything for that privledge currently.
If broken up that first class “ships with the phone” stuff is now up for grabs and seems like it would be a valuable revenue stream. Also there is usage data which can be monetized. Play store revenue would still be there as well.
Custom spins of the OS for specific industry use cases with professional support might be attractive to a smaller company which just had Android whereas it isn’t lucrative enough for Google as a whole. Also these custom flavors might not ship with Google services so there is a natural disincentive to explore this.
Android on its own would likely monetize very differently than it currently is as part of the Google mothership. It would need to have a diverse set of partners. Even if it was just as a regional service reseller where it is taking a cut of service revenue in exchange for first class support on the OS.
I can’t help but think that this realigning of incentives would be beneficial for the market as a whole.
But, here is my thinking. Android is operated the way it is because it cements Googles dominance with its other services. Maps, Chrome, ..etc always ship with the certified Android phones. Google proper doesn’t pay anything for that privledge currently.
If broken up that first class “ships with the phone” stuff is now up for grabs and seems like it would be a valuable revenue stream. Also there is usage data which can be monetized. Play store revenue would still be there as well.
Custom spins of the OS for specific industry use cases with professional support might be attractive to a smaller company which just had Android whereas it isn’t lucrative enough for Google as a whole. Also these custom flavors might not ship with Google services so there is a natural disincentive to explore this.
Android on its own would likely monetize very differently than it currently is as part of the Google mothership. It would need to have a diverse set of partners. Even if it was just as a regional service reseller where it is taking a cut of service revenue in exchange for first class support on the OS.
I can’t help but think that this realigning of incentives would be beneficial for the market as a whole.
What is your argument? Android is one of the most successful software projects of all time. It seems easily monetizable.
>What of the small, but important, products that Google hasn't killed yet?
Indeed, what of them, fellow traveler on this noble software path?
Inscrutable are the ways of existence.
The department thou speaketh of is well named.
It meteth out justice.
With one hand it giveth, with the other hand it taketh away.
Ours not to reason why, ours but to innovate or die.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45319/the-charge-of-t...
Indeed, what of them, fellow traveler on this noble software path?
Inscrutable are the ways of existence.
The department thou speaketh of is well named.
It meteth out justice.
With one hand it giveth, with the other hand it taketh away.
Ours not to reason why, ours but to innovate or die.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45319/the-charge-of-t...
Agreed. Gmail is probably their best product and while they make money from Google Workspace, imagine without Google Ads, they'd have to start charging those 2 billion users who would then leave for a lesser but cheaper alternative.
And Google Maps and Waze and YouTube and YouTube Music.
It's always been unsafe to rely on most any Google product since they will eventually evaporate. But Google Search, YouTube and Gmail have always seemed untouchable, but without Google Ads, it's anyones guess.
And Google Maps and Waze and YouTube and YouTube Music.
It's always been unsafe to rely on most any Google product since they will eventually evaporate. But Google Search, YouTube and Gmail have always seemed untouchable, but without Google Ads, it's anyones guess.
> they'd have to start charging those 2 billion users
Why couldn’t they simply show ads like any third party site? Ads can still be a business model for them, but those separate businesses couldn’t be subsidized by ads shown on other sites as the case currently is.
Why couldn’t they simply show ads like any third party site? Ads can still be a business model for them, but those separate businesses couldn’t be subsidized by ads shown on other sites as the case currently is.
Daily Motion seemed like a good alternative to YouTube, but how do you funnel people to the site and make money from it.
YouTube has been catering towards children, which is kind of strange to me.
YouTube has been catering towards children, which is kind of strange to me.
Advertising needs to split. Search, youtube, ... need to bring their own ad sales with, with a few of the external customers.
> What of the small, but important, products that Google hasn't killed yet? ... But what of say, Google Fonts?
Google Fonts can act as a tracking pixel, the bandwidth cost is probably offset by the slight amount of user data it obtains.
Google Fonts can act as a tracking pixel, the bandwidth cost is probably offset by the slight amount of user data it obtains.
I’d like to see them split off crawling from indexing/search, and be forced to provide the complete crawl to anyone who wants it, at cost. Currently, they have a privileged position, where almost all websites are willing to let them crawl, while blocking most smaller crawlers pinging them anywhere near as often, and forms a bit of a natural monopoly. Opening that up for all would open up competition in the search interface space a bit, and open things up for more specialized vertical search engines, making it generally a lot easier to start a search site without negatively impacting the sites they're searching with n engines worth of crawler traffic.
I think you're overlooking the disincentives to competition that exist while Google is so consolidated. Google funds things like hardware, cloud, and Android so that they constitute a hundred-mile moat around its core Advertising and Search business. Android could lose basically unlimited money without Google winding it up, because its key role is to prevent the emergence of a competitor that would threaten to become another intermediary between Google and consumers.
A lot of these secondary products and services are not there to be profitable, they're sold at unrealistic prices (or given away for free) to kill competition. Once spun off, these products or services would have to become profitable on their own feet, which would - after an initial spike in prices - make the space a lot more competitive for other firms seeking to enter that market.
A lot of these secondary products and services are not there to be profitable, they're sold at unrealistic prices (or given away for free) to kill competition. Once spun off, these products or services would have to become profitable on their own feet, which would - after an initial spike in prices - make the space a lot more competitive for other firms seeking to enter that market.
Do apple at the same time and I'll support it.
How long are we going to allow the 30% apple tax to continue? See the recent patreon debacle for how it hurts people (not to mention the 30% being eaten as apple as well...).
You could switch from using Google's web products today. Literally.
How long are we going to allow the 30% apple tax to continue? See the recent patreon debacle for how it hurts people (not to mention the 30% being eaten as apple as well...).
You could switch from using Google's web products today. Literally.
Do one now, by focusing on it. Then do other.
It is difficult to compete with 'free' services where people pay with their privacy / time (for watching ads). Large masses cannot afford all these subscription-based models, and if then: households need to chose.
Amazon does this too. I pay 5 EUR a month, and get Amazon Prime Video, I get free S&H on Prime articles, and this makes me more inclined to order from Amazon. Meanwhile, if I order from AliExpress for more than 10 EUR, I get free shipping. Same story: stimulates me to buy more (or wait till I have more to order). With Apple, people are within the walled garden and circumventing that isn't allowed outside of EU.
Small businesses cannot do free/cheap shipping, as they don't have any large volume discounts. So what they do is sell their item on Amazon (and in NL, Bol.com) for a little bit more than their own shop. Either way, they have a tough time to compete. On service perhaps. Amazon has been terrible with warranty on expensive items to me. But if it is within a month I've been able to return the item, with no hassle.
It is difficult to compete with 'free' services where people pay with their privacy / time (for watching ads). Large masses cannot afford all these subscription-based models, and if then: households need to chose.
Amazon does this too. I pay 5 EUR a month, and get Amazon Prime Video, I get free S&H on Prime articles, and this makes me more inclined to order from Amazon. Meanwhile, if I order from AliExpress for more than 10 EUR, I get free shipping. Same story: stimulates me to buy more (or wait till I have more to order). With Apple, people are within the walled garden and circumventing that isn't allowed outside of EU.
Small businesses cannot do free/cheap shipping, as they don't have any large volume discounts. So what they do is sell their item on Amazon (and in NL, Bol.com) for a little bit more than their own shop. Either way, they have a tough time to compete. On service perhaps. Amazon has been terrible with warranty on expensive items to me. But if it is within a month I've been able to return the item, with no hassle.
Apple is so clearly an active, harmful monopoly with clear consumer pricing harm (forced 30% tax, you can't even mention alternative payment processing or they'll ban your app), and the DOJ and FTC consistently ignore it; I've pretty much lost hope in the honesty of the American regulators at this point. Enforce the law consistently, or don't enforce it; trying to pick winners with this degree of selective enforcement should be a crime.
The DOJ suit against Apple was such a bizarre disappointment. Didn't address any of the big problems. Focused on minor stuff no one cares about (like "everything apps", or allowing third-party apps to take over SMS handling)
> Do apple at the same time and I'll support it.
For better or for worse, that's not how these things work.
Each antitrust case is almost wholly independent, with the only things that connect them being potential precedent set by previous ones, and any evidence or testimony that comes from one company to hang the other.
While it would surely be satisfying to see one big rollup of "big tech antitrust breakups" announced at once, and while it would help to mitigate the potential of breaking up one company to strengthen its rivals, our system just isn't set up to allow that sort of thing in any fashion.
If you want Google to be broken up, you have to support Google being broken up without knowing if Apple will even lose their antitrust case, let alone what the remedies might be. (Not, of course, that our opinion has any significant sway over these things in the first place!)
For better or for worse, that's not how these things work.
Each antitrust case is almost wholly independent, with the only things that connect them being potential precedent set by previous ones, and any evidence or testimony that comes from one company to hang the other.
While it would surely be satisfying to see one big rollup of "big tech antitrust breakups" announced at once, and while it would help to mitigate the potential of breaking up one company to strengthen its rivals, our system just isn't set up to allow that sort of thing in any fashion.
If you want Google to be broken up, you have to support Google being broken up without knowing if Apple will even lose their antitrust case, let alone what the remedies might be. (Not, of course, that our opinion has any significant sway over these things in the first place!)
I don’t understand this argument, Google is a giant monopoly worldwide in many markets compared to Apple who only has a slight advantage in only one market. Google own the web (search), mail (Gmail), maps (Gmail), videos (YouTube), smartphone (Android)… Apple is smartphones in the US.
I'm hoping precedent is set so that actions can be taken against other companies that abuse their monopoly/duopoly/etc status to dominate markets with anti-competitive policies.
Honestly we need an entirely new “technology” stacks to provide alternatives to the monopoly that either the stock market has or the secret conglomerate of Silicon Valley.
jsjohnst(1)
I think Google, what we initially knew as the search engine company, should spin off the advertisement and the browser division. Not making any statements of the rest of Google, it's just that I'm most familiar with the impact of those 3 together.
Google Chrome in the past greatly pushed the quality of web browsers, but now their roadmap isn't for the best of the web, it's for the best of Google.
Their browser is going to kill a system (Extensions v2) that will dramatically reduce the quality of adblocking, which will benefit their Advertisement group.
The same browser tried to get rid of a system (3rd party cookies) that reduced the useability of tracking for other companies, while they have much more data to link to you (DNS, Search, Mail, etc).
Google Chrome in the past greatly pushed the quality of web browsers, but now their roadmap isn't for the best of the web, it's for the best of Google.
Their browser is going to kill a system (Extensions v2) that will dramatically reduce the quality of adblocking, which will benefit their Advertisement group.
The same browser tried to get rid of a system (3rd party cookies) that reduced the useability of tracking for other companies, while they have much more data to link to you (DNS, Search, Mail, etc).
How do you propose the browser company will make any money?
How do competing browsers make money? Chrome can do the same. It may mean users start paying for it, or ad supported in some way, which will be annoying, but even out the playing field.
The fact that Chrome is free is the problem. The fact they have such a leg up on everyone else is the problem.
The fact that Chrome is free is the problem. The fact they have such a leg up on everyone else is the problem.
Does a browser need to make money? Chrome is mostly open source as far as I know. Maybe it could move to a model like Linux where you have a benevolent dictator overseeing things and if a company wants something supported in chrome they can fund a developer to make the work happen.
As far as security and support perhaps companies like Microsoft which use parts of chrome as basis for Edge could employ people who can fix issues upstream.
As far as security and support perhaps companies like Microsoft which use parts of chrome as basis for Edge could employ people who can fix issues upstream.
During the split they could invest a matching fraction of the total resources, and have it produce income for the new company.
It's what Mozilla should have been doing all this time, but didn't have forward thinking leadership.
It's what Mozilla should have been doing all this time, but didn't have forward thinking leadership.
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Chromium/Chrome can also get ChromeOS and it's hardware division since most of the complications in chrome are there to reimplement a Phone/Desktop OS.
There's plenty of bad blood on the topic/reasons why Google isn't a perfect white knight.
But man, I'm gonna miss the hell them when they're gone.
The ability to use the big giant firehose of money to make amazing often open source things isn't bad. It's been like 90%+ great, in spite of our frustrations. Chrome is an astounding browser that sets powerful expectations for how good hypermedia ought to be on every on this planet. Android is an incredible mobile OS that powers a bogglingly large number of devices that just would never have gotten made. Google hardware isn't perfect but Pixel has been a brand leader for ages, pushing the way forwards again & again.
Without Google as a giant omnibus company whose top problems include figuring out how to spend all that money, I don't know who else is going to have the largest to invest in the technology world's general health & thriving.
But man, I'm gonna miss the hell them when they're gone.
The ability to use the big giant firehose of money to make amazing often open source things isn't bad. It's been like 90%+ great, in spite of our frustrations. Chrome is an astounding browser that sets powerful expectations for how good hypermedia ought to be on every on this planet. Android is an incredible mobile OS that powers a bogglingly large number of devices that just would never have gotten made. Google hardware isn't perfect but Pixel has been a brand leader for ages, pushing the way forwards again & again.
Without Google as a giant omnibus company whose top problems include figuring out how to spend all that money, I don't know who else is going to have the largest to invest in the technology world's general health & thriving.
I remember when they tried breaking up Microsoft into Windows and Office... now look at them...
Windows and Office / 365 / Skype, and Xbox and Activision / Mojang / Zenimax / Rare / Obsidian, and Bing and Edge... and Nuance... and Github / npm... and Azure... and LinkedIn... all under one roof.
Windows and Office / 365 / Skype, and Xbox and Activision / Mojang / Zenimax / Rare / Obsidian, and Bing and Edge... and Nuance... and Github / npm... and Azure... and LinkedIn... all under one roof.
> I remember when they tried breaking up Microsoft into Windows and Office... now look at them...
And do you remember why that fell apart?
The remedy was proposed under President Clinton. Before it could be enacted, George W. Bush came into office and his administration put a stop to it.
And do you remember why that fell apart?
The remedy was proposed under President Clinton. Before it could be enacted, George W. Bush came into office and his administration put a stop to it.
I think I'd get laid off if this happens. I'm hard pressed to think of many products that make sense split off. They've always felt like science fair projects that barely break even, but the search ads monster money machine keeps funding us as long as we vaguely promise to funnel people in.
How do Microsoft get away with being a Monopoly?!
(And don't tell me about the wrist slap they got in the 1990s.)
If the purpose would be to bust monopolies, being next to impossible to find an email delivery service as a startup which sends emails successfully to Yahoo/Gmail would be more of a hurdle.
Even if that means directly setting up a service with the US government to ensure deliveries, would be a bigger step towards getting new technology companies.
Even if that means directly setting up a service with the US government to ensure deliveries, would be a bigger step towards getting new technology companies.
Apple and Microsoft and Amazon next. These companies can simply copy the features of smaller players, take losses for years, bundle products, use existing enterprise contracts, etc to keep growing without fair competition. Break them up, fine them, tax them.
Good initiative but only Google? Here is but a concise list of companies that are in desperate need to be broken apart to foster innovation and entrepreneurship:
Amazon: E-commerce, AWS, Twitch.
Microsoft: Azure, Office, Windows, Linkedin.
Facebook: Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook.
Amazon: E-commerce, AWS, Twitch.
Microsoft: Azure, Office, Windows, Linkedin.
Facebook: Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook.
Google's monopoly position makes them invaluable to US intelligence and related psyops. They won't be broken up in any meaningful way. At most this is a threat to gain further control.
I can only imagine what it would look like to break up the main users of google3. What happens to borg? Colossus and Spanner?
Would this potentially mean getting meaningful customer service? Looking at admob, ads, and play console...
[dupe]
Actual article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-13/doj-consi...
more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41239596
Actual article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-13/doj-consi...
more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41239596
The real question is whether Harris or Trump will stop the DOJ from breaking up Google.
Is the game to pretend that you're going to get rid of Khan to keep the cash flowing, then to boost her at the last minute for the anti-corruption vote? If it's not, I can't understand why they're not falling over themselves to praise her. Better said, I can't understand why they aren't publicly praising her unless they hate what she's doing and can't wait to get rid of her when nobody is looking - Harris with her media shield, or Trump with the carte blanche he'll have to fire everyone in this administration.
Biden used to pretend like he didn't know Khan, or what she was doing. Maybe he wasn't pretending.
Is the game to pretend that you're going to get rid of Khan to keep the cash flowing, then to boost her at the last minute for the anti-corruption vote? If it's not, I can't understand why they're not falling over themselves to praise her. Better said, I can't understand why they aren't publicly praising her unless they hate what she's doing and can't wait to get rid of her when nobody is looking - Harris with her media shield, or Trump with the carte blanche he'll have to fire everyone in this administration.
Biden used to pretend like he didn't know Khan, or what she was doing. Maybe he wasn't pretending.
The ultimate re-org
Google has the closest thing we have to the Bell Labs of the past that invented the transistor. If the DOJ breaks them up, we will lose another valuable industry research facility.
AT&T argued that breaking up its monopoly would harm consumers by reducing service quality, increasing costs, and stifling innovation due to the loss of economies of scale. However, the breakup in 1984 led to increased competition, which drove innovation, improved services, and lowered prices, proving AT&T's claims largely false. The market's diversity and consumer choice expanded significantly post-breakup, contradicting the monopoly's dire predictions.
I agree with this view; the breakup of the AT&T monopoly was a boon for consumers. However, I also agree that Bell Labs was a casualty of the breakup. Once AT&T was split, Bell Labs was pressured to demonstrate its value by focusing its research on areas with more immediate ROI. Unfortunately, when a research lab focuses more on the short-term instead of fostering long-term, riskier explorations, the magic of the lab fades away, and often the work becomes evolutionary rather than revolutionary, since it’s hard to do revolutionary research when management, executives, and shareholders demand quarterly progress and a promise for ROI in the near future. Bell Labs wasn’t the same since 1984, and the same situation occurred with Xerox PARC after the 1980s when Xerox no longer enjoyed monopoly-level profits on its photocopiers due to increased competition.
I believe that fostering long-term, unfettered research is an important element for revolutionary work, though I don’t believe it’s the only way for revolutionary work to happen. However, it’s difficult for most companies to consistently fund this work for an extended period of time. Bell Labs and Xerox PARC in their heydays were special, and I struggle to think of any modern-day equivalents in industry.
I believe that fostering long-term, unfettered research is an important element for revolutionary work, though I don’t believe it’s the only way for revolutionary work to happen. However, it’s difficult for most companies to consistently fund this work for an extended period of time. Bell Labs and Xerox PARC in their heydays were special, and I struggle to think of any modern-day equivalents in industry.
Back in the 1980s, long distance couples sometimes wound up paying more in long distance phone calls than rent, and 30 miles away counted as long distance. No one could attach anything to the precious network, so acoustic coupler modems had to be used, resulting in very low bandwidth. Yes, a lot of good stuff came out of Bell Labs, funded by the huge amount of monopoly money that came into the company, but that needed to end.
I was in that situation. I was thrilled when Sprint long distance became available at $0.10/minute and I also remember when you could stop renting your home phone from AT&T and plug in one that you bought and owned.
Heh - My first online experience was 1995 (obviously, pre-98 telecom deregulation). Not only did the price include the insane per-hour pricing of Compuserve, but the long distance fees pushed my bill up to 300 dollars the first month. I worked at Taco Bell at the time and made like 4 bucks an hour. Thankfully I lived at home rent free at that point.
This analysis might be selective and hindsight biased. Are there any cases where government intervention to slow or stop monopolies actually impeded innovation?
Government antitrust actions aim to promote competition but can sometimes slow innovation by disrupting large companies' ability to invest in R&D. Cases like IBM, AT&T, Microsoft, and Qualcomm illustrate how such interventions, while fostering competition, may also delay technological advancements or make companies more risk-averse.
While antitrust actions might temporarily disrupt a company's innovation, they ultimately foster a healthier market by encouraging competition, which drives more diverse and widespread innovation across the industry. Breaking monopolies often unleashes creativity and technological advancement by empowering smaller players and preventing market stagnation.
While antitrust actions might temporarily disrupt a company's innovation, they ultimately foster a healthier market by encouraging competition, which drives more diverse and widespread innovation across the industry. Breaking monopolies often unleashes creativity and technological advancement by empowering smaller players and preventing market stagnation.
Total market share, you can’t generate more time to steal from people which is effectively what these companies like Google have done to generate revenue.
If the government steps in they would have to break them all up and expect to make entering those sections possible. At the moment it’s nearly impossible.
If the government steps in they would have to break them all up and expect to make entering those sections possible. At the moment it’s nearly impossible.
Google only seems to innovate in how to extract more dollars from advertisement and in how to make their search worse.
Maybe we will all be fine without those.
Maybe we will all be fine without those.
It also knows how to bully people trying to entire the space.
If you want applied science, advocate for increased public funding of research. Supporting abusive monopolies in the hopes that they'll do some good with part of their ill-gotten gains is the wrong play.
I mean... they had it. For ten or fifteen years. In CS, at least.
That mostly ended when they became a VC financing & monetization endpoint rather than a novel research platform, and renamed themselves 'Alphabet', cut R&D spending to about 1/12th of revenue, hired a bunch of middle managers and marketing execs, and killed 20% time, because the idea of a thousand engineers making white-paper reports about how they chose to spend their time to one CTO was no longer a favored organizational strategy for executing further growth by shareholders.
They still do a great deal of research, but it's less blue-sky and more focused. Google's got 182,000 employees now, with official R&D spending at about four times the National Science Foundation, but still in the 10-15% of revenue band. This is more a condemnation of the NSF and Congress than praise of Google.
That mostly ended when they became a VC financing & monetization endpoint rather than a novel research platform, and renamed themselves 'Alphabet', cut R&D spending to about 1/12th of revenue, hired a bunch of middle managers and marketing execs, and killed 20% time, because the idea of a thousand engineers making white-paper reports about how they chose to spend their time to one CTO was no longer a favored organizational strategy for executing further growth by shareholders.
They still do a great deal of research, but it's less blue-sky and more focused. Google's got 182,000 employees now, with official R&D spending at about four times the National Science Foundation, but still in the 10-15% of revenue band. This is more a condemnation of the NSF and Congress than praise of Google.
Google doesn't even keep the projects they launch alive, what chance does their lab have long term?
Which lab at Google is going to invent the next transistor?
I guess the parent is talking about Google X, and perhaps the self driving car stuff. Not sure, I don’t think Google is particularly good at innovation, as most of their successes other than search came through acquisitions (YouTube, Google Maps).
They’re definitely not at the forefront of AI anymore, which honestly is super surprising given the reputation that had.
They’re definitely not at the forefront of AI anymore, which honestly is super surprising given the reputation that had.
Perhaps user-facing apps/innovations, yes - but what about all of the other things they've contributed to the world? Kubernetes, Golang, V8, Chromium, and so much more. All of which are entirely free, as in beer kind of free. That's amazing.
These tools have been used to create amazing things that normal people have come to depend on every day.
These tools have been used to create amazing things that normal people have come to depend on every day.
But that’s hardly on par with the level of innovation that happened at Bell Labs. Would you see them getting 10 Nobel prizes and 5 Turing awards?
I’m not disagreeing that Google is adding value, but it just seems more like incremental improvements rather than innovation. Yes they make free things, but so do Facebook, Netflix, Apple, etc.
I’m not disagreeing that Google is adding value, but it just seems more like incremental improvements rather than innovation. Yes they make free things, but so do Facebook, Netflix, Apple, etc.
> Would you see them getting 10 Nobel prizes and 5 Turing awards?
Meh, we give Nobel prizes to anyone these days - they're more symbolic of certain politics than anything else sadly.
Turing Awards? Yes, many things Google has contributed to the world are probably worthy of such an award. Http/2/quic/3 were driven by Google if I'm not mistaken, and there is no other browser core like Chromium today that facilitates so much of the world's internet access (a significant amount of which does not use Chrome itself). Tensorflow and early "AI Revolution" tech came largely out of Google as well.
The problem we have today is tech is very complicated and requires many organizations working together to really advance groundbreaking technology. When the day finally comes that FSD Vehicles are possible, would we say the first company to market "invented" the technology or would it be the compound experiences of dozens of companies? Gone are the days 5 people can get into a room and 3 months later turn out world-changing technology...
Meh, we give Nobel prizes to anyone these days - they're more symbolic of certain politics than anything else sadly.
Turing Awards? Yes, many things Google has contributed to the world are probably worthy of such an award. Http/2/quic/3 were driven by Google if I'm not mistaken, and there is no other browser core like Chromium today that facilitates so much of the world's internet access (a significant amount of which does not use Chrome itself). Tensorflow and early "AI Revolution" tech came largely out of Google as well.
The problem we have today is tech is very complicated and requires many organizations working together to really advance groundbreaking technology. When the day finally comes that FSD Vehicles are possible, would we say the first company to market "invented" the technology or would it be the compound experiences of dozens of companies? Gone are the days 5 people can get into a room and 3 months later turn out world-changing technology...
You really think QUIC is comparable to the transistor?
Already invented the transformer
If a company wins the game of capitalism it should be nationalized. If no one can compete with you anymore the market is better of without you. Print the stacks of money, pay who needs to be paid.
The alternative is for them to gradually absorb everything. You cant compete with them.
We've done the great privatization experiment. We can experiment with the opposite. We can fabricate arguments for and against anything, as many as we want. Only time will tell.
If the US gov takes over Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Apple it would go a long way justifying $35200000000000.- in debt? Credibility would improve dramatically.
What would happen if those companies worked together as one big government department? All the logos replaced with big bird... ehh... I mean the great seal.
All the money men gravitating towards market companies. Play the game again.
Search is actually useful, like roads. No need to have a billboard every 20 meters. It is useful as~is. Who could resist the temptation to make curvy roads so that travelers get to see more billboards?
The alternative is for them to gradually absorb everything. You cant compete with them.
We've done the great privatization experiment. We can experiment with the opposite. We can fabricate arguments for and against anything, as many as we want. Only time will tell.
If the US gov takes over Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Apple it would go a long way justifying $35200000000000.- in debt? Credibility would improve dramatically.
What would happen if those companies worked together as one big government department? All the logos replaced with big bird... ehh... I mean the great seal.
All the money men gravitating towards market companies. Play the game again.
Search is actually useful, like roads. No need to have a billboard every 20 meters. It is useful as~is. Who could resist the temptation to make curvy roads so that travelers get to see more billboards?
They are behind the curve at this point.
Right before the election, what a coincidence. I hope they remember that if Harris wins. But I doubt it.
Clearly they want to separate search and advertising, as that was the crux of the case. But advertising is the only place that makes any money. If they split that off by itself, the rest, which is the good parts, may completely crumble.
What of the small, but important, products that Google hasn't killed yet? I guess Google Flights is arguably part of search. But what of say, Google Fonts?
The goal is to increase competition in the marketplace. A noble endeavor. But all those other Google products, if left to hang out to dry, stand a good chance of dying or being absorbed by competitors.
Well and good, there may be increased competition in the realm of search and online advertising. But if Google Cloud Platform can't stand on its own, and merges into AWS or Azure, that's less competition. If Chrome and Chromebooks can't stand on their own and Microsoft acquires it, that's less competition.
No matter how the split goes, whichever parts of Google's business are not in the same company as the advertising business will need to find a way to profitability.