Comment by iooi
5 years ago
There are so many alternatives to email -- Outlook, Yahoo Mail, Proton, iCloud, etc. How can you argue with a straight face that Google has a monopoly on email?
5 years ago
There are so many alternatives to email -- Outlook, Yahoo Mail, Proton, iCloud, etc. How can you argue with a straight face that Google has a monopoly on email?
A monopoly does not require 100% market share. It requires a majority market share and using that position against its competitors (which can be argued for, given how easily non-google emails end up in spam folders).
Clearly Email is not the point of discussion here, as no one is building a business around it. It's Android with its app ecosystem, stadia, YouTube etc. Do you not see any problem with having effectively no support for these services?
Why is Google forced to provide customer support* for something they provide for free?
* they do provide customer support, it could obviously be a lot better
You pay for a license to be a developer on the app store. You pay for a phone. You pay for apps on the app store. You pay monthly for Stadia. YouTube aside, these are not free!
> Why is Google forced to provide customer support* for something they provide for free?
Providing something for free is not a defense against anti-trust law.
The most famous example showing this, was regarding internet explorer, which was provided for free, yet anti-trust law effected it anyway.
You pay with your PI which they market to advertisers to be able to target you with personalized advertising. They use your data to train their AI and build better algorithms which you are not getting payed for. Instead they offer you some free services.
You'd know if you tried to send a newsletter, for example, to 10k subscribers.
Just because unicycles exist as a means of locomotion doesn't mean that personal transportation isn't dominated by automobiles.
Where did the OP talk about gmail? Is it your opinion that Google is only Gmail? and that is the only service they offer?
Of all the services Google has, email is the least monopolistic, but simply because there is competition in email an open standard that many companies (including google) have tried to make less open does not change the Fact Google has market dominance in many other services