Anti-competitive behaviour doesn't need to mean other companies can't compete. It just means it makes it harder to compete, which this does. Having access to this data improves Google Meet, and evidently gives enough advantage to justify adding it to the browser. Other products don't have access to these APIs, so can't improve their products in the same way. Google has used their browser monopoly to give their other products an unfair advantage. That is anti-competitive behaviour, and is illegal.
"All they're doing is making their product better."
"Making your product better by privileging your own domains in the browser is the anti-competitive part."
"Come on, it's not like it's making their product better."
----
This really isn't complicated. Is this making Google Meet better? I would quote:
> danielmarkbruce: "They are just trying to make their products better."
Okay. So then Google Meet would be a worse product if they didn't have privileged API access over other apps. So... this does make it harder for those other apps to compete, unless you think that the quality of a product is somehow irrelevant for competition.
Sure, Google Meet still isn't winning, but who knows where they'd be in the market if they didn't privilege themselves.
You're saying that their product would be worse if they didn't do this, but also that it somehow doesn't matter because they're not the best product. Which has a similar energy to me cutting a loop out of a marathon and saying, "Come on guys, I only came in third. It's not cheating unless I come in first, everybody knows that. As long as I don't come in first I'm allowed to take shortcuts. Give me my third place medal that I definitely earned fairly, why is everybody mad about this?"
> The point of products is to provide value to customers.
This is idealistic, the point of a product is to provide value to the company.
And competition is not a by-product that exists by accident, it is the mechanism through which we get companies who are building things for their benefit to incidentally provide benefits to consumers.
Products are competitions. From a business point of view, the point is to win. From a social point of view, yes, obviously we want products to provide value to consumers. But don't make the mistake of assuming that Google (or any other company) has the same goals as society. Every business wants to be a monopoly.
----
> Misleading analogies don't illuminate.
Now, you may not like the analogy, but the general point here is exactly the same regardless of what analogy you use. I'll repeat:
> This really isn't complicated. Is this making Google Meet better? I would quote:
> > danielmarkbruce: "They are just trying to make their products better."
> Okay. So then Google Meet would be a worse product if they didn't have privileged API access over other apps. So... this does make it harder for those other apps to compete, unless you think that the quality of a product is somehow irrelevant for competition.
----
You can not in one breath argue that this is good because it made Google Meet better, and in the next breath argue that it's fine because it didn't impact the market. Those two ideas contradict each other.
And the fact that Google is so inept at product design that it can't capture the entire market even when it unfairly advantages itself does not mean that it is not unfairly advantaging itself or that it isn't causing harm. The Internet as a platform is better for both consumers and businesses when it is a common platform, not one that privileges specific companies. The Internet (and the market overall) is harmed by breaches of market rules regardless of the final outcomes, because each breach emboldens companies to attempt even more lawless stunts and destroys trust in the market.
I mean, seriously, call it whatever analogy you want, it's still awfully silly to argue that Google cheating to give itself a leg up over competitors is fine... because even with the advantage Google still couldn't build a good enough conferencing app to capture the entire market. That does not let them off the hook for cheating.
You're saying it's not a big deal while also saying it improves the product. The debug panel is apparent, but we don't know what else the API's data is used for. Maybe Meet uses it to improve performance too.
The goal or motivation is irrelevant; what they actually did and its potential effects are what matters.
I'm not sure why you seem to be having so much trouble with this concept. Google's majority-market-share browser gave their browser-based videoconferencing product a privilege and advantage that other browser-based videoconferencing products did not get.
That's it. You don't need to dig into their motivations or their intentions. It doesn't matter if it even "worked" or not; it is completely immaterial that Google is so incompetent that it can't even win when it has given itself the tools to play dirty.
If so, the API has to be available to competitors. Maybe this is why Meet is in-browser while all the other ones work better in apps. Despite this, Meet still hasn't won because it's just not very good.
Anti-competitive behaviour doesn't need to mean other companies can't compete. It just means it makes it harder to compete, which this does. Having access to this data improves Google Meet, and evidently gives enough advantage to justify adding it to the browser. Other products don't have access to these APIs, so can't improve their products in the same way. Google has used their browser monopoly to give their other products an unfair advantage. That is anti-competitive behaviour, and is illegal.
"All they're doing is making their product better."
"Making your product better by privileging your own domains in the browser is the anti-competitive part."
"Come on, it's not like it's making their product better."
----
This really isn't complicated. Is this making Google Meet better? I would quote:
> danielmarkbruce: "They are just trying to make their products better."
Okay. So then Google Meet would be a worse product if they didn't have privileged API access over other apps. So... this does make it harder for those other apps to compete, unless you think that the quality of a product is somehow irrelevant for competition.
Sure, Google Meet still isn't winning, but who knows where they'd be in the market if they didn't privilege themselves.
You're saying that their product would be worse if they didn't do this, but also that it somehow doesn't matter because they're not the best product. Which has a similar energy to me cutting a loop out of a marathon and saying, "Come on guys, I only came in third. It's not cheating unless I come in first, everybody knows that. As long as I don't come in first I'm allowed to take shortcuts. Give me my third place medal that I definitely earned fairly, why is everybody mad about this?"
[flagged]
> Competition is a by product of several companies out there with products.
Correct. And Google made it harder for other companies to compete by leveraging their monopoly position in the browser space.
Even if we take the positive spin on it and say that Google made it easier for themselves to compete, that's not a material difference.
> The point of products is to provide value to customers.
This is idealistic, the point of a product is to provide value to the company.
And competition is not a by-product that exists by accident, it is the mechanism through which we get companies who are building things for their benefit to incidentally provide benefits to consumers.
Products are competitions. From a business point of view, the point is to win. From a social point of view, yes, obviously we want products to provide value to consumers. But don't make the mistake of assuming that Google (or any other company) has the same goals as society. Every business wants to be a monopoly.
----
> Misleading analogies don't illuminate.
Now, you may not like the analogy, but the general point here is exactly the same regardless of what analogy you use. I'll repeat:
> This really isn't complicated. Is this making Google Meet better? I would quote:
> > danielmarkbruce: "They are just trying to make their products better."
> Okay. So then Google Meet would be a worse product if they didn't have privileged API access over other apps. So... this does make it harder for those other apps to compete, unless you think that the quality of a product is somehow irrelevant for competition.
----
You can not in one breath argue that this is good because it made Google Meet better, and in the next breath argue that it's fine because it didn't impact the market. Those two ideas contradict each other.
And the fact that Google is so inept at product design that it can't capture the entire market even when it unfairly advantages itself does not mean that it is not unfairly advantaging itself or that it isn't causing harm. The Internet as a platform is better for both consumers and businesses when it is a common platform, not one that privileges specific companies. The Internet (and the market overall) is harmed by breaches of market rules regardless of the final outcomes, because each breach emboldens companies to attempt even more lawless stunts and destroys trust in the market.
I mean, seriously, call it whatever analogy you want, it's still awfully silly to argue that Google cheating to give itself a leg up over competitors is fine... because even with the advantage Google still couldn't build a good enough conferencing app to capture the entire market. That does not let them off the hook for cheating.
11 replies →
You're saying it's not a big deal while also saying it improves the product. The debug panel is apparent, but we don't know what else the API's data is used for. Maybe Meet uses it to improve performance too.
[flagged]
The goal or motivation is irrelevant; what they actually did and its potential effects are what matters.
I'm not sure why you seem to be having so much trouble with this concept. Google's majority-market-share browser gave their browser-based videoconferencing product a privilege and advantage that other browser-based videoconferencing products did not get.
That's it. You don't need to dig into their motivations or their intentions. It doesn't matter if it even "worked" or not; it is completely immaterial that Google is so incompetent that it can't even win when it has given itself the tools to play dirty.
2 replies →
If so, the API has to be available to competitors. Maybe this is why Meet is in-browser while all the other ones work better in apps. Despite this, Meet still hasn't won because it's just not very good.
1 reply →