> 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.
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> 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.
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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.
"It doesn't matter what the market effect was, only that Google engineers meant well" is certainly an argument, but it both contradicts the question you originally asked (are customers better off), and also (to be blunt) is a really heckin bad argument.
I'm just kind of blown away by the rapid shift from "this helped consumers", to "actually, no, the effect was minimal", to "actually, it doesn't matter if anybody was harmed, the result is immaterial." :)
> 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.
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> 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.
Motivation = good. Result = immaterial. No contradiction.
"It doesn't matter what the market effect was, only that Google engineers meant well" is certainly an argument, but it both contradicts the question you originally asked (are customers better off), and also (to be blunt) is a really heckin bad argument.
I'm just kind of blown away by the rapid shift from "this helped consumers", to "actually, no, the effect was minimal", to "actually, it doesn't matter if anybody was harmed, the result is immaterial." :)
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