Comment by stonogo
2 months ago
> Google has zero incentive to improve search for users since there is no competition.
Not sure I buy this. People will overwhemingly choose 'cheap' over all other qualities. Anyone providing the sort of competition to Google will have to 1) do it for free, 2) be better enough to displace users, and 3) stay in business long enough to matter. Even if you broke Google up, who would be in a position to compete with their search platform?
> Even if you broke Google up, who would be in a position to compete with their search platform?
You break Google Search out of Google and break Google Search up into two (or more) companies. Now, they have an incentive to compete against one another.
Before Google became a monopoly, SEO optimizations were somewhat restrained because something which was super-optimized for Google would generally hurt your search on Yahoo and vice versa. If the results got too shitty, people would start to switch.
The fact that switching doesn't happen anymore is prima facie evidence that Google is a monopoly.
Even if the majority prefer free or cheap, that doesn't mean there isn't a market for better and more expensive search. Those who don't want to pay can stick with Google and get what they pay for. Just like with any other product.
Being a more expensive premium product can even be more lucrative than being the cheaper majority product. Look at Apple, the only company to even try making a high quality laptop i the last 10-15 years. I'd say the same about smart phones, but the latest Samsung phones are actually high quality.