Comment by dataflow
6 days ago
> All products which lose money and are propped up by money firehoses from other parts of their dominant owners, are products that enjoy an unfair advantage in the market leaving less marketshare (often strikingly less) for anyone who might be better.
Is it your opinion that every product is monetizable, and should be if that would make it self-sufficient? Do you not feel some would just get killed entirely if they couldn't be subsidized through other products?
Good question.
I feel that when a company is in a super dominant, dare I say monopoly position (Google Search is the most obvious example) with one of its product lines, it usually is destructive to free markets when they aim the money firehose at another, money-losing product. It does this by driving out competition against that second product, which results in less choice for consumers.
I don't think it's necessarily a problem when a company that isn't a monopoly subsidizes another product. I agree that's pretty normal.
I don't feel this answered my question to be honest.
> It does this by driving out competition against that second product
Again, we come back to my question: what about when that product would not make money on its own?