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Comment by Sparkyte

5 days ago

You can walk into the store and see the store across the street. Chrome is akin to a loss leader like hotdogs CostCo.

The problem isn't the Browser it is the other services it has that makes it a monopoly.

Don't let, "Oh we sell off our loss leader so we are not a monopoly." fool you. It has YouTube, office solutions and even every other software under the sun.

Without Chrome being managed or maintain it becomes vulnerable exposing customers to viruses or attacks. It is a service because it stores passwords and manages bookmarks in a secure location for Google products. It is ingrained.

To me this sound like Edge wants to be king, but oh wait Edge is also part of a monopoly. So should not Microsoft experience this too?

Monopolistic practices are not necessarily monopolies, but rather require regulation to encourage fairness.

Didn’t dispute it was a service. What I was saying that Google run everything at a loss, and it’s all paid for by advertising. They don’t sell themselves advertising. No advertising no money.

  • Right, but the problem with most arguments supporting the break up of Chrome from Google are really not looking at the bigger picture. YouTube is more of a monopolistic threat than Chrome will ever be. If it was sold off it would mean most browsers could monetize and we'd be back to the AOL age. I don't dislike that era but it is 10 steps back. While Google isn't great applying simple policies would be easier to address monopolistic practices than just telling Google to sell it off.

    • Agreed, and I’m not fully aware au fait with DOJ reasoning. Perhaps it’s an anti-trust thing as it gives them a way to steer the development of the web to their own ends? That would be my key concern about Chrome anyway.

      But to come back to the original point I was making, is that it’s really not akin to a bakery window. If I wanted to allow the metaphor to be further tortured I’d allow “Sears” or something.

      But it’s more than that, as Google’s business model is largely parasitic to what users would be doing anyway.

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