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Comment by wrsh07

5 days ago

I'm failing to see why "this product we built from the ground up integrates better with our other tools" is an anti trust problem

Isn't that what we want companies to do?

I have two frustrations with this kind of decision:

1. It's not clear to me that the judge has any interest in creating value. 2. It does feel a bit like being punished for success.

It's one thing when it's ill-gotten success, eg via coercive contracts (like Android has with play services), and we should aggressively deal with that sort of contract! However, what often seems to happen in these types of cases is the judge identifies a behavior they dislike and bans it without really considering more targeting / surgical treatments

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wrsh07

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globular-toast  2 days ago

Monopolies are bad for us. It's as simple as that really.

> It does feel a bit like being punished for success.

Nobody is being punished. Punishment would be like "you're going to prison because the thing you started turned into a monopoly". That's not what is happening. It's more like "whoops, you created a monopoly, time to reset, but you get to keep everything you reaped so far".

  • wrsh07  4 hours ago

    Why are monopolies bad? In general, monopolies are bad because they can leverage their power in ways that are worse for consumers - ie they make the usual market functions break down. (If the market continued to work correctly, consumers would be able to switch to a competitor)

    There are many cases where we like monopolies because it's more efficient to only have one entity do a thing (eg build infrastructure)

    It's useful to correctly punish illegal things monopolies do, but in this case, google has created a browser that is good! Better than alternatives!

    If you spin that browser off, it will need to figure out how to monetize. It will get worse due to that monetization effort.

    Google has other services that would be competitive without Google: drive, YouTube are easy examples.

    If we made them spin off Gmail just because Google is too big, that doesn't make sense! Gmail is useful to Google in its current form, but there's no way it's pulling in significant profit (possibly as part of drive - I'm not certain).

    You can't just pick a company you don't like and attack it with a hatchet. That's worse for consumers than the thing you're attacking, and the number one rule here should be for regulators to make things better, not worse!

conductr  5 days ago

I tend to agree. I struggle to understand how a company runs a browser product without being eventually seen as a monopoly. They’re making a unique product ecosystem of browser and apps, just like everyone else, no need to keep coming down on whoever is successful at it. People can vote with their feet and use a dozen other options.

  • user_7832  4 days ago

    > I struggle to understand how a company runs a browser product without being eventually seen as a monopoly.

    Just like for example how a car company can make cars without being a monopoly. Not the best example, but we’re so used to a monopoly it’s tough to imagine what a competitive browser market would look like.

    • conductr  4 days ago

      Browsers have never generated enough revenue directly to be competitive. Indirectly they help companies build platforms. When done well enough, we call it a monopoly. I’m actually in favor of restricting their use of tracking but I also think forcing them to divest from the browser business seems heavy handed.