However, this is borderline in light of the
anti-trust
law.
Do you know anything about anti-trust law? Can you
present a convincing argument with sources sustaining that
point of
view?
Google has a near-monopoly in the search
space
Define "monopoly" and demonstrate that Google has a
"near
monopoly". Even if Google reaches 85% of the search space,
which I
doubt, can you convince us that this is a "near
monopoly" in a world where the
competition is just a mouse
click away? A monopoly exists when a specific
person or
enterprise is the only supplier of a particular product or
service.
How many companies are there in the search space
today?
Let us assume
there are at least half a dozen suppliers
for some particular service, and each
has a different market
share. In our scenario, one of these gets 85% of the
business because they provide their customers with a better
service than the
others. Is that unfair competition to
provide better service than the rest?
Because they get a
larger chunk of the market for their efforts, is that
somehow a "near monopoly"? I think a monopoly implies some
degree of control,
and without that element, the term is
inappropriate. Perhaps a better term
would be "popular".
To understand a monopoly, let us take an actual
case
where a company was convicted of running a monopoly. Back in
the day,
Microsoft had maybe 95% of the desktop market. They
didn't get there by
building a better product, however. They
got there by dirty dealing to impair
the competition. Once
there, people were "locked in" to Microsoft's OS and
software, because they had a large investment in it and
couldn't easily
switch.
Now contrast that with Google. How invested in Google are
you,
for example? The thing is, all of Google's customers
could leave them in an
instant, with a single click of the
mouse. Wow - that is a tremendous power the
consumer has
over Google. How does Google sleep at night, knowing all
their
customers could walk up and leave tomorrow? The only
way they can survive in
such a situation is to continually
offer better products.
Now contrast
that with Microsoft. People were locked into
their products. Microsoft had no
fear that they would leave.
Microsoft responded to this situation by making
ever worse
products, bug ridden software full of security holes. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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