
FB and G can't be split up vertically or horizontally without killing them - awinter-py
https://abe-winter.github.io/2019/07/25/makin-up.html
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jillesvangurp
There are parts of these businesses that have successfully driven off
competition through pricing (free typically) enabled by revenue from other
parts of these businesses. Ad revenue seems to enable a lot of this and it is
hurting third party businesses when e.g. FB or Google can give away services
for free for years on end without even attempting to drive revenue from them
simply by tapping into the revenue from elsewhere in their business.

In my view forcing a more level playing field for competitors that don't have
a strangle hold on the ad business is kind of the whole point of having
antitrust legislation. If certain business units in Google/FB are not
sustainable without benefiting from ad revenue, then perhaps them failing
would be a good thing for the market as it creates opportunities for others to
step up.

Search is a good example of an insanely lucrative effective monopoly where
Google funnels ad revenue into search R&D and then forces e.g. news papers
that are highly dependent on their own ad revenue to optimize for Google's
search engine with features that directly conflict with their own revenue
models (e.g. AMP) just to ensure that users can actually find their way to
articles. Then add Google News to the mix and you have a nice mix of abuse of
power that has resulted in fines for Google on several occasions. Breaking
them up would be a logical next step given that the record high fines seem to
pale in comparison to the revenue/profit and seem to not lead to a change in
behavior.

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cowl
|| In my view forcing a more level playing field for competitors that don't
have a strangle hold on the ad business is kind of the whole point of having
antitrust legislation.

Actually no antitrust legislation isn't supposed to force competition just for
the sake of it but TO PROTECT CONSUMERS. And while there is the potential that
consumers can be hurt in a hypothetical abusive future,right now with products
like Free maps, free search etc the consumers aren't hurt at all.

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jillesvangurp
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law)

Protecting consumers is a useful side effect but not the main goal. The real
goal is ensuring markets continue to function, which indirectly serves
consumers as well as stimulating economic growth by allowing businesses.
Without regulation, the whole capitalist system reverts back to feudalism
without any form of real competition.

There are lots of ad driven businesses that source their ads from these
companies. There's no good reason why Google's search engine would be any
different if it were a separate business. Same with maps.

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cowl
it is debatable what function means. The Digital Economy created these years
principally based on technology created by subsidizing their costs internally
by ads is far greater than what is lost. If the market is segmented in
thousands of competitors it might sound good but it will stagnate because
noone will have the power to really innovate. The example of mail and Maps was
not accidental. we had Thousands of mail providers before and all it brought
us was 5MB mailboxes, maps were out of reach for the average consumers and
costed hundreds of $ for each country you wanted to have access too (updated
maybe once in 2-3 years and only route information and very few POI). The
market was segmented and noone had any real interest or the power to push the
envelope.

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smt88
I disagree with some of the premises here and the certainty of his
conclusions.

For example, if Search and AdSense were separated, Search could just become
one of many AdSense clients. Search could even force the various ad brokers to
compete to integrate with it.

Even better, Search could explore alternate revenue streams. I'd happily pay
for Search, Gmail, and many other Google services if I had a guarantee of
privacy and ad-free usage.

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nabla9
Before breaking them, here is one thing that would help:

Prevent all acquisitions. Force them to innovate internally without their
checkbooks and market power.

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HelloNurse
Large acquisitions can be handled like antitrust cases, but small acquisitions
include "acqui-hires", pulling in cliques of friends one by one, and for all
practical purposes hiring individual employees.

Besides, monopolies have to be regulated and/or broken up, to stop the damage
they are doing _right now_ , not merely restricted from further growth by
subjecting them to sportsmanlike handicaps.

