
Break up Google - monfrere
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/opinion/graphics/2018/06/break-google/
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fatjokes
I'll be the devil's advocate.

I miss the old Ma Bell. Its monopoly meant that AT&T Bell Labs had no
financial pressure which allowed it to pursue pure research and crazy ideas
that won several Nobel Prizes and laid the foundation of the 21st century.

It's impossible to say what would've been. Would it really have been worse
than the miserable choices of telcos in their current form? Verizon, AT&T,
etc.

Similarly, Google's ad revenue allows it to pursue incredible advances in AI
and driverless cars that would otherwise be unprofitable.

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marcodave
> Similarly, Google's ad revenue allows it to pursue incredible advances in AI
> and driverless cars that would otherwise be unprofitable.

yet at the same time, they can decide what's "in" and what's "out"
(figurately) overnight. They could declare that driverless cars "are not worth
it" or that AI research "has to be reorganized", and who would be there to
counter them?

~~~
profunctor
Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Uber etc etc. Google have a very
powerful position but its not like they don't have formidable competitors in
every field except maybe search.

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Sylos
I never understood in the first place, why governments let advertising become
such a big business. Yes, there's the informational aspect to it, Farmer Joe
needs to know that there's a new tractor that fulfills his needs, but we're
long past that.

Nowadays advertising mainly tries to sell things that people don't need. They
can't use these like Farmer Joe to produce new value. Instead it harms the
economy when people buy them.

There is of course something to be said about having luxury goods available as
reward for people that do well economically, but it should not be the case
that the poorest families feel like they need to buy overpriced Adidas shoes
to be accepted in society.

It's nowadays central to advertising to build a brand image, to convey a
feeling, to always play the same jingle. Which is psychological warfare, it
carries essentially no informational value.

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fwdpropaganda
> (...) why governments let advertising become such a big business (...)

> Nowadays advertising mainly tries to sell things that people don't need.
> (...)

Free market fundamentalists (I'm not one of them) would tell you that no one
can judge better than the individual themselves what they need or don't need,
and that if an individual says they're willing to part with their money to buy
X, then that's them saying they actually need it.

Even though I don't buy this view because the world is more complicated than
the binary cause-attribution that it implies, I do think it brings up the
question of who decides who needs what. If I believe Axe deodorant will get me
"the hottest babes" and I decide really need it, would you have the government
override my decision?

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yuhong
I wonder if Eric Schmidt left because of this debacle:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-
schmidt-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-
google-new-america.html)

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bsaul
I’m surprised this opinion hasn’t got more traction historically. It seems so
obvious...

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spacemanmatt
Break up Microsoft and Apple, too

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spacemanmatt
Hello, Intel

