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That's like saying ESPN's marketing budget gives them an unfair advantage over my fantasy sports startup. Cash, and the ability to exploit it, is certainly an advantage, but if it weren't the market wouldn't function.

As long as I can still get reasonable speed connections (like what I do now) I can compete, even if they're a little faster. I just have to make a better product. Now if they're slowing my service down to unusability, that's an unfair advantage.



How much is a "little" faster? Is that guaranteed? It seems like letting Wal-Mart control the toll booth on the turnpike. It's a dangerous first step.


It seems like a closer analogy would be allowing walmart to build their own private roads to walmart stores.


You may be right...until we see more details about how G intends to set their access up we may not be able to get the analogy quite right.


If they're simply doing what Akamai is, then they're not degrading my service, which is fine by me. If a user is getting the same quality they get from everyone who is not through a major CDN when they use my site, that's fine. I can still win.


It's the slippery-slope, or the "next step," that investor will want G to take that concerns me. I stumbled upon this: http://savetheinternet.com/=faq --a pretty good summary-- since my first post above. It is certainly something to keep our eyes on. Something the recent economic turn-of-events has convinced me of is that without oversight, investors can pressure companies, even benevolent companies, to do evil. It's our job as citizens to put safeguards in place to keep them from the opportunity to do so.




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