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Comment by doukdouk | Hacker News Reader

Words get abused a lot, and for some of them, they do not have a clear-cut, universally agreed upon meaning. "Monopoly" is one of such words (others candidate include: freedom, democracy, justice).

When random person X complains about, say, Google having a monopoly, there are two possibilities:

- Person X means something along "Google has a dominant market position and abuses its power", slightly abusing the meaning of "monopoly".

- Person X means Google is literally a monopoly, that it is not possible to get online ads otherwise and does not know that firms such as Facebook exist.

Somehow a lot of people choose to believe interpretation #2 is true, and spend a lot of time debating whether this or that company is a "monopoly" as if it is somehow more important than the substantive issues.

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> Somehow a lot of people choose to believe interpretation #2 is true, and spend a lot of time debating whether this or that company is a "monopoly" as if it is somehow more important than the substantive issues

Not to accuse anyone here of this, but intentionally doing what you describe is an disingenuous but effective way of shaping the conversation to discourage scrutiny of more general kinds of anti-competitive behavior. I'm sure it's part of any monopolist's PR strategy (or large business engaged in anti-competitive behavior, to be more precise).

Are you saying OP is a Google PR insider accusing Google of abusing market privilege while ensuring the perfect definition of “monopoly“ isn’t marred by inaccuracy?

No, I'm pretty sure they're saying that debating the semantics of an argument rather than the merit of the argument is a tactic often used by bad-faith actors who seek to reshape a conversation to their advantage by discouraging deeper scrutiny of their position past "yeah, well, they keep using that word and I don't think they know what it means."

The problem with this analysis is that “monopoly” is only one part of antitrust law, and there are plenty of other abuses of dominant market positions that don’t require a monopoly to be present.

Furthermore, in the legal context the meaning is more clear-cut than you make out, though there is significant room for debate. I would not put it anywhere near “freedom” in terms of loose definitions. There are rigorous tests for determining whether a company should be deemed to be a monopoly within a specific market (which requires both a method for defining the boundary of a market, and what “dominant” means.)

This is also different by country, see

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act_of_189... Vs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_competition_l...

I think your general point is to stop focusing on monopoly and get more familiar with all of the different antitrust provisions, to which I would wholeheartedly agree.

If your point is that "monopoly" has a different meaning in a colloquial/political context and in a legal context, that it relies on non-obvious definitions of what the relevant market, what dominant is, and that it varies by country, I do not think it strongly supports the assertion that it does not have a loose definition.

I was mainly arguing against

> "Monopoly" is one of such words (others candidate include: freedom, democracy, justice).

-- there is a much more rigorous definition of Monopoly than the other ones you listed. You're claiming that it is some undefined concept that varies from person to person, but I think that's only true in the sense that "encryption" or "space-time" has a loose definition; most lay people don't understand technical jargon, and often misuse the jargon when they think they know what they are talking about. But that doesn't mean there _isn't_ a well-defined meaning that is agreed upon by the specialists that actually work in the domain in question.

The other words you listed do not have clear-cut legal definitions in the same way; they are not technical jargon defining criteria for enforceable regulations with tests and case-law backing them up.

Fair point.

This doesn't clear anything up though. Who gets to define the boundary/scope of the market being measured? It's pretty easy to manipulate this to make it seem like a company has a "dominant" share even if that's not the case from the consumers point of view.

Take the anti-trust case against Microsoft, for example, the market was defined as that for computer operating systems for stand-alone personal computers using microchips of the kind manufactured by Intel. This left out not only operating systems running on Apple computers but also other operating systems such as those produced by Sun Microsystems for multiple computers or the Linux system for stand-alone computers. In its narrowly defined market, Microsoft clearly had a “dominant” share.

Also lots of people use Amazon to search for products so it's not clear to me how there is a market failure here.

I am the CMO for a company.

Google is the ONLY ad provider that give results, all others don't even get any clicks.

How that is not a monopoly on the classic definition? Every time Google has a bug and screw with my ads, the revenue of the company I work for tanks hard, and I am yet to find any solution for it.

You may want to contact the antitrust regulators, testimonies such as your are highly relevant to this case.

they are also untrue in general. in some markets social networking ads work, in some search ads work, that's to be expected - you don't expect eg. ad placements by the train company to be always effective regardless of what you're selling.

Don't worry Google does not need your defense, they'll have plenty of very highly paid lawyers and lobbyists ready to do that.

I don't care about Google. I simply know from experience this is untrue. If anything, I am defending Facebook here.

I'd love to see the specifics of these players. Facebook targeting is actually more effective in many cases then google (I don't even use facebook personally or have the app myself). A lot of the claims by folks fall apart when you look deeper (ie, scam review sites complaining about google rankings etc). The CUSTOMER should benefit - I don't give a crap if some scammers get ranked down.

Google is the ONLY ad provider that give results, all others don't even get any clicks.

Being effective doesn't make you a monopoly.

I don't think he meant that other companies are bad at getting clicks. I think he meant his company relies on search engine driven ads. Google has a monopoly on the search engine. There are many companies that need to rely on search engine traffic, not social media, for online advertising.

Keep in mind that search engine traffic is enormous, and can fairly be called a "trade" or "commodity/service" that can be monopolized in it's own right.

I don't think anybody is saying that google has a monopoly on all advertising.

But I don't think this tracks unless you treat search as something special. If I own a billboard then I have a monopoly on that billboard. Presumably I built/bought that billboard because I knew that the ad space would be valuable and that companies would need to pay me for it.

Google owns extremely valuable ad space but that to me doesn't make a monopoly just because Bing or Facebook's ad space isn't as good for certain companies.

And if only one company owned all the billboards in the world, that would be a monopoly too.

Monopolies are traditionally assessed in terms of product categories, not entire industries. Nobody ever said "standard oil isn't a monopoly, because you can also buy coal fuel"

And practically any company can build as many billboards as they want. Online ads aren't restricted by physical space. Google just happens to own most web traffic because they're really good at search.

Maybe a better analogy is Google owns the biggest road system (search) and all land beside it for billboards (ads). Very few people use other road systems.

Now, one might say "But users can choose other search engines." But users are the resource, not the customers. Right now, Google controls most of these resources. And the very nature of search means they're not sharing access with competitors.

> And if only one company owned all the billboards in the world, that would be a monopoly too.

You mean clearchannel? (Now iHeartRadio)

It makes sense to treat search as something special; when people are looking for a service, they search for it. They won't see ads for that service on, e.g. social media because social media won't know they want that service.

Google search ranking is critical and Alphabet knows it.

If I google search for "koop ebike" and you're not on the first page you might as well close your shop.

They do have exclusive access and control over the source of data that bring you that effectiveness though. I'm not saying anyone else should have access to Google data, but the fact that this is what make it effective and that essentially no one else can reproduce it, that kind of make it a monopoly.

At a point when the cost of entry is too high and it's not humanly possible to beat it, isn't it essentially impossible to compete, thus make it a monopoly?

> They do have exclusive access and control over the source of data that bring you that effectiveness though

And what data would that be? All search engines crawl the same web.

What data? We are talking about ads. It's not the crawling data which help in targeting, it's what people click on, it's what people read, it's what people do.

Being the search engine, if I search Asus computer, do you think it's the fact that there's Asus computer in the crawled content that will be used for targeting, or the fact that I searched Asus computer? When I click on the first link that say "Asus computer for cheap", do you think it's the existence of the page "Asus computer for cheap" that will help in targeting my ads, or the fact that I clicked on a page where it's about the value of Asus computers?

What matter isn't the content, it's knowing what each individual click and read. That data come from Google Analytic and Google Ads.

Why do you think Android exist? Why do you think Google Chrome exist, why do you think 8.8.8.8 exist. You are really mistaken if you believe they are for the good of customer (even though it's true they do bring some good), they are there to get that data and be the one that exclusively get that data.

If you want to compete with them, you'll need to beat Android, beat Chrome, beat their search engine, beat EVERYTHING that make Google what they are. Not saying it's not possible, but the cost of it make it nearly impossible.

You realize that search engine itself drives massive traffic right? Even with the dumbest adds, that is billions of eyeballs concentrated on one page multiple times a day. That already makes a very steep barrier of entry.

> You are really mistaken if you believe they are for the good of customer

You are responding to a bunch of strawman arguments I never made. All those data you mention is plausibly increasing their targeting and revenue, but claiming that it is the biggest differentiating factor is a stretch and I don't think is likely. Facebook has more ground truth demographic data that Google has to infer or outsource for their billions of users, yet they weren't able to dominate competition solely on that basis.

> If you want to compete with them, you'll need to beat Android, beat Chrome, beat their search engine, beat EVERYTHING that make Google what they are. Not saying it's not possible, but the cost of it make it nearly impossible.

No, if you want to compete with them, you just need to have a damn good product that billions of people use multiple times a day. Turns out search engines are a pretty good fit for that. You can have a platform that can profile users to their genes, you still need raw the engagement numbers to make money out of it. At the end of the day it is accumulation of commissions for bits and bobs sold over internet ads.

> No, if you want to compete with them, you just need to have a damn good product that billions of people use multiple times a day.

* using billions of people clicks to infer what the best results for every single search query

If crawling was enough, we wouldn't be all here arguing that Google is too big. It's not the tentative that are missing.

That depends heavily on your industry and obviously isnt true as a rule. Google gets 37% of ad spend, Facebook ~20% and then everyone else combines for the last 40%.

It's true that if your looking at targeting users searching for something that it's basically just Google. But people are increasingly using apps and specific sites over general surfing. Reddit, tiktok, snap, etc. all have their own ads and collectively represent major competition.

In our tests, we get results from Google but ads on Facebook produce trash results.

You bid on ads so if the results are poor on fb they must be working for the competitors.

You are assuming things that aren't true. There is no competition for us.

I'm surprised. I thought Facebook would have been somewhat effective. Can anyone point out any use cases of when Facebook and Google work and don't work?

FWIW my dad ran a few FB ads for his SME and it was alright, although nothing stellar either. He didn't run on Google though so I can't really draw a comparison.

Meaning isn't dictated by a language academy and may change over time. Debating about the precise differences between monopoly and monopsony serves more to distract from the core issue: abuse of their market position.

If the allegations are true then I can't see a solution that does not involve breaking Google up. The incentives to cheat are likely just undeniable over a time scale of years.

I think the argument that Facebook and Google compete in the ad space is tenuous at best. Just ask a digital marketer: almost all of them consider FB and Google to have separate purposes and markets.

So fine, Google doesn't have a monopoly on online ads, but they do have a monopoly on search ads.

From the government itself[1]:

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

I've seen this quoted a lot lately but saying that a literal monopoly (as in, a single company with 100% market share) is not required doesn't really say much about what is required, which depends on the specific violation being alleged.

Some violations (price fixing, bid rigging) are considered so egregious that they are illegal regardless of market share.

Other violations (tying) require some degree of market power.

Violations related to monopolization or attempted monopolization do require monopoly power (or the dangerous probability of obtaining it it).

Monopolies are a well-defined theoretical concept, but in practice it's about market power. When one entity has overwhelming market power it's afforded with options that harm consumer welfare.

Anti-trust isn't about defeating theoretical monopolies. It's about protecting consumers, new businesses, the market from abuses through overwhelming market power.

So your first possibility seems right on the money and appropriate.

You may be over-indexing on a prescriptive lexicon:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/descriptive-vs...

To be clear if anyone has any doubt, antitrust law talks about firms having "market power". That's all that is required; the ability to move the market in bad ways. A monopoly (strict definition) is not in any way required to violate antitrust law. You could violate antitrust law with a 5% market share.

People wanting to nitpick about the word monopoly should be educated (first offense) or mocked and shunned (repeat intentional offenders).

Google has a 73% share of online advertising, according to a random study from 2019.

People who abuse the word monopoly should be educated (first offence) and mocked or shunned (repeat intentional offenders).

It's almost impossible to have rational discourse these days because accurately describing things is no longer required (and if you care to try you are "mocked and shunned") so everyone is arguing without a common set of understandings or facts or even language that is consistent.

Kind of pathetic.

Your water company may be a monopoly. You may have no choice but to use it (in cities you cannot even drill your own well or in some cases are banned from collecting rainwater). That is a monopoly. As someone who grew up using a well, this is a clear difference and impact.

People need to use the words antitrust or anticompetitive more often, just because you could claim there are competitors, doesn't mean the market is fair to competition or consumers.

If someone wants to make a charge against Google, then by all means do it. But the people making the charge have a responsibility to communicate their position clearly. Complaining that the the wider population is not following along with an intentional abuse of language sounds like a bad faith argument, especially when we're talking about a well established term like "monopoly".

Duopoly?

Again, mindless arguing what exact word fit or does not fit the situation detracts from the real issues.

If the only thing the word "monopoly" does is spark a discussion about the word then why use it? Why is it so important that Google be a monopoly for their behavior to be bad? Do we really have no other words to describe business practices that we don't like?

Because it is generally accepted that monopolies are bad and that not-monopolies are ok. It is much easier to sell the simple idea that "X is a monopoly, so split X", than to make a long case that "X does Y and Z which meet ABC definition of unfair use of market position, bla bla bla, so split X". Conversely, for a company in the wrong, it is easier to say "Of course monopolies are bad, but we are not a monopoly!".

> or we really have no other words

There are other words, but it is a bit of a mouthful.

Because of these exact issues, the way that I describe the situation is usually as follows "Company X has significant market power, and is engaging in anti-competitive actions".

I have yet to have someone object to that definition.

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