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Comment by remram | Hacker News Reader

While I'm strongly in favor, in surprised Facebook+WhatsApp+Instagram is a problem while Google+Gmail+YouTube+Meet+GCP+Chrome+Android is not.

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You can argue that instagram and WhatsApp would be viable strong competition to Facebook.

Gmail wouldn’t really be competitor to Google search. YouTube definitely could be though. Chrome isn’t a viable company - GCP is pretty fledgling but possible.

The anti-competitive argument here isn't that Chrome would be a good competitor to Google Search, but that Google operates both products in a way that makes it all but impossible for other companies to create viable competitors to Chrome or Google Search.

How is it all but impossible for companies to create viable competitors to chrome, exactly?

Try making a web browser that supports Widevine (Google's DRM for web browsers) and see how far you get.

Back in 2019, someone tried exactly this and was blocked by Google as they didn't want another web browser on the market: https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/google-widevine-blocked...

Does edge, brave and Firefox all support it?

Brave is based on Chromium, Edge is migrating to Chromium.

So? The grandparent was also chromium.

Good point, if building on Chromium you still need to get approved by Google for Widevine.

Google made its sites work slower on Edge, and Microsoft got tired of playing catch up:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-to-fix-slow-edge-youtube

If a company the size of Microsoft decided to throw the towel and use chromium instead of their own thing, what can you expect an startup to do?

That "or" wasn't meant as "both" or to opine on which one it is.

I personally believe the way Google operate Chrome is one of the reasons it is all but impossible to seriously compete with Google Search. But I'm not the judge.

It is pretty ridiculous as Facebook have big competitors in all their markets which aren't even that many. Google has more near-monopolies and in more markets and co-integrated more heavily at that. It's really hard for me to see this as due to just Facebook being a popular target rather than actual solid analyses.

If this succeeds, they'll target the others next. Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple all have easily divisible lines.

Or exchange + office + teams + skype + windows + onedrive + github....

Teams being part of Office 365 is a pretty obvious.

But it was to knee-cap Slack…

Precisely. They're using their success in one space to prevent others from being successful in a different space.

Because, one of them bought the competition, while other just built it themselves. (well, ignoring YT)

Alphabet buys lots of companies, so im not sure what you are talking about here.

Android was bought and Chrome was initially based on webkit.

Android was built by Google. What they bought was a prototype that lacked virtually all of the functionality they needed.

I heard[1] the Android team was pretty insular after being acquired: they wouldn't even let other Googlers into their building on the Google campus. So if it was the same leadership and mostly the same engineers as before acquisition, can you say Google built Android?

Even if they bought a prototype, the acquired the company to execute something Google would have struggled to without the talent, so IMO divining if Google were interested in the product or the personnel is splitting hairs.

1. I have never worked at Google, I'm pulling this information from my recollection of reports & forum submissions back then.

The way I see it Facebook+ is a societal problem and so is a larger one than the usual tech monopoly problem which Google fall in (which is still a problem though, just not on the same level).

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