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Comment by Anon4Now | Hacker News Reader

Some companies are so profitable, they can hide layers and layers of managerial ineptitude. Think how great Google could be if they had cohesion and oversight.

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That‘s what economic cycles are for. Too bad, we had to suppress them with free money during the last decade.

I'd argue it semi-intentional in the sense there's liitle error to fit it. Why? Because when the DOJ comes knocking with charges of monopoly Google can say, "Does this history and dumpster fire look like a monopoly to you?"

Their dysfunction is a form of self-defense (while search + ads keeps printing money).

Is this satire or super-insightful? I feel some sort of Poe's Law of Reality has been creeping in in the last ten-ish years [0]. Like this post is silly and funny, but I find it somewhat plausible too (at least as far as a reductive explanation of the behaviour of a huge corporation can be).

[0] see e.g. Curtis's Hypernormalisation

We all know what Google's bread & butter is. They are going to defend that. Full stop. To think it can't take some form outside typical expectations is simply naive given the numbers involved.

We're not taking about your child's lemonade stand. We're talking about a corporation that is by all accounts intentional. Why is this seen as "no way"? Doesn't that make it all the more possible?

> “Does this history and dumpster fire look like a monopoly to you?"

The obvious answer is “yes. Because that’s what happens when a company has no external pressure and can throw its monopoly weight around into unrelated markets.

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