Hacker News Reader

Comment by hfkwer | Hacker News Reader

> How quickly would public opinion change if Google decided to just shut off their service in the EU for a day?

Always this same old tune. Do you realize how outlandish and naive it is to even suggest that? Google is fighting tooth and nail to make sure that EU laws are laxist. You know why? Because they know that they will have to comply, in the end. The market is just too big to let go of.

And I don't think you're making the point you think you're making. If a single company can suspend its services and upheave the whole population's life, then it's a ripe for getting antitrust rulings.

View on HN

My point, though, is where do we draw the line between antitrust enforcement because it serves the public's best interest, and enforcement that results in a net negative experience?

I don't know the perfect answer to the question "At what point does a company need to be broken up, to protect the liberty of our citizens?", but I would wager it's somewhere on the near side of "when the mere suggestion that the company could shut down for 24 hours would cause unthinkable chaos".

I think that if a monopoly is necessary to serve the public's interest, as you're suggesting Google is, then it needs to be a public utility, like water or electricity.

But I think that's wrong about Google (except maybe for search). None of the services they're offering are unique, it's all tech commodities. They're just entrenched due to decades of anticompetitive behavior and incompetent regulators, and if they were broken up/destroyed, other companies would easily be able to offer the same services at a higher quality, and it would be a net positive to society overall.

If Google ads gets broken up, it may be easier for a competitor to actually compete against any Google property. Imagine trying to win a bidding war against Google, much less on their own bidding platform.

This same reasoning applies in basically all aspects of law. Someone or some people make a judgement call.

What makes you think that there's a single sharp line between those?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com