Google Pays $21B for Search Monopoly: How "Free" Tech Markets Repress | Hacker News Reader

Google Pays $21B for Search Monopoly: How "Free" Tech Markets Repress

tutanota.com

133 pointsdotcoma162 comments

It really surprises me that it takes so long. This has been a talking point at least since 2018 [1]. 5 years and nothing has changed.

How is that possible, and acceptable?

Secondly, why is it so difficult to use other App stores for mobile? why section 4.5 of [2] exist at all?

As a user I really really would like to be able to install any app store I like. I do not like that Google play stored is installed by default, while there are so many hurdles to install f-droid.

It all looks like monopolistic actions that are against the law. I feel that we are repeating history. Microsoft has already gone through processes with bundling up of Internet Explorer.

Links

[1] https://www.axios.com/2018/11/19/tim-cook-interview-apple-go...

[2] https://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-agreeme...

> It really surprises me that it takes so long. This has been a talking point at least since 2018 [1]. 5 years and nothing has changed.

> How is that possible, and acceptable?

That's because the FTC came under new leadership in 2021, and the previous leadership were incompetent/lazy/possibly-corrupt morons.

Hanlon's revisited:

Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by corruption.

That dovetails nicely with: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” --Upton Sinclair

Sadly things take so long because democratic rule of law law "has to" work slowly (you would not want "innocent" businesses closed overnight or citizens arrested because of allegations). It's not great, obviously, and both false positives and negatives happen.

The issue is that people and companies exploit it, "better ask for forgiveness than permission", and after years they clean up evidence, their CEOs say they "don't remember", and even if they get fined - it's too late and will not save destroyed, monopolized market. All those gig economy "disruptors" are the worst, but probably all the biggest companies do this.

I wish that there could be a possibility of a retribution payment - a monopolistic payment destroyed an $xyz bln competitor? They need to pay this amount of money, maybe to some publicly owned alternative/open source competition if it's too late.

Small companies can move fast and change direction.

Medium companies can move at a moderate pace and can change their direction with minimal delay.

Large companies move slowly and change directions slowly.

A whole countries governing apparatuses....

The bigger something is the longer it generally takes to move but because of that it also has more inertia once it does start moving and is harder to stop.

So you better make sure the moves you're making our a good one when you're big.

fdroid is only a couple clicks away but it should be installed by default

Although ideally we shouldn't have got into this position, is there a realistic, practical solution? How many of the general public wouldn't just choose Google if shown a list to choose a search engine?

What would this do to the Firefox, Mozilla, Opera etc browsers who get a large chunk of revenue from Google?

You seem to be asking for a prediction of the future once the current roadblocks are lifted.

Would be cool if people had actual answers, but it would have been hard for instance to assume that Microsoft anti-trust ruling would make them miss the boat on the mobile trend and give an edge to Apple. In that respect, I kinda hope we see something that wasn't obvious, but has a huge positive impact on our landscape that would have been delayed or anhilated if nothing changed.

Google is paying 21B because they expect to lose more than that if they stop.

Which suggests they don’t think people would choose them.

Exactly and they know this.

The biggest market is mobile now, and people on mobile don't open their web browser on their phone and start typing google.com before they search for something like people used to do on desktops 20 years ago, but they search for something directly in the built-in browser's address bar whichever search engine that might be, as most people stick to the default on their device whichever those might be. Defaults matter.

Apple could probably switch the default search engine in Safari to anything else and most users wouldn't bother changing it back to Google unless the results were to be absolutely terrible.

How well does that hypothesis fit the maps experience?

The maps experience was terrible, if the search isn't terrible, it will survive.

Or, the most likely scenario, especially in the Apple case: Google is made to pay these obscene amounts and has no alternatives other than abandoning a part of the market.

what? um no: they are paying 21B because * Apple * has a monopoly on their platform and would divert users to another search engine who paid $1 more.

You’re not using the word monopoly correctly.

Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on their platform. They make a platform that’s part of a market. And they have a minority portion of that market.

That’s like saying Folgers has a monopoly on Folgers coffee. The sentiment is kind of right, they are the only ones who make Folgers, but it’s not the right term as being an exclusive manufacturer is not a monopoly in terms of anti trust or this conversation.

I don’t know why you are getting downvoted. You’re right.

Not justifying apples tactics though.

I'm not an expert on this in any way, but I've been following this Google case and have learned a few things. In antitrust lawsuits, a critical part is to define the "relevant market" over which a company is being accused of doing illegal anti-competitive things. This isn't straightforward or easy to define, but I do think it's very easy to make a strong argument that Apple has enough market power over some markets to justify enforcement action against them.

> Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on their platform. They make a platform that’s part of a market. And they have a minority portion of that market.

I don't think "a minority portion" means anything, since illegal activities are still illegal. I.e. collusion doesn't become legal just because you're a small company. And again, I think it'd be pretty easy to identify more than a few markets where Apple very clearly has an overwhelming market share.

Can you name any of those markets? I can't think of any.

Even by your broader definition it's a duopoly, with one whose taking 90+% of the profits in the smart phone market of the US.

Who is taking the majority of the other 10%? Where in the definition of monopoly is taking profits a requirement? (Hint: it’s not. It’s about price control and market capture.)

What defines anti-trust is up the people. We can replace ineffective obfuscating thresholds like Nixon era "consumer harm" BS.

It's not a "market" if there's no competition.

How can a company not have a monopoly on their own proprietary product? Is Sony required to allow anyone to publish games to the PlayStation store? Is Comcast required to allow me to broadcast on their cables?

The delusion about Apple’s “monopoly” has to ignore all precedent and legal definition of monopoly and hinge on not liking how they run their business. Then don’t do business with them. They have a minority share in phones, tablets, computers, and effectively every other market they’re in.

I'm not even talking about a monopoly but about competition and that's going to be very hard to argue that it exists. Antitrust lawsuits are about anticompetitive behavior, not literal monopolies and Apple defense seems pretty much impossible to make here.

> That’s like saying Folgers has a monopoly on Folgers coffee

Not quite. We should apply a bit more nuance, yes iPhones and Android phones more or less can do the same things but they aren't entirely replaceable and not a commodity like coffee.

Each coffee brand offers their own unique flavors, just as each tire manufacturer has their own trade offs, and each car … However, subtle flavor profile or minor product features isn’t enough to be considered a distinct market.

The simple fact that people swap between Android phones and Apple phones without buying both means they are in completion. Making cellphone (edit: operating systems) a duopoly not a monopoly.

Markets aren’t quite arbitrary but they are subject to debate. Someone considering buying a new 911 likely isn’t going to consider buying a base model Honda Civic as an equivalent good but a Lotus Emira might qualify.

You could say mobile operating systems may be a duopoly, but cellphones themselves are made by a dozen or more manufacturers. And the company that makes the most widely used mobile operating system is not Apple.

Sorry, yes cellphone operating systems is the market I was thinking of.

But my point is you can slice and dice markets in multiple ways, however brands themselves don’t qualify as a market otherwise every brand would be a monopoly and the word stops being meaningful. It’s the expensive watch market not the Rolex watch market.

I guess the thing is that there is much more to it to it than just a brand. If you're heavily invested into Apple's environment (spend a lot of money on apps, maybe media on iTunes etc. and/or you rely on their cloud services etc.) the cost for switching to Android is significant enough that you might be willing to tolerate some abuse from Apple's before you do that.

Lock in doesn’t qualify as a monopoly. Camera lenses etc aren’t necessarily portable from camera to camera. However, if Company A went bankrupt, then someone would eventually by X, Y, or Z. Whatever those things are defines the market.

Yep, pretty much. I am in the process of doing that and it is a rather long and annoying. I had the argument with my cousin a week ago, he was pissed off about how bad his iMac is for the price he paid. But when everything was said, he just defaulted to : yeah but I have all my stuff here, it would take so much effort to switch I would rather pay up. I believe this is exactly what Apple knows and precisely why their behavior is so despicable even toward their most long term customers. It makes a good reason to never actually rely on Apple software for anything. I used to be an advocate for their nice and clean software, but nowadays I would rather take the "inferior" options than being locked in their extortionate pricing. The problem with Apple is clearly that they have no real competition, there are alternatives but it's not an easy quick switching like you could be doing with any other computer maker. In the end, Windows is what it is, but at least you will not be locked to a particular company and their pricing for the OS feels fair enough.

Apple approach of locking their software to the hardware supposedly gives better result, but this has not been true for quite a while and doesn't actually give many benefits to the end user (cue the refrain for ecosystem gimmicks).

> subtle flavor profile or minor product features

Don't agree they are subtle or minor (it's of course a scale and coffee is objectively, based on consumer behavior and preferences, way lower on it than smartphones or PCs).

> fact that people swap between Android phones and Apple phones

Some do. Some don't, of course not's not an entirely distinct market, only partially (just like tablets vs smartphones or laptops vs tablets just too a much smaller extent).

The definition is generally based around substitutable goods. If you’re buying coffee on a vacation in another country and the brand you like is unavailable most people would buy a different brand.

The degree to which something acts as a substitute generally defines the market. If Apple discontinued the iPhone without any substitute some people might replace it with laptops, but the vast majority are going to buy an Android phone.

Apple’s ability to wield its market power to force buyers or sellers to use its platform is firm evidence of the sort of power that anti trust laws (if they retained any teeth) are designed to prevent.

For example they were able to force banks to agree to support Apple Pay. And it’s the wielding itself that is sufficient proof of the trust violation.

I think you’re confusing monopoly power with the free market. Apple Pay exists in South Africa for example which has a 16% iOS market share, Mexico at 20% etc and only a fraction of that is going to use Apple Pay.

Apple didn’t force anyone to participate in Apple Pay anymore than Samsung did to get banks to Support Samsung Pay. Mobile payments also started well before Apple got in on them.

Banks got onboard because customers like the convenience, so if customers had a non mobile card and a mobile card many of them would prefer the mobile card. That’s not monopolistic power, that’s the free market at work.

Merchants don’t need to do anything it’s the 3rd parties making payment machines which needed to support Apple/Samsung/Android etc and they are competing in a market where Apple Pay is just another feature they can use to differentiate themselves. So again free market forces.

> Apple didn’t force anyone to participate in Apple Pay

We’re on different planets.

> Banks got onboard because customers like the convenience

… Banks in Australia fought it for years.

Your point about 20% market share being enough demonstrates the point. There’s no set percentage of customers. The wielding of power alone demonstrates the issue.

It’s not 20% market share it’s a fraction of that 20% that would potentially use Apple Pay. We’re talking low single digit percentages of total customers which is worlds apart from monopoly power.

You’re missing the point.

There’s no magic percent of a market that proves or disproves the sort of behaviour that antitrust laws are designed to prevent.

Anti trust laws aren’t designed to prevent behavior abstractly. If you have a 5% market share you’re allowed to do things that companies with a 95% market share are prohibited from doing. Similarly it’s not illegal to be a monopoly. The only thing monopoly laws are there to prevent is specific behaviors by monopolies.

This is why companies argue they aren’t monopoles, because if they aren’t then the behavior is legal. This is why your car insurance company can offer discounts if you get a life insurance policy through them. The government supports insurance bundling etc because it’s actually economically beneficial as long as it’s not a monopoly trying to get into a new market.

Without getting into nda territory — the minority of Australians who used iPhones in 2017 represented a figure that far exceeded 50% of wealth held in Australian banks.

Thus apple had tremendous market power in “fact”, even if the raw numbers looked much smaller.

So long.

what color is that bike shed ? /s

Tell me again how I can release apps to iOS platform users without going through the Apple App Store.

Sell on Android exclusively and help convince people to swap phones.

I’m only half kidding here as companies dropping Apple in mass would eventually get people to swap. Though I suspect an Android only ecosystem would quickly become even worse for developers.

So... Google is afraid that a company won't use them if they don't pay to be the only option? This sounds like the same thing.

I my guess is that what's really happening is that Apple is being paid off not to compete in search. As Google has shown, search can be incredibly lucrative. The profit motive would be pushing Apple to this end. They have a large base of loyal users that Apple Search could be be pushed out to as the default.

Google pays Apple enough not to take the risk in trying. If Apple Search was a hit it would be a threat to Google. There's always the possibility that it would be the next Bing or Apple Maps, an inferior money pit, so Apple is happy to take the cash.

I can't think of a more in your face example of anti-competitive business practices harming innovation.

Very correct, although Apple controls only a minority of the Smartphone and Desktop market, they have most of the high income individuals, which advertisers love.

If Apple loses that sweet 21B USD, they will come up with their own search engine for sure.

> Google is paying 21B because they expect to lose more than that if they stop.

google is paying that much because otherwise microsoft would be paying close to that. there is no innovation in the search space, there is only a battle of cash.

Most people would choose Google, but they are too incompetent or too indifferent to select the search engine on their device. If you study normal people using a computer or smart phone, they will panic and instantly click "OK" or "Continue" on any alert or dialog that shows on their device.

>How many of the general public wouldn't just choose Google if shown a list to choose a search engine?

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admits the most common search query on Bing is "google":

https://www.google.com/search?q=nadella+bing+most+%22common+...

It's primarily to do with users not being cognisant that Bing is a search engine.

For example, I set my friend's default search engine to Bing, and if she wants to find something, in her mind, she needs to "google it". So she types: "google supermarket opening times" and so on.

Bing's issue (as a layperson) is that it's regressed to 90's internet start page; I just opened it up, starts off alright with a pretty picture and a search bar, but then an advert opens up for its Dall-E / AI integration and a list of recent news shows at the bottom.

Then searching, a cookie banner shows, a popup points me to a feature on the top right, and the main content suddenly vanishes (probably because I have an adblocker, which blocked 35 items). The "New Bing" opens up another thing where you can ask the AI things... just like Ask Jeeves did 25 years ago.

At least they have a hide arrow for the Recent News.

Each headline can only be a few words so they have to get right to the point, with keywords like "missing", "shooting", "died", "convicted", etc.

Compact doom side scrolling.

>It's primarily to do with users not being cognisant that Bing is a search engine. For example, I set my friend [...] she types: "google supermarket opening times" and so on.

I'm not debating you because I don't have the raw usage data but I observe a different behavior with non-HN non-techie crowd: they deliberately want to go to the "google.com" home page to also navigate to Google's webapps like Gmail, Google Calendar, etc

example screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/X0pFgAs

The users have Google sign-ins and they don't know (or haven't memorized) direct urls like "gmail.com" or "calendar.google.com". What they do know is the colorful icons on Google's main page to click on to get to those apps. In these use cases, the Google landing page -- which has a search bar -- is also acting as a modern-day version of America Online's "portal to the internet". That's what I personally observe people typing "google" into Bing is trying to accomplish. Of course the prominent search field is still front-and-center so they'll naturally use Google Search because of familiarity. The search text field PLUS the Google web apps reinforce each other's continued usage habits.

This is also true. The user I based my observation on is using Microsoft for email and office stuff, so they don't have much need going to google.com.

The most common search term could still be used quite rarely.

I intentionally start searches on Bing and have it set as default. But half of the time that I type anything to it it's because the browser didn't autocomplete like I expected.

So when I do want to see goggles results for the same thing I type "google", and a lot of the time the browser doesn't autocomplete to google.com before I hit return. So whoops, I just searched for "google".

One thing, except the paying to be default, that keeps the general public on Google is that they just want answers, and Google provides.

I'd guess that the majority of Google "searches" probably isn't even hitting their index all that hard anymore. It's either directly yanked from Wikipedia, IMDB, Stack Overflow or some other Google partner or property. If you're looking to buy something it's even better, Google Adwords is excellent that finding the right products for your query.

There’s plenty of practical solutions to monopolies who abuse their power.

- First up, stop their tax avoidance by supporting governments that engage in strong international tax treaties.

- Support governments who will provide effective deterrents to Google (and Facebook) monetising scams. Day in day out there are scammy advertisers that I, one measley person, am capable of spotting… but they (Google and Facebook), with all their wisdom and money, are incapable of booting from their platforms.

    How many of the general public
    wouldn't just choose Google if
    shown a list to choose a search
    engine?

I start each of my searches with such a list:

https://www.gnod.com/search/

And I rarely choose Google.

This may not be exactly what you’re asking about: in my mind, a realistic and practical solution is to have large language models do the search, look up many of the top hits, avoiding the advertisements and clear SEO, and then report back with any actual hits for your personalized search. Indexing the web is not that hard if you don’t have to give a perfect solution as the first answer because there is an LLM that can do the selection at a second stage. Furthermore, a lot of the trivial search is not a search for new things but a knowledge lookup for which there are also better solutions once you can combine LLM in the mix.

I mean, that's literally the result of this practice. They've been paying for ubiquity and coaching people's minds into thinking "I can google that".

Saying "oh well, we're too far down the path now to change anything" just compounds the issue across generations, which is a level of apathy towards humans that we've come to expect, but shouldn't tolerate.

> How many of the general public wouldn't just choose Google if shown a list to choose a search engine?

Do you think google is stupid for paying $21B? I don’t know the answer to your question, but I suspect Google does, and maybe Apple. And it’s a lot of people. So many people that Google would lose more than $21B in profit.

That's choose vs something else being default scenario right?

Seeing as how “google” is now a generic word for search, I suspect most people would choose it. DDG may be a good search engine, but the name doesn’t roll off the tongue like google.

Most people don't 'choose' anything. They take what is given to them or the easiest option. Netscape found that out the hard way when microsoft leverage their OS to push IE on everyone.

People can 'google' on bing, ddg, etc. They don't care whether they are actually 'googling' on google.

I wouldn’t just assume that people working and making decisions at big companies always are rational.

Maybe. But if irrational people at big companies are just throwing $21 billion away, the shareholders will hold them responsible. Especially the major shareholders.

I would if it’s $21B involved. There are massive incentives to fix that.

I’m not saying it’s impossible that Google is acting irrationally. But I’m saying it’s stupid to assume they are.

See SoftBank investing in wework (which had a classically bad real estate management biz model dressed as a tech startup) and tell me that again.

I remember why I started using Google, and it was because I could type anything and get exactly what I wanted. YouTube before Google bought them out was this good (although it was mostly clips from movies and TV shows) and then it got crippled over the years. I often have to re-type my search query into Google way too many times before I find something relevant.

It's really frustrating looking up something technical and getting really old Stack Overflow answers that are severely dated, and this one's a jab at StackOverflow itself: even more frustrating when you find a more modern question and some SO mod locks it because it's a duplicate question, and then they link you to the legacy answer which no longer works, or works with a very dated approach.

And then there's Pinterest on Google Images, not to knock the hard work the fine folks at Pinterest do, but if you don't have an account, its the most toxic experience as an end-user, and I'm shocked at how Google arrives to putting them so high pagerank wise. My only conclusion is Google profits from Pinterest (maybe google ads idk, never looked deep into it) in some way.

Youtube search at this point is incapable of showing relevant results past the first page or results. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of relevant results, after the first page it seems to show more and more what Youtube thinks you're interested in watching, instead of the relevant videos to your query.

Whatever change they did last, I can't find a single thing. Their little "please turn off your adblocker" thing is cute, but I'm basically done using YouTube at this point, I literally cannot find content. I don't know what Google keeps doing to their search, but it astounds me people use it anymore, I seem to be getting the most regressed form of their search.

Instead of DuckDuckGo and Ecosia whose use Bing Search, they should share real alternative like https://kagi.com/ or https://search.brave.com

Kagi uses Google(1)... so, how is that different from DuckDuckGo using Bing?

It is different than say Ecosia that's pretty much just reskinned Bing.

1 ) https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.htm...

Be that as it may, with Kagi at least I can choose to omit sites from search results or "pin" high quality sites.

Plus, privacy

Sure, but that's wasn't the context. It was about real alternatives, which excludes Bing or Google and Kagi doesn't do that.

When we are talking about search alternatives we are really talking about alternatives to bussiness model (otherwise why bother?), and Kagi is the only alternative out there in the sea of ad-supported search engines.

Of course Kagi is a real alternative. It's not Google search and you can verify that by trying searches and comparing the results you get from either engine.

In that case you can include DuckDuckGo, you get vastly different results compared to plain Bing.

No market is free when a monopolist controls it.

For a market to be free, there must be actual competition. If the goal is to keep the market free, then the role of the government is to intervene to ensure a state of competition when such state does not exist.

If the goal is not to have a free market, then the role of government is to intervene and regulate the monopoly/oligopoly to ensure that people's constitutional rights are preserved and the monopoly is not used to obtain additional power or additional monopolies. AT&T was such a monopoly for many decades. They were prohibited from entering other businesses as it would just result in them expanding their monopoly.

Wouldn't Google love it if paying became illegal for everyone? After all, if nobody could pay Apple for placement, Apple would probably choose Google, and Google would save $20 billion per year.

Why does Google currently pays Apple then? If Google could not pay then Apple would just push its own search products. Why choose Google if they don't benefit from it?

> Why does Google currently pays Apple then?

Because Apple knows how to play hardball.

> Why choose Google if they don't benefit from it?

They benefit about $20B a year.

My comment was in response to the nonsensical logic of parent post, not about the current working logic of the industry. If paying was illegal then Apple has no reason to choose Google, as OP stated. Apple is incentivized to push its own search products.

Or Apple would build a search engine. Even if not as good as Google, it would not be good for Google gross revenue

Those $18bn Google pays to Apple are not meant to dissuade them from choosing alternatives, but to stop them creating their own - because why leave money on the table?

Maybe Apple can make it too easy to try alternatives or build/purchase their own engine?

Google is a horrible UX since some time and there are paid alternatives like paid engines and LLM’s with access to the internet. Maybe provide that with the paid iCloud subscription?

My hunch is that Apple might give users a choice, perhaps during the initial onboarding process. That would be damaging for Google even insofar as I would guess many users probably don’t even realise that there _is_ a choice.

I doubt that Apple would want to give their competitor a free one-up in this space, so a choice for such a critical thing may be reasonable.

Or, you know, a few billion dollars.

All my new android devices in the EU now asked my during setup what the default search engine should be.

> Wouldn't Google love it if paying became illegal for everyone?

It also would more or less be the end of Mozilla. Over half their income comes from Google.

> After all, if nobody could pay Apple for placement, Apple would probably choose Google

I think they’d add a ‘choose a search engine’ dialog at setup time, randomizing search order.

> It also would more or less be the end of Mozilla. Over half their income comes from Google.

I for one would like to able to support Mozilla software development. However the only sensiblr way to sponsor is to the foundation with it's political initiatives or paying for VPN.

I generally align with their political views, but support political activities via other orgs and explicitly want a browser and related software.

For the VPN product however I have no need.

There is the way to sponsor individual non-Mozilla people, but that's more complicated ...

This raises the question why Microsoft didn't simply outbid Google. It would certainly be possible given that Microsoft earns significantly more money.

If you read the testimony from Nadela, their search was so bad that Apple didn't want it even if they paid more money.

Which... kinda cancels out the thesis from this article.

It was pretty hard to read exactly what deal Microsoft proposed to Apple, because for some sources it seemed like they wanted Apple to buy Bing, as in all of it, not just have it be the default in Apple products.

I do wonder if Apple would choose Bing today, if the price was right? I can understand not wanting to choose Bing back then, but Googles search has stagnated and even regressed in some cases, Bing has just kept improving.

I often replace searching for something on google with ChatGPT these days. I expect the way we interact with information to be replaced completely in the future. Why would I skim through all those clickbaits and ads instead of getting a tailored result of exactly the information I was looking for

Same here, Google's "How to" search share will be eaten by ChatGPT and similar products in about 5 years maybe.

people won't switch to a "free" sponsored chatbot?

Alternative take: would we rather be without all those projects that Google supports via such deals?

I pay for YouTube Premium already. And I would rather pay directly to Google for other services from them that I use. For E-Mail, search and browsers there are excellent alternatives to Google, so I don't know what else except YouTube that would be interesting from their offerings. Although it's easy to forget, considering the thousands of projects they have.

Only a tiny percentage are willing to pay.

Yes, but why should they be served at all? I think we would have had a better internet in every way if the default was to pay for the services you use. That would eliminate spying and tracking, eliminate clickbait and low-quality dishonest material, and just in general increase trust and security online. I see it happening a little bit with ISPs including certain subscriptions with their plans, but it's still done in a clumsy way.

You think that because you’re paying they won’t spy on you?

See smart TVs

What's the reason for spying if there are no advertisements to sell?

It seems like a crazy idea to start a search engine competitor in 2023 but the innovation dilemma is always present. We lack innovation, it seems nobody is trying? Do you know of some existing project even at an early stage?

kagi?

> We lack innovation, it seems nobody is trying?

What about the inclusion of LLM based results in Google and Bing search? Regardless of what you might feel about those results, it's certainly an attempt at innovation.

Hopefully that doesnt become a thing, first because llms are by their nature unreliable, second because content makers would lose traffic.

Certainly they are trying but the issue is to perform "daily" updates on LLMs and not be fixed to older scrapings. For some reason, business wise, Google has been prioritizing current information more than older ones.

Not exactly an alternative to mainstream search engines, but Marginalia Search [0] has been trying for the non-commercial side of the web.

[0] https://search.marginalia.nu/

Microsoft is trying with Bing and while owning a large desktop OS and thus market share of Internet users and large budgets for development and operations can't compete in a significant ways. Yahoo! tried to compete, but failed.

Even if you have the required capital it's hard to get into the market.

Especially as Google also owns the ad market, thus the way to make it profitable.

Only ones I see able to pull that off were Apple, as they have the budget and a platform and with maps were somewhat successful, even though users complained about poor quality initially (I don't have an apple device, thus no personal experience with recent maps), but Google pays them well for not even trying.

Facebook/Meta also stays away from that market and focusses on more "social" platforms.

Kagi (www.kagi.com) is on an early stage, however I wouldn't say they are trying, since they have already beat Google with a large margin on search quality.

This is a free market.

One company can pay another company to set a default.

I remember last year this was full of blockchain bros and so an.

What hapend to the free the people from the gov people here?

It's scary that the amount of money that they pay is bigger than the whole annual budget of my country.

You can run a whole country of 2M of people with the money that google pays to apple just for making their search engine the default one.

How do you regulate a corporation that's bigger than the government?

"The free market will regulate itself"

Yes, but not to the advantage of the weakest participants.

"The Free Market" does not have this concept. Libertarians don't have this concept. Right wing is the opposite they love to attack the weakest. The hustle culture only thinks about money. The Blockchain boys only think about money.

Who has time for the weak? Not the free market.

Well in this case many governments are weaker participants than big corporations.

It's scary that someone somewhere at google can decide what to do with larger amounts of money than many governments of sovereign countries. Who exactly decided to pay 19B to apple? What is their decision making process? Do they vote on it or what?

Who's free here? The corporations maybe, certainly not the people. Being under the control of giant corporations isn't much more desireable than being under the control of government.

The "free market = free people" argument breaks down quickly when companies become so big

The market is free! Who is talking about people? The market does whats best for the market. Nobody is talking about the people.

What's stopping you using Bing?

The corporations aren't free either, not when the biggest one can throw money around to suppress any competition.

"what hapend" is that the corporations took the piss and created monopolies, suppressing the free market. It's up to goverment intervention to ensure a fair and level playing field, so that in this case new search engines can get a chance and improve / innovate. I don't know if you've noticed, but Google's search results have regressed sharply in the past few years, but they get away with it because the competition is literally priced out of the market, or in the case of Apple, bought off. That is, there was rumours that Apple was developing their own search engine, but $18 billion a year (presumably) is a compelling argument to not do so.

Corporations are not people. Google and Apple have more power than several countries and their monopolies mean people have less and worse choice. The free market is a myth.

> What hapend to the free the people from the gov people here?

Economic crisis happened. Everybody is free market enthusiast during bullish times, and runs crying to the nanny government when the bear shows up.

Why are people concerned about Google dominating search but not Microsoft owning 80%+ of the desktop OS market?

> Why are people concerned about Google dominating search but not Microsoft owning 80%+ of the desktop OS market?

Lots of people are concerned about that too. Probably the same sort of people actually.

Who isn't concerned about that? Have you forgotten all the anti-trust lawsuits aimed at Microsoft and their bundled software (like browsers, media players) from the past two decades? Your whataboutism is unsubstantiated.

Source?

The last significant Microsoft anti-trust lawsuits are from the 90s.

Would have been cheaper to keep paying me.

If they had an actual monopoly, they wouldn't have to pay $21bn.

Why do all our words meaning's have to get inflated away? Sigh.

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