Nothing could be more of an example of why monopolies suck than Google search.

Went from great to shitty in a few years as they ruined it for various forms of incidental revenue.

Now we have no good alternatives because they dominated the market.

(I know there is DuckDuckGo, but it has never been as good as Google. Closer now but that, imo, is because Google is trash now.)

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/googles-ai-deals-could-hurt-its-search-monopoly-appeal-expert-says/

#tech #uspol #politics #uspolitics #monopoly #doj

Now, were this a work of fiction, this might be where the story ends and we all live happily ever after. But this is real life, and in real life, those with the authority now have to decide what happens to Google’s ad-tech #monopoly. I share the view that it would be better if #Google – all of Big Tech – were broken up into smaller companies, incentivised by competition, and unable to gain the footholds that allowed their current forms from becoming too big to fail, jail, and care.

Since I brought him up, I revisited Doctorow’s takes on the recent antitrust ruling against #Google. It is now, undeniably, a #monopoly:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/

This is a *seismic* legal rumbling, on the scale of the rulings that led to the break-ups of Standard Oil and Ma Bell. Across the world, antitrust has been reinvigorated, and lawmakers have enforced competition laws more times in the past four years than the last *forty.*

The courts are clear: Google is a monopolist. But will that monopoly be effectively curtailed?

The ruling has been celebrated as a new dawn for the internet, but there are plenty of reasons to believe Google’s power may not be reined in as much as we hope. The fight is far from over.

https://disconnect.blog/the-google-monopoly-ruling-wont-save-the-internet/

#tech #google #antitrust #monopoly #apple