I am concerned by this because I don't understand what we are trying to achieve.
For various reasons people seem upset at "big tech". But I don't see how breaking Google (Alphabet?) into separate units will make anyone happier? It is not apparent to me how that would stop fake news or better moderation or less censorship or whatever people want.
So in respect to the ad unit, the argument is that they have grown to such a size that brands (from mom and pop's restaurant, to coke, nike) are overspending for the service. If you read on some of the ad tech blogs (not my specialty) there seems to be a strong case there is rampant fraud in metrics and what customers (the brands) are actually getting when they spend their ad dollars with googles many, many platforms. This doesn't seem to be unique with google, meta and others seems to do similar, but google is the big boy on the block. The anti-trust thing is required (in the governments eyes) as there is not a viable alternative, at least for organic search, for these brands.
The value to consumers is hypothetically that splitting it up will increase competition in the ad tech space. This will in turn lower ad spends from brands and hopefully push their real metrics to be more accurate, less fraud, etc. This will in turn lower advertising spend for these brands will which theoretically end up in lower costs to consumers.
Some other random thoughts.
1. Why would google (or any of them) make a good faith effort to stamp out fraud when it is lining their pockets? They are so big their really isn't a strong alternative and brands can't choose to just not play.
2. Why should the dominate browser effectively drive the privacy/tracking conversation for the largest ad tech player? This is an inherent conflict of interest and is unlikely to lead to better privacy for the consumer.
3. Why should a company that benefits from tracking/analytics be driving the development of one of the top 2 OS for mobile. On face value we are heading towards a world where buyers have to pay a premium for privacy (arguably iPhone, debatable), but android (largely budget phones) have no such or at least inferior protections. Why would they ever strengthen consumer privacy on mobile if its lining their pockets now.
I was worried it would just come down to ad prices. The privacy angle is a fair alternative possible advantage I had not considered.
Personally, I like the idea of a monopoly on ads: a competitive market would mean lower prices and more supply. Only the average human doesn't want to see more ads. Or have less free cash to spend on services that are free to consumer like Gmail, Maps etc.
I wonder if people cheering this know they're basically demanding to have to pay for email and to have even more ads on YouTube.
I worry they think this will mean more/less moderation etc and they're being sold a bill of goods...
1. Freeze the product, and fix prices. Inflation management is in vogue, and Google's dominance over ads, and mismanagement of the product is sinking all ships.
2. Freeze the scope of the company. Google's 15 years since IPO has been that of a whale under the guise of a "search" company, hoovering up plankton in M&A largely just to snuff out competitors.
More generally, if "Search" is a function of products, a well-behaved business would sell the infrastructure to do "Search" rather than seeking to undermine every other product and marry it to "Search" it's just a sign of pathological investment, and public companies have a reputation of being regulated.
OTOH, this could be a sign that regulators are happy with Google's size and market position, and maybe DAU "growth" is finally over, and the massive product-quality volatility we've all been wrung through the past decade is finally over too. Or just create enough uncertainty that FAANG doesn't become the new punchbowl.
I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know if this is an angle the DOJ would take, but Android, Chrome, Youtube etc all give Google an unfair advantage in advertising for search.
Probably. But my question is a bit broader: how does making advertising more competitive actually help the average user/citizen?
If we introduce competition, and it works like it is meant to, then:
* Ads will be cheaper
* There will be more Ads
* Both the free cash for AND willingness to spend on a load of things Google gives away for free (gmail, maps, drive etc) goes down so they vanish
How does this help anyone other than people who make ads? 99% of us will be worse off if this succeeds right?
Another poster has made a decent point about privacy (since 5 mini-googles would all only have 20ish percent of the data one big one has). But that's the only prospective upside I see so far.
That's not actually true I'm afraid. I mean specifically in this case, how would cheaper and more advertising, and fewer free products like Gmail actually help anyone?
I think people have gotten the idea that competition is good for its own sake. But it's not, it's just a means to an end of getting more quality, lower prices etc... If an industry is obviously making excessive profit, that's a good case for competition being in the public interest. With complex industries like advertising (when the "product" is actually of no interest to the main "consumer") it's much more complex than just "lower prices means success"...
Your assumption that ads would increase is not supported by any data. What we do know is that Google in their anticompetitive position over the last several years has continually increased ad space on search to the point that many searches return all ads above the fold.
So we've established we can't trust Google. Now we try something else.
My assumption is based on the idea that when we reduce the price of ads (the whole point of competition apparently) ad buyers will buy more. If you think in-efficient monopoly google has a lot of ads, wait until you see an efficient ad-having set of competitive google shards...
We don't need to make assumptions though. I use Brave search and barely see any ads. Google has the market dominant position and it's so many ads that it impairs the quality of results. Which is why I stopped using it.
So no, your assumption has proven to be incorrect.
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[ 6.2 ms ] story [ 39.1 ms ] threadFor various reasons people seem upset at "big tech". But I don't see how breaking Google (Alphabet?) into separate units will make anyone happier? It is not apparent to me how that would stop fake news or better moderation or less censorship or whatever people want.
Does anyone know?
The value to consumers is hypothetically that splitting it up will increase competition in the ad tech space. This will in turn lower ad spends from brands and hopefully push their real metrics to be more accurate, less fraud, etc. This will in turn lower advertising spend for these brands will which theoretically end up in lower costs to consumers.
Some other random thoughts. 1. Why would google (or any of them) make a good faith effort to stamp out fraud when it is lining their pockets? They are so big their really isn't a strong alternative and brands can't choose to just not play. 2. Why should the dominate browser effectively drive the privacy/tracking conversation for the largest ad tech player? This is an inherent conflict of interest and is unlikely to lead to better privacy for the consumer. 3. Why should a company that benefits from tracking/analytics be driving the development of one of the top 2 OS for mobile. On face value we are heading towards a world where buyers have to pay a premium for privacy (arguably iPhone, debatable), but android (largely budget phones) have no such or at least inferior protections. Why would they ever strengthen consumer privacy on mobile if its lining their pockets now.
Personally, I like the idea of a monopoly on ads: a competitive market would mean lower prices and more supply. Only the average human doesn't want to see more ads. Or have less free cash to spend on services that are free to consumer like Gmail, Maps etc.
I wonder if people cheering this know they're basically demanding to have to pay for email and to have even more ads on YouTube.
I worry they think this will mean more/less moderation etc and they're being sold a bill of goods...
2. Freeze the scope of the company. Google's 15 years since IPO has been that of a whale under the guise of a "search" company, hoovering up plankton in M&A largely just to snuff out competitors.
More generally, if "Search" is a function of products, a well-behaved business would sell the infrastructure to do "Search" rather than seeking to undermine every other product and marry it to "Search" it's just a sign of pathological investment, and public companies have a reputation of being regulated.
OTOH, this could be a sign that regulators are happy with Google's size and market position, and maybe DAU "growth" is finally over, and the massive product-quality volatility we've all been wrung through the past decade is finally over too. Or just create enough uncertainty that FAANG doesn't become the new punchbowl.
If we introduce competition, and it works like it is meant to, then:
* Ads will be cheaper
* There will be more Ads
* Both the free cash for AND willingness to spend on a load of things Google gives away for free (gmail, maps, drive etc) goes down so they vanish
How does this help anyone other than people who make ads? 99% of us will be worse off if this succeeds right?
Another poster has made a decent point about privacy (since 5 mini-googles would all only have 20ish percent of the data one big one has). But that's the only prospective upside I see so far.
I think people have gotten the idea that competition is good for its own sake. But it's not, it's just a means to an end of getting more quality, lower prices etc... If an industry is obviously making excessive profit, that's a good case for competition being in the public interest. With complex industries like advertising (when the "product" is actually of no interest to the main "consumer") it's much more complex than just "lower prices means success"...
So we've established we can't trust Google. Now we try something else.
So no, your assumption has proven to be incorrect.