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submitted 3 months ago by Gsus4@mander.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[-] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 340 points 3 months ago

Do it! Then, do every single major conglomerate they've allowed to form over the last 30 years

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 174 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Antitrust comes in waves in the US. First, it's a free for all to let the tech develop freely...then you see the horrors and a time of antitrust kicks in. This would be the 4th wave since the Sherman Act. Let's hope it's a good one.

[-] 200ok@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago

Interesting! Go ooooonnnn 😍

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 22 points 3 months ago

That's all I had, I'm not an expert, but I hope they go after FB and microsoft too (in case that makes you feel randy like that other guy in the comments) :P

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[-] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 78 points 3 months ago

Keep going I’m almost there

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[-] expatriado@lemmy.world 120 points 3 months ago

invest in Sherman Antitrust Act memes now

[-] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 87 points 3 months ago
[-] ripcord@lemmy.world 24 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Unless Savannah is some girl he knows, not sure this lands. Savannah, GA wasn't really ever ravaged in the Civil War or anything.

Atlanta's the one that got leveled.

[-] expatriado@lemmy.world 33 points 3 months ago

Like that is what you point out, and not the fact they got the wrong Sherman pictured lol. John Sherman ≠ William Tecumseh Sherman

[-] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 23 points 3 months ago

Here you go. Right guy.

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[-] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 66 points 3 months ago

Maybe if all their shadiness hadn't been allowed in the first place they wouldn't have been able to become a monopoly.

But please, I beg of you, do Adobe next.

[-] fossilesque@mander.xyz 37 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

No, ~~Amazon~~ Nestle next.

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[-] curry@programming.dev 29 points 3 months ago

I remember the days of google being a cool startup that had just made news releasing gmail with a whopping 1GB of storage making everyone go crazy for the invites. It's a strange feeling.

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[-] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago

Hell, do all the "to big to fail" megacorps.

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[-] CascadianGiraffe@lemmy.world 64 points 3 months ago

Don't 'break it up', nationalize it, and do the same with all these other giant corporations.

Profits could support UBI instead of encouraging billionaires.

[-] emmy67@lemmy.world 20 points 3 months ago

That's not in anyone's interest. It's the surest way to have a thousand national search engines which are all shitty. National walled internet Gardens etc

Break it up instead

[-] Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Not sure where you're getting the idea that there would be thousands. But as for the shitty part, it's already shit. Google's search engine utterly fails at it's job, and not just because of the rise in LLM/SEO. They waste billions on fancy new AI searches that nobody wants, they accept bribes to get pages to the top of the search, and even when you're looking at an actual for real result, it often isn't even what you want.

When a critical industry fails to do its job, it is time to nationalize it. With that said, the criticality of search engines is debatable. I'm cool with breaking it up at a bare minimum. The list of corps in need of getting broken up is way to long.

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[-] ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world 58 points 3 months ago

Do it do it do it do it do it do it...

Smash them with a hammer. Google should not exist as it is. Not for decades.

Break up AdSense, chrome, search, android, shatter them all into separate companies that can stop selling out literally every waking aspect of life as their sole business model.

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[-] 432@lemmy.world 53 points 3 months ago

Best news I've heard all day! Break up Meta, too, while you're at it!

[-] cybermass@lemmy.ca 51 points 3 months ago
[-] ameancow@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago

Crush corporations, swiftly and without fanfare rebuild capitalism with worker co-ops, seize the means of production without all that stagnation and failure that usually follows.

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[-] rekabis@lemmy.ca 38 points 3 months ago

Separate the search engine from anything that stinks of advertising so it can return to what it’s supposed to do: return the most relevant results.

Because even appending udm=14 only gets rid of promoted links and in-page advertising, it does f**k-all to correct manipulated search results.

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[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 33 points 3 months ago

Not sure how that would work...

I'm old enough to remember the breakup of Ma Bell and the way that worked was the creation of a bunch of regional telecom services, that's not going to work on the Internet.

I guess they could mandate spinning off Android, but that's not really the problem addressed in the antitrust case, is it?

Maybe split the AdWords side from the Search Engine side?

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 72 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I'd guess it would be a vertical breakup rather than horizontal: separate android, cloud, youtube, search, chrome, ads...depending on how aggressive they want to be.

[-] namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev 16 points 3 months ago

I think each of these needs to be handled in separate ways. For example, search could continue to be a conglomeration that includes maps, mail and possibly cloud. Android can just be split very easily into a separate company and same for Youtube, since that would basically be another Netflix or whatever.

Ads, in my opinion, is the most important one though. That absolutely has to be shattered into thousands of tiny pieces, all of which need to be forced to compete with each other, for the benefit of all internet companies anywhere. It would be a massive boon to companies everywhere and would provide an opportunity for lots of innovation in the advertising space, ie. trying ads that are less intrusive or ones that are cheaper because they don't rely on tracking information.

And another thing I think people need to understand about search is that building the search engine is not the hard part - the hard part is figuring out how to pay for it. Search is really expensive - crawling websites, indexing, fighting spam abuse. That's what really makes Google successful - the fact that they coupled it with advertising so that they could cover all the expenses that come with managing a search engine. That's much more important than the quality of the results, in my opinion.

And as for Chrome: well, personally I think that monopoly has been the most damaging to the internet as a whole. I would love to see it managed as part of a non-profit consortium. There should not be any profit motive whatsoever in building a web browser. If you want a profit motive, build a website - the browser should just be the tool to get to your profit model, not the profit model itself. And therefore it should be developed by multiple interest groups, not just one advertising company.

Anyway, I know this is all an impossible fantasy. Nothing in the world is done because it's right or wrong, it's done because it serves whoever holds the most power. But if there were a just world, this is what I think it would look like.

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[-] mkwt@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago

But if they've only been found to monopolize search, how does that remedy the search monopoly? Presumably the new separate Google Search company would still have a search monopoly.

[-] adarza@lemmy.ca 36 points 3 months ago

without search and their abuse of that monopoly, google wouldn't have dominant positions or massive market shares that many of their other properties (products, services, software, etc) have.

[-] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 29 points 3 months ago

Because that search monopoly allows them to boost their other products above all others. It’s not an impartial search result anymore. There is a financial incentive to favor their own products.

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[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 28 points 3 months ago

What about Microsoft and Facebook?

[-] androogee@midwest.social 30 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

How do the people who make this comment every single time something like this happens, expect change when no one's allowed to be first?

[-] AJ1@lemmy.ca 26 points 3 months ago

Microsoft already lost an anti-trust suit in 2001. It's in the article if you care to read it.

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[-] Neon@lemmy.world 26 points 3 months ago

I so want this to happen, but at the same time I'm scared that Samsung or whoever will buy AOSP and enshittify it completely

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[-] tabular@lemmy.world 23 points 3 months ago

Will the old method of breaking up a company work enough on modern tech companies? Will the 2nd best map software ever catch up in market share?

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If you switched most people from google into DDG without telling, most would hardly notice, I venture. Mapping is different.

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[-] ScreaminOctopus@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 months ago

If they forced them to split Waze off and make it independent again it probably could, it's probably the only non default app I see people use regularly

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[-] littlewonder@lemmy.world 23 points 3 months ago

Will this work out for consumers if other tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, or Amazon, etc. aren't also broken up simultaneously? Won't Google's assets just get sucked up into another existing monopoly and we'll be right back where we were but with one less choice than before?

I'm genuinely curious.

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[-] Snapz@lemmy.world 22 points 3 months ago

Fully support the action, don't know how the timing works...

Best case, you only start to basically outline what this looks like before the election. Worst case, you enliven the complacent, left-centrist billionaires to vigorously join in with the perpetually batshit right wing billionaires to get trump in to "live to fight another day" with the reasoning of, "we need to save ourselves first, then we'll deal with trump when he goes full fascist" and then they either won't be able to or won't care to because they won't want to upset their share price.

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[-] LavenderDay3544@lemmy.world 22 points 3 months ago

So they're breaking up Google but giving Intel more free money after it cut 15k jobs?

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 31 points 3 months ago

Google also cut 12000 jobs in Jan 2023, but it does not have an AMD or Nvidia to kick its ass in search when it fucks up.

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[-] Jackcooper@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago

PBMs/healthcare conglomerating needs to be looked at as a top priority

And this Kroger Albertsons thing needs to be stopped for good

[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago

It would probably do Google a world of good, depending on what gets split or spun off. A lot of Google products have unrealized potential that’s hamstrung by poor leadership and privacy issues. Maybe at least some of their products will be able to thrive on their own.

[-] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 3 months ago

A tiny bandaid on the capitalism that's literally destroying the planet.

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[-] figaro@lemdro.id 16 points 3 months ago

The people here who 1) think a breakup of Google will actually happen, and 2) think that a paid subscription model for a search engine have all been spending too much time in their Linux bubble.

If Google did this, everyone would just switch to Bing, or open AI's new thing they are making. The general public will not be on board with that.

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 14 points 3 months ago

I don't hold my breath until they really do it.

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[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago

NY Post

Going to need a much better source than this.

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[-] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago

Cool. Take their search stuff, open source all the software, spin out an account service and 6 baby search engine companies.

Do the same with each of their massive properties.

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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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