> The market price for a browser from a consumer perspective is $0.
The market price for search is $0. And yet we have Kagi because Google is now so ad infested. Ads are now bad enough that there is money in killing them.
The market price for email is $0. And yet we have Fastmail.
The problem with Google is dumping. The cross-subsidization means that YouTube, Gmail, Chrome, etc. can run at a loss indefinitely and soak up huge chunks of the consumer base. Forcing those services to stand on their own doesn't solve all the problems, but it sure makes competing with them a hell of a lot easier.
(YouTube, on the other hand, should be sued into oblivion for not implementing identity checks for upload. The fact that any published video will wind up monetized on YouTube 20 seconds later is genuine theft.)
But do we have any reason to believe that in the absence of Google, the next dumper won't just come along and take their place? The government isn't exactly signaling a willingness to change the fundamentals of the market here.
> YouTube, on the other hand, should be sued into oblivion for not implementing identity checks for upload
YouTube is probably actually too big to fail at this point. Breaking YouTube video links would have a massive impact on video on the Internet as a whole. Hosting video (efficiently and performantly) is still actually expensive, and YouTube is eating the cost of subsidizing most of the Internet's archive of videos.
> But do we have any reason to believe that in the absence of Google, the next dumper won't just come along and take their place?
A new dumper would have to compete with the split out Google Ad Company for ad resources in order to have enough money to cross subsidize. The Baby Bells reformed, but they never again reached "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." levels (other companies took on that mantle).
> Hosting video (efficiently and performantly) is still actually expensive, and YouTube is eating the cost of subsidizing most of the Internet's archive of videos.
That's even more reason to crack them up immediately. Did Google not just shut down the DejaNews Usenet archive--something that had negligible storage cost?
The market price for search is $0. And yet we have Kagi because Google is now so ad infested. Ads are now bad enough that there is money in killing them.
The market price for email is $0. And yet we have Fastmail.
The problem with Google is dumping. The cross-subsidization means that YouTube, Gmail, Chrome, etc. can run at a loss indefinitely and soak up huge chunks of the consumer base. Forcing those services to stand on their own doesn't solve all the problems, but it sure makes competing with them a hell of a lot easier.
(YouTube, on the other hand, should be sued into oblivion for not implementing identity checks for upload. The fact that any published video will wind up monetized on YouTube 20 seconds later is genuine theft.)