zlacker

>>topshe+(OP)
If this isn't the straw that breaks the camel's back, there is never going to be one.

Google needs to be broken up.

They own the browser market. They own the web (through Adwords). They own Search. They own mobile. They own most of the video sharing market with 2.5 billion monthly annual users. They own a good chunk of email with 1.2 billion monthly annual users.

They have amassed an incomprehensible amount of power and influence over humanity and they have proven repeatedly that they are willing to use that power to the detriment of humanity and to entrench themselves further.

Google needs to be broken up.

>>mozbal+O4
Why should the US break up an asset like Google? Would be completely self defeating. This isn't like standard oil or at&t, that mostly had influence and market share inside the US. It would basically be handing power to foreign competitors who would pounce at the opportunity

And I'm not American so it's not even some sort of patriotic comment. If Europe , or anywhere else, had a Google sized Behemoth, they wouldn't mess with it no matter how "anti tech" they might seem now. If anything they are anti tech because they don't want foreign big tech to have massive influence over them. You'd bet they wouldn't cripple big tech if they were European. On the other hand, as long as they are American that massive power is a feature, not a bug for the US government.

The reaction to Tiktok is a good example of how nationalism/geopolitics shape the reaction to big tech, which is why google is probably safe.

>>mardif+4j
> Why should the US break up an asset like Google? Would be completely self defeating.

Because in the short term it would disrupt a major company (ala Standard Oil), but in the long term it would allow the US to remain competitive in the global market.

If we allow Google to continue abusing its monopoly power in the US, that guarantees that the US will not be the home of the future technologies of the world. Innovations will be sucked up and killed as acquisitions. Enormous energy will be focused on blatant moat-building like WEI instead of developments that benefit the world. etc.