Google Gets Away Almost Scot-Free in Us Search Antitrust Case

...Until they start getting banned abroad because your government openly tries to manipulate election in ally countries. And once that happens, you're perpetually weaker and your reputation is done for a century.

People arguing for this kind of hard power are just too weak-minded to understand the extent and strength of US' historical soft power.

> markets don't work the way libertarians think.

Well, if you keep pushing down that line, markets won't work at all, and welcome back to 19th century's gunboat policy, except people have nukes now.

It seems that Big Tech's ingratiation of itself to the current administration using money and lent "credibility" is yielding their desired slaps on the wrists when a spanking was justified by the harm they have done to consumers.

Say I'm a new search engine startup that has some better tech than Google has, we invented a better wheel. How hard would it be to compete on merit?

Yeah sure you can avoid typing google.com and think you just ghosted Google forever, but that won't end Google's relationship with you as it runs deeper than you know through its advertisement and tracking platform.

And what about services beyond search at this point?

Youtube, GMail, Google Calendar, GoogleFi, Maps, Play store (movies, apps), Photos, Drive.

I can try stop using those services immediately, but with a huge cost of data and connectivity loss (there's no easy email redirection, accounts are usually tied to emails). You'll also miss out on things that don't have a nice alternative and you are socially pulled into (green/blue messages in iMessage within the US or having WhatsApp abroad), can you stop clicking into links to documents, presentations and videos that people share?

No you can't do this in 5 mins across all your devices. Not unless you are running some software program to achieve this which will override a tonne of defaults and hidden settings. And some devices will always use Google search.

Maybe if your only device is a barebones Linux PC.

You cannot have a website anymore without paying tribute to gatekeeper Google.

Consumers can switch any time they want, but there is no incentive for them, they don't have to pay when googling for "nike".

But even though there are only 3 companies in the world that build what I build, all those three companies pay thousands of euros a month so users can find them, even on the exact search terms.

These companies are now even more emboldened, and with market caps bigger than the GDP of most countries, there is no one to stop them. Every politician has a number, and this administration has shown that open bribes are legal and expected.

Good luck prosecuting any big tech when they can pay billions of dollars to the administration to make anything go away.

Maybe I'm just misinterpreting your words.

I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, by the way, just stating the facts.