Good luck, I’m all for it, but good luck
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.
Hell, do all the “to big to fail” megacorps.
I worry what a broken up Adobe would do to workflows. One of the reasons I can do what I do is because Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and Premiere all work with each other.
Now if we want to save Behance and Frame.io, substance, Mixamo, etc, I am all for that.
I don’t know how deeply their different programs integrate with each other (I don’t do video or illustration seriously) but one would hope that it might encourage them to adopt more open standards and formats. For example, in my photography workflow I can import and catalogue a RAW image with Shotwell, which passes it through to my RAW developer (Rawtherapee), which in turn passes it through to my raster editor (GIMP). These programs are all developed separately from each other by people with much less resources than Adobe, so I think it’s a matter of choice rather than a technical limitation.
It would depend on the actual file formats. For example I can import a live after effects file into premiere and all the updates I make will apear on premiere’s timeline, without needing to render out. The same goes for bringing photoshop or illustrator files into After Effects. I guess we’d just have to rely more on third party plugins that connect these programs like Overlord
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.
Yeah, I thought Google was so cool around 2004. Now I can’t wait for them to become irrelevant. I need to stop using “googling” as a verb…
No, Amazon next.
How would the US JD break up a Swiss corp?
Instead of invading Africa to control people and steal resources, the usa could kick Nestle out of their plantations.
Any brands protected by American law must be independently-owned, with full transfer of all branding, patents, trade secrets, intellectual assets and physical assets.
So, for example, for even a single bottle of Perrier to be sold in America, it needs to have been made by a company registered with the brand name of Perrier, with exclusive use of that name within the country, independently owned and under zero control by Nestle, being manufactured using the exact same process with the exact same ingredients, and having control of the exact same patents and American-side infrastructure.
America is such a large marketplace that it would be impossible to split a company like this. Patents alone would prevent this, forcing Nestle to divest themselves of each individual subsidiary.
How does this affect or concern me?
did somebody specifically ask you to look at this and comment? just wondering why are you asking such a weird question
Didn’t know there were stipulations to me commenting here. My, my. What an extremely hospitable user you are to this new, welcoming website. User since last year.
well howdy and welcome, stranger! i was just wondering why anyone would leave such a comment. i didn’t intend too imply that you couldn’t comment, of course.
I’m hazarding a guess that since you immediately went and looked up statistics about my user account and included them in your reply, you’ve come here with a lot of habits from… the other place.
i don’t run this place or anything, and this is just my observation, so don’t take it as gospel. i would say that the tone here is generally a bit friendlier, so (imho) there is no need to assume hostility on the part of other commenters. i was just curious!
No one really knows yet.
This could affect you in several ways:
Search Experience: If Google is broken up or forced to share data, you might notice changes in how search engines operate. Competitors like DuckDuckGo or Bing could become more competitive, offering better privacy, search results, or features, potentially giving you more choices. Privacy and Data: If Google is required to share data, there might be concerns about how your data is handled across different platforms. On the flip side, increased competition could lead to better privacy practices as companies vie for users. Technology and Services: Google’s services are deeply integrated into many products and platforms. A breakup could impact the availability, integration, or performance of these services, which might affect how you use technology in your daily life. Economic Impact: Google’s size and influence mean that any major changes could have broader economic impacts, potentially affecting industries related to technology, advertising, and beyond. This could indirectly influence job markets, investment trends, or even consumer prices.
Overall, these changes could alter how you interact with the internet, your privacy, and the services you rely on daily.
What about Microsoft and Facebook?
“They said smugly without an ounce of depth in their argument.”
Microsoft already lost an anti-trust suit in 2001. It’s in the article if you care to read it.
We already had first Microsoft anti-trust suit, but what about second Microsoft anti-trust suit?
Thanks
No one reads the articles man. I won’t lie, I’m guilty of it, but it’s mainly cuz Im lazy and go to the comments hoping someone will give a synopsis.
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?
Alphabet soup
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.
This… Isn’t how large scale technologies work. Not even close, not even “same planet” close.
You could open source all ~15,000+ repos from my company, and be entirely incapable of actually operating the grand majority of it.
And we’re, maybe, 1/10,000th the size of Google on the tech side.
You also can’t just “split” a single technology apart, that’s gloriously, ignorantly, simplistic.
It’s going to be a nightmare to just rip seemingly unrelated, but interdependent, verticals of Google apart. Your request here is wholely unrealistic.
Woah woah woah hold on.
These are judges and lawyers, not software engineers.
Personally it sounds like the lawyers and whatnot can do the whole splitting up the business. It will simultaneously create a HUGE demand in software engineers as all this stuff just sort of stops working.
I think it’s a brilliant way to handle this.
Plus the effect it would have on software engineer salaries in general. Not that I have any potential conflict of interest in stating this opinion, not at all.
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.
Do it! Then, do every single major conglomerate they’ve allowed to form over the last 30 years
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.
Interesting! Go ooooonnnn 😍
You can also read about Lina Khan, the current chair on the FTC side of antitrust.
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
Do you think they’d do Apple?
My biggest fear about a Google breakup would be what that does to the mobile market, specifically in the US, given the iPhone’s popularity here.
A human can live their whole life without ever interacting with an Apple product by mistake. I’m not sure about that for android/google/adsense/maps/youtube. It takes a deliberate effort to avoid these guys and I’m still not completely free from it. Slightly easier but still a minefield with Microsoft and FB, especially in niche areas.
Keep going I’m almost there
😂
invest in Sherman Antitrust Act memes now
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.
Like that is what you point out, and not the fact they got the wrong Sherman pictured lol. John Sherman ≠ William Tecumseh Sherman
Here you go. Right guy.
Ha, another good point. I didn’t recognize the person so I just lazily assumed it was supposed to be “generic Union Soldier”
I knew it was the wrong Sherman, but in the case of Google, I’d want the Total War Scorched Earth type.
Yeah. I just remembered from history class that he had given them a message saying basically “Surrender or I lay unholy seige apon the city and you either die by being blown up or starve to death.” and the name sounded good, lol. He did end up with the key to the city! Good old Sherman. Liked to laugh, sing, set fire to homes, sometimes with people in them, good old total war guy.
Best news I’ve heard all day! Break up Meta, too, while you’re at it!
Amazon.
Disney, Bayer, Unilever
Walmart, Kroger, Safeway (the latter two are in the midst of merging as well)
That’s what I like to hear!
How about we start restricting how many businesses a company is allowed to buy out in a year. Maybe allow like 1-2 mergers a year. There no reason we should allow one company to buy everyone and then kill their products and services leaving the consumers holding the bag that will no longer function because the server is gone.
Ah yes, but you see, the US government only cares about faceless corporations, business owners and other rich people, and not about the average citizen, sorry. In fact, I would argue most governments are like this.
I would say even one a year would be too much.
That unless the business has failed and is no longer operating, for a merger and acquisition to occur they would have to petition the courts for permission first.
Imagine the shit that Microsoft and Google and Adobe and Amazon would be doing if they had to start their companies from scratch and compete against the already extant players in the field?
It would create so many jobs, and create an excess of consumer choice opportunity, lowering prices and fighting against inflation far more than a couple of percentage points on the interest rate index ever would.
I’m tired of only being offered incredibly overpriced very shitty low quality options in every single category.
We don’t need $100,000 cars. We need $5,000 cars.
We don’t need $1,000,000 homes, we need $25,000 homes that anyone in America who works a full-time job regardless of if they’re slinging fries at McDonald’s or digging ditches can afford.
We don’t need $100 a week grocery bills. We need $5 a week grocery bills.
And ponies!
Your arguments are all invalid because capitalism
(I fully agree with your post, I sorry the world is shit)
Buying out companies takes longer than a year usually.
Buyouts shouldn’t be allowed by default. The only cases where it should be allowed are when the business being bought out is struggling to the point where a buyout is really the only way to prevent bankruptcy. It should never be a good deal for the selling company and only a last resort to stop closing doors completely.
One thing that I’ve always found interesting is that silicon valley has a common start up strategy that is basically: do well enough to get bought buy your bigger competition. Basically, be a threat so your VCs can cash in when a Google, Facebook, etc buys you.
I’m other words, Silicon Valley has a start up culture that feeds an anticompetitive/anti-trust ecosystem. No one complains because they are all making money. It’s the users who slowly suffer and we end up were we are not with 5 companies running the modern web and Internet infrastructure.
Can I vote for YOU for president?
I’d go further, restrict the market cap for businesses so they have to spin off if they get too big. Add to that a value limit for the number of boards you can sit on so 30 companies can’t be controlled by the same people.
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.
It won’t. It simply benefits Apple and Amazon who should have been broken up a decade ago
Amazon literally has had a mostly worldwide monopoly
Don’t forget that the right wing has a hard-on for Google. People like them are Apple’s target market (I guarantee their families were the first to get iPads) and don’t forget their really warped questions during the congressional hearings which demonstrated that they had done absolutely no research and had a huge inherent bias. Stupid questions like “if I walk 3m to the right, can you guys see that”. Or, why does president Trump come up as the first hit on Google for loser
I support this, but only if it happens to all 3 companies simultaneously . Otherwise, we’re just transferring more power to Apple (who honestly have followed some Trump style tactics over the last 25 years)
I get the idea behind a duopoly, but from an economics and game theory point of view, but, if applied unequally, another monopoly will simply take advantage.
Capitalism finds a way.
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
Isn’t it already licensed under permissive Apache v2? Anyone can fork and carry on the project without the permission of Google, every manufacturer already does as a result of the license.
The OS is but the Google Play backend isn’t. Google has a monopoly over Android by keeping a monopoly on the appstore which dictates that you must allow google spyware to run on your OEM fork to be able to qualify as a “Secure Device”.
Several Chinese OEMs have China only variants that don’t use GPlay and also ship with some some other cool apps, but they can’t sell it globally because Google says “screw you” since no one publishes apps outside Gplay, and because several major apps refuse to run on Googless android which GrapheneOS has threatened to sue
This is still just the tip of the iceberg though. Google already got sued for GPlay monoply last year and reached a $700 settlement just for developers.
On top of that, several of Android’s underlying features are considered archaic and dated. They always have huge kernel patching issues because no OEM (especially Qualcomm) releases the source code for proprietary binaries, meaning no one easily upgrade kernels (practically impossible for FOSS android, expensive for OEMs). The android runtime is imo a piece of crap compared to some low power optimized linux distros. ADB is still needed to delete system apps. Settings lies about permissions, which themselves are poorly sorted. Oh and Google hired the dev behind Android rooting (magisk) so they could kill magisk hide which circumvents system app abilities to tell if you are rooted and therefore not worthy of running proprietary apps.
There’s so much more the deeper you go, it’s just really hard for any contender to step up because of the sheer might Google has over the market. They have so much power that they coerced Samsung into dropping RCS support which makes Google Messages the only app on android that supports RCS, even though RCS is an open OEM standard from 2008
A dog that barks doesn’t bite.
“Considering” means they want to get something from Google in exchange for not breaking it up.
“you kids break it up or I’m gonna do it for ya”
- your mom probably, also the justice department
My mom would punish me regardless of which side I were in the event, because I “should have been smarter”.
That’s off topic, what I meant is there’s no mechanism in Google which would make it voluntarily stop being a monopoly/oligopoly in good faith. It’s not a person making that decision even, it’s the whole organization. Every single person making decisions there may be good and willing for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men, but that’s not how the mechanism as a whole will work.
Google might not, but it’s shareholders want to minimise losses. A voluntary breakup will be better for them.