Google's Antitrust fine and the public's hypocrisy.
Well, here we are again. I see no signs of anyone treating Google the way they like to treat Microsoft over their EU antitrust fines many years ago.
I want to be clear. This isn't about me hating on Google or Microsoft. In fact, in both cases, I feel like each company was guilty of certain conceivably unfair practices which they had engaged in long before they held the monopoly status that enabled organizations like this to start pursuing fines against them. And, I feel both adjusted accordingly after the fines were leveled.
Both companies really did face similar problems.
Sure, if you can leverage your influence and power in one area to exert pressure in another it can be very beneficial to your business. Like using your OS to push your browser to supremacy or your phone platform to bolster your search revenue.
But, even if you take personal gains in finance out of the equation. Both companies also have a legitimate reason to seek those things out to benefit their customers as well. And I think part of the continued battle between the EU and Google now ties into that. I'm not going to defend Google. They are a company. Undoubtedly, making money is a part of it as well. It is both cliched and over simplistic to say, but "that's business". And, Google has lawyers to defend they're interests and laws and commissions and whatnot to ultimately decide for the rest of us, who is right.
With Windows, web browsers were becoming more and more a part of what being a computer was all about. Chrome OS is LITERALLY an OS which focuses around the browser. Obviously, if you make an operating system and 90%+ of your user's time is spent in a web browser, it becomes critical to start exerting some control over that aspect of the system. It can be beneficial (though there is nothing inherently so) for the OS Microsoft to be more tightly integrated with the browser. With so much time spent in web browsers it quickly becomes the number one the system should be optimized around. It now has the biggest needs from a system security perspective. It has the potential to deliver the most useful integrations. It is the primary touch point for the system.
Yes, being too restrictive certainly puts up barriers to others and gives you an easy in for controlling default search engines. Controlling perceptions. And driving ad revenue and the likes. But, the tight integration can also come with benefits to security and added functionality which can't be achieved by external parties.
Similarly, Android is, increasingly about it's interactions with the Play Store and various other Google services. And, while strong arming the competition definitely gives Google an unfair advantage and helps drive their own revenue streams elsewhere, that control also allows Google to deliver a cohesive experience. The more control they have, the more consistent and polished the experience they can deliver on. If they had total control, for instance, many more phones would be able to get updates, including security ones in a much more timely fashion.
I don't really think either the EU or Google are explicitly in the right or the wrong. It is a balancing act to be sure.
But, what blows my mind is, prior to Google's first fine. Every time I read a thread about Microsoft, there were commenters angry about how Microsoft just a big money grab and how they were so bad that the EU "even had to fine them over it". And now that one of their beloved companies is under an identical attack... nothing. Not only are they under such an attack. But multiple times now.
And I want to be clear if you're sitting back and thinking "HAH! Proof that Apple is the best!" Wrong. Apple isn't hitting these sorts of problems... because they don't have a big enough share of the market. The rules Microsoft and Google are running afoul of ONLY apply to monopolies. Which means controlling an overwhelming majority of the market. Apple can't run afoul in mobile if Google is (well at least not in mobile or search). That "mono" part of monopoly means, rather explicitly, that neither Apple nor anyone is seen as a viable competitor to Android. And Apple's share of the PC market is even smaller than their share of the phone market.
If Apple were big enough to be called a competitor in these terms it would be at best (or at worst?) a duopoly. And, while not sounding any better, it would effectively free Google from these quirky rules they are being hit with fines over.
Arguably, if Apple held a monopoly, they'd probably fare even worse than Google. They enforce many more defaults and regulate the eco system much more than Microsoft or Google ever did. Unsurprisingly, as I implied above, a lot of these regulation actually lead both to some of Apple's most compelling features and revenue. Apple is all about locking you into their ecosystem and always has been.
At the end of the day, it feels like people just use these anti-trust cases and other huge PR scandals as a way to justify how they want to feel about something, rather than actually looking at these at face value and applying the same reasoning consistently.
I want to be clear. This isn't about me hating on Google or Microsoft. In fact, in both cases, I feel like each company was guilty of certain conceivably unfair practices which they had engaged in long before they held the monopoly status that enabled organizations like this to start pursuing fines against them. And, I feel both adjusted accordingly after the fines were leveled.
Both companies really did face similar problems.
Sure, if you can leverage your influence and power in one area to exert pressure in another it can be very beneficial to your business. Like using your OS to push your browser to supremacy or your phone platform to bolster your search revenue.
But, even if you take personal gains in finance out of the equation. Both companies also have a legitimate reason to seek those things out to benefit their customers as well. And I think part of the continued battle between the EU and Google now ties into that. I'm not going to defend Google. They are a company. Undoubtedly, making money is a part of it as well. It is both cliched and over simplistic to say, but "that's business". And, Google has lawyers to defend they're interests and laws and commissions and whatnot to ultimately decide for the rest of us, who is right.
With Windows, web browsers were becoming more and more a part of what being a computer was all about. Chrome OS is LITERALLY an OS which focuses around the browser. Obviously, if you make an operating system and 90%+ of your user's time is spent in a web browser, it becomes critical to start exerting some control over that aspect of the system. It can be beneficial (though there is nothing inherently so) for the OS Microsoft to be more tightly integrated with the browser. With so much time spent in web browsers it quickly becomes the number one the system should be optimized around. It now has the biggest needs from a system security perspective. It has the potential to deliver the most useful integrations. It is the primary touch point for the system.
Yes, being too restrictive certainly puts up barriers to others and gives you an easy in for controlling default search engines. Controlling perceptions. And driving ad revenue and the likes. But, the tight integration can also come with benefits to security and added functionality which can't be achieved by external parties.
Similarly, Android is, increasingly about it's interactions with the Play Store and various other Google services. And, while strong arming the competition definitely gives Google an unfair advantage and helps drive their own revenue streams elsewhere, that control also allows Google to deliver a cohesive experience. The more control they have, the more consistent and polished the experience they can deliver on. If they had total control, for instance, many more phones would be able to get updates, including security ones in a much more timely fashion.
I don't really think either the EU or Google are explicitly in the right or the wrong. It is a balancing act to be sure.
But, what blows my mind is, prior to Google's first fine. Every time I read a thread about Microsoft, there were commenters angry about how Microsoft just a big money grab and how they were so bad that the EU "even had to fine them over it". And now that one of their beloved companies is under an identical attack... nothing. Not only are they under such an attack. But multiple times now.
And I want to be clear if you're sitting back and thinking "HAH! Proof that Apple is the best!" Wrong. Apple isn't hitting these sorts of problems... because they don't have a big enough share of the market. The rules Microsoft and Google are running afoul of ONLY apply to monopolies. Which means controlling an overwhelming majority of the market. Apple can't run afoul in mobile if Google is (well at least not in mobile or search). That "mono" part of monopoly means, rather explicitly, that neither Apple nor anyone is seen as a viable competitor to Android. And Apple's share of the PC market is even smaller than their share of the phone market.
If Apple were big enough to be called a competitor in these terms it would be at best (or at worst?) a duopoly. And, while not sounding any better, it would effectively free Google from these quirky rules they are being hit with fines over.
Arguably, if Apple held a monopoly, they'd probably fare even worse than Google. They enforce many more defaults and regulate the eco system much more than Microsoft or Google ever did. Unsurprisingly, as I implied above, a lot of these regulation actually lead both to some of Apple's most compelling features and revenue. Apple is all about locking you into their ecosystem and always has been.
At the end of the day, it feels like people just use these anti-trust cases and other huge PR scandals as a way to justify how they want to feel about something, rather than actually looking at these at face value and applying the same reasoning consistently.
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