Why are their products that good? What is it that makes content creators publish on youtube rather than on other platforms. I'd argue that a huge part of this is the fact that youtube gives creators more visibility than other places, and since google is able to leverage search in addition to their advertising business to bring more eyes to youtube is the reason for the platforms success.
I think your confusing googles monopoly not hurting the market with not hurting their consumers. But to suggest that they don't make it near impossible for anyone to compete against them is absolutely them hurting the market. Namely, the equity value of google would be more balanced with other smaller firms, and in turn we'd see more very rich people rather than fewer people with net worths well over 10 billion.
I still see plenty of other video listings from other sites in my Google search results, and even if they're ranked above equivalent YouTube results I always pick the YouTube listing.
I have no doubts why I do this; YouTube provides a far better experience. It's incredibly bandwidth efficient even when my connection is slow, it's very responsive when seeking, and their time-to-first-video-frame is really good. And perhaps most importantly, it's consistently good. I don't get UI or playback issues every 10th video.
I cannot say the same for any other video host I've come across in my life. It's ridiculous how far ahead YouTube is on technology alone, and I still haven't found any site that can match it.
There are Google products which are inferior compared to their competitors, and usage rates show that as well: YouTube Gaming/YT livestreaming are basically platforms that only host people banned from Twitch.
>Namely, the equity value of google would be more balanced with other smaller firms, and in turn we'd see more very rich people rather than fewer people with net worths well over 10 billion.
Why would that be a good thing? Or rather, a better thing than the current situation? Why would that even be desirable?
Again, antitrust laws exist for one reason: to protect consumers. Not to implement someone's idea of an ideal society or market.
If you believe e.g. that company equity should be more uniformly distributed, go talk to your congressman, have him draft a law to that effect and get congress to vote on it.
> Why would that be a good thing? Or rather, a better thing than the current situation? Why would that even be desirable?
Because wealth inequality is massively harmful for society. It's the sort of thing that leads to revolution.
>
If you believe e.g. that company equity should be more uniformly distributed, go talk to your congressman, have him draft a law to that effect and get congress to vote on it.
and then Google writes him a check and the whole thing goes away. Biggest lobbyist around.
> Because wealth inequality is massively harmful for society.
Nope.
Hunger, poverty, lack of education, lack of access to medical care, etc.. is harmful to society and leads to revolutions and whatever root cause leads to those is to be fought against.
Except that wealth inequality isn't such a root cause.
Wealth inequality isn't and has never been a problem except in the minds of utopian ideologues, collectivists or people with a basic jealousy problem.
You're pretty dismissive of a theory I find interesting, I wonder if you've ever really entertained the idea that a wealthy country will cater its services to those who can pay, leaving those who can't pay behind.
So USA has a high median income, so we have high education outcomes, high healthcare outcomes, right? We certainly have the best schools and the best hospitals. But only the top few percentile can afford the best schools and best hospitals, everyone else gets left behind.
But we have higher infant mortality than many countries with lower incomes, and we don't compete so well when it comes to average assessment scores.
Naturally I was exposed to this thinking via a TED talk years ago, from this guy:
> Wealth inequality isn't and has never been a problem except in the minds of utopian ideologues, collectivists or people with a basic jealousy problem
> Hunger, poverty, lack of education, lack of access to medical care, etc...
All of these woes were in play at that time.
Unlike the poster above who showed a source that tries (and fails imo) to show causation between wealth inequality and said woes, you provided exactly zero value to the conversation.
I think your confusing googles monopoly not hurting the market with not hurting their consumers. But to suggest that they don't make it near impossible for anyone to compete against them is absolutely them hurting the market. Namely, the equity value of google would be more balanced with other smaller firms, and in turn we'd see more very rich people rather than fewer people with net worths well over 10 billion.