Yes but PROVE IT. Define what wrong they did. That’s my point.

Take a look at the recent monopoly trial, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/05/technology/google-antitrust-ruling.html

They claim that spending $18 billion per year to be the default search engine makes them monopolistic. That’s it? That’s all they got?

So the result will be Google stops paying $18 billion and device/browser manufacturers have to put up a Browser Choice dot EU type option.

Go back 10 years and put that law in place. AFAIK Apple has always defaulted to Google. Samsung probably would have sold out to Bing to be the default (although in this case Bing wouldn’t reach a monopoly, so I guess that’s ok for some reason).

I’m not saying paying to be the default didn’t help, but is that the reason they have 90% of the searches? No.

Did they do some else? Maybe. Someone should prove it and we can have an actual change.

Being a monopoly and engaging in negative monopolistic behaviors are also different things.

For example if the only two burger joints in the world were McDonalds and Burger King, and Burger King decided to replace their burgers with literal shit, actual human and animal feces, would McDonalds be a (I hope and assume) monopoly? Probably. Are they engaging in negative monopolistic behavior? Not necessarily.

Obviously, as a quick aside, fuck Google for their shitty software decisions, their cancelling of great products and their enshittification of a majority of their applications.

However simply having 90% of the market does not technically mean they have done anything wrong. You can’t say they have 90% of the market therefore they have done something illegal or have abused being a monopoly.

You have to be specific. You have to call out payment to companies to be the default. But even that isn’t quite enough because companies sold access. Can a company be at fault for buying access as the default? It was for sale. It’s a weak argument, or at least an incomplete one. You need to prove they abused their position. Or you need to make a case that the industry they are in requires additional regulation as a whole.

I say this because although it sounds like I’m defending Google I’m not. There is a difference between something feeling illegal and something being illegal. Technically, although a recent judgement would disagree with me, they haven’t done anything wrong. It feels like they have. I agree it feels like they have. But they haven’t (or there are further pending results which will prove otherwise).

So the community (users) can move, but I just realized that when an instance shuts down the community (posts) limps on, preventing the community (posts) from actually dying and the community (users) from moving on.

For instance, if you asked me, a lemmy.world user about moviesandtv@lemmy.film I would see, https://lemmy.world/c/moviesandtv@lemmy.film

But if you ask a sh.itjust.works user they see, https://sh.itjust.works/c/moviesandtv@lemmy.film

And lemmy.ml users see, https://lemmy.ml/c/moviesandtv@lemmy.film

We all see different versions of the same community (posts).

I think https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/4619 would fix this.

Re Concentration I’m not concerned that it is as of yet a problem. However I do think it is also a larger problem for Mastodon and other user-centric platforms than it is to Lemmy and other community-cetric platforms.

If a Mastodon user wants to leave their server there are migration pains. If your server makes a controversial change, you may have to migrate. As a follower if something goes wrong I have to remember that I was following Ada & Bob, but maybe Bob now goes by Bobby.

However as a Lemmy user I can just abandon my server and be done with it. If my server makes a controversial change, I can just leave. As a community follower can watch as Star Trek Memes becomes Risa, or Risa becomes Ten Forward. The names changed completely but it’s easy to find my community again.

Is the problem account making or data having persistence/backups?

Or is the issue having an account on service A, service A dieing and then when you create an account on service B you have to start over again, so we need to improve account portability?

I guess I also wonder… Is that a real problem for Lemmy? For Mastodon where you follow users sure, but does anyone care about their Lemmy account?

And what’s stopping that from happening now?

I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that servers die because they are difficult to maintain. This is perhaps especially true for kbin/mbin based servers.

I suppose for enough money some might be willing to maintain, but I’m not sure it’s that simple.

Is there a solution to make the whole ecosystem mature and professional?

Certainly having everyone on one instance isn’t the way to go.

A feel a little bad for the Logitech CEO here. It was basically a softball question, do you ever think you’ll have software subscriptions, which is a common thing, and he answered “Yeah, that’s possible.”

Obviously for a mouse it doesn’t really make sense, but paid software updates are common in the industry so who knows.

Obviously it’s stupid, but it’s funny to see it play out.

Some players in the ecosystem have not been transparent with their use of Reddit’s content, and in those instances, we block access to protect Reddit content and user privacy.

Aka “Fuck you, pay me”, at least Reddit is transparent that data is for sale and they think they own it.

They killed support for the first gen Chromecast and the YouTube “app” has been broken for 3+ years. They’ll just stop supporting it one day and you’ll have to buy a new one.

“the annoying webp” AFAIK is the same problem as JPEG XL, apps just didn’t implement it.

It is supported in browsers, which is good, but not in third party apps. AVIF or whatever is going to have the same problem.

To frame this question differently, why is Apple able to sell default access on their devices?

Quick math shows Apple makes ~100 Billion per year. The article states Google pays ~20 Billion to Apple per year. That’s a significant value to Apple.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with the decision, but curious how Google paying Apple is a monopoly, but Apple offering search to the highest bidder isn’t also a problem (or maybe it is).

As another example, how well did the EU browser choice ruling have on consumers choosing a browser.

Obviously I don’t know what the details of he suit against Disney but the truth is Disney fucked up and they knew it.

Disney tried to gain a few extra bucks at the cost of a legal battle with Johansson. If Disney won it would have been a clear signal that Disney is willing to screw over top talent for a few million dollars.

Not to compare “Black Widow” to “Endgame”, but that’s squabbling over millions when billions are at stake.

Looking at someone like Johansson that’s squabbling over millions when tens of hundreds millions are at stake. Contracts with top talent now take longer, top talent is a little less likely to work with Disney.

It all but guaranteed a loss for Disney.

The settlement was Disney’s way of saying “we fucked up”, and truth be told was probably at least partially responsible for Bob Chapek being replaced as CEO.

Layoffs also shake every other employee in an immeasurable way.

Even if you didn’t lay someone off they may now change their priorities. Maybe they focus on the people pleaser tasks. Maybe they focus more on what is good for them to keep their job vs what is good for the company.

Layoffs should be a last resort but tech companies are just playing follow the leader right now. In a few years we’ll see memoirs and books stating “in hindsight we may have made a mistake, but we made the best decision we could with the information we had at the time”, it’s all absolutely bullshit. This is all being done for a temporary stock boost.

Today? Maybe a few. A week, a month, a year from now? Reddit is going to get worse. People will leave.

Looking at Twitter it’s clear some folks will never leave no matter how bad it gets, but plenty of folks will leave.

Specifically https://youtu.be/KMU0tzLwhbE

A, A, A, A

(Hand clapping)

A, A, A, A

(Hand clapping intensifies)

A, A, A, A, A, A

(Techno beat drops)

If they had discounts it would work. But we all know they aren’t having discounts.

To be fair to Chrome.

Microsoft had the vast majority with Trident. Mozilla/Firefox slowly gained market share with Gecko. Chrome/Webkit* then took market share from both.

It’s not like Chrome just appeared one day and demanded everyone use them, they gained market share by being a good browser.

*(Chrome now uses a fork of Webkit called Blink.)

That being said I do think Firefox provides the best browser experience, and Chrome users should look into switching.

Which is a long way of saying Microsoft fucked up bad. Real bad.

I have 8 bucks in Google Kajigger, is it moving to the new thing? Do I have to sort out how to move it around? I’m think I had it all hooked up to a bank at one point. Maybe it was a friend that sent me money?

I think I used it to pay for Dunkin Donuts, but both apps list Dunkin Donuts, can I just use the money there?

That’s why this is all so annoying, I have to figure out this whole process, old and new, just for 8 bucks.