Mergers and Acquisitions
https://qz.com/1920334/the-acquisitions-that-built-googles-m...
From the lawyers in that case: “There are no reasonable substitutes for general search services, and a general search service monopolist would be able to maintain quality below the level that would prevail in a competitive market”
I've been using a much better search engine than Google for months now. The free market of the internet and human ingenuity has delivered.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/04/google-in...
Ya that’s good for competition right? Regulatory capture?
Google has done nothing particularly special to create opportunities for very small businesses online and their deliberate, persistent efforts to maintain a faceless veneer, through which meaning for customer support, for those businesses is impossible.
I had a rather business that was an AdWords certified partner and I know very deeply how many customers they have had OP’s experience. At this point, it is more important for them to maintain an operation that can ostensibly thrive without humans in the loop than to make money selling ads. That is their strategy, a choice that could have been reversed any time in the past 20 years. See how even their own employees are completely unable to help customers. I think it’s dogshit stance and they should be punished throughly in the marketplace for it. That’s just impossible now due to their size.
I couldn't disagree more with you. For anybody selling online, Google brings most if not all paying customers and other search engines bring so few as to be irrelevant. If Google isn't bringing anything to the table, how come they are so dominant and raking in so much money? Why couldn't Yahoo compete? And don't say that they suffocate competitors because of their size, because they can't bully Apple, Facebook or Microsoft by size.
I don't like Google as a company, they censor, they are corrupt and they mistreat their customers such as OP. There are also search engines that are far better.
But Google has been one of the biggest blessings ever for small businesses and individual founders trying to make a living. Don't let your hatred blind you. There are fully legitimate businesses that shouldn't be brick-and-mortar and rely on a fair way to get their information out to lots of people. Google makes that possible - for free!
