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A comment on 50 U.S. states and territories announce broad antitrust investigation of Google. Parent comment

Re:50 U.S. states and territories announce broad antitrust i... by cromwellian on Monday September 09, 2019 @06:47PM (#20923341)
XMPP is a bad example. Google Talk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Talk) supported XMPP from 2005-2014, but by the time they dropped federation, it had already massively declined. You can argue over the reasons for that, I personally blame a combination of smartphones (iphone launch in 2007), which drove phone number based messaging apps/iMessage/WhatsApp/etc and the rise of path-dependent social networks like Facebook (FB messenger)

However, even if you look at the pre-2007 pre-FB era, instant messaging was dominated by Yahoo Messenger, AOL Messenger, MSN Messenger, etc. None of them supported federation, there were several attempts at interop, but none of them wanted it. Moreover, IIRC, Google's stated reason in 2014 for dropping federation was a non-reciprocal leaching that some of these platforms were using to exploit XMPP federation to ingest users into their walled gardens.

In messaging, every single product Google has offered has failed to gain market, and it's really Facebook and Apple which collectively have a oligarchal stranglehold on the market (or WeChat in China)

Google's latest attempt is a restoration of federation on mobile through RCS, but what's the likelihood that the dominance of iMessage and FB Messenger/WhatsApp are going to be weakened by this?

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Re:50 U.S. states and territories announce broad antitrust i... by lonelappde on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @01:53AM (#20925404)
People hate Google for "Don't Be Evil" because it was the "chosen one", while giving a pass to their unabashedly evil competitors.
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Re:50 U.S. states and territories announce broad antitrust i... by forgottenpass on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @09:10AM (#20927708)
Google wasn't _chosen_, they said that they would be better and then promptly gave up as soon as they had gained a bunch of good will and it wasn't convenient for them anymore.

And I still fail to understand how Google surveilling and exfiltrating is somehow better than anyone else doing it.

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