> What is a similar measurement for information? Grocery stores only sell physical goods; they don't, for example, determine what medical information you see, or what information about political candidates you consume... those are things that search engines do.

Okay, but that's a different discussion. Google showing Google Maps first instead of Apple Maps on a search for "maps" is not related to the kind of shadowy political subterfuge you're referencing here.

I still don't see what's wrong with highlighting your own products to your customers, which is the discussion here.

The Apple Maps service doesn’t have a web presence, so they’re not even trying to compete with Google Maps on the web. A map service is objectively more useful than a promotional page trying to sell iOS devices with a built-in Maps app.

> The Apple Maps service doesn’t have a web presence

It kind of has: https://maps.apple.com/place?address=San%20Francisco

No, it doesn’t: https://maps.apple.com/robots.txt

The robot file doesn't want you scraping actual locations.

So it does have a way of accessing the maps over the web. But because they dis-allow locations they don't compete with google for location based queries.

Everyone is wrong or right, depending on if your glass is half full or empty.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. [0]

Replace "maps" with the names of any competing products from both companies with a web presence that can be linked to in search results, if you want to genuinely rebut the point.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html