US vs. Google Amicus Curiae Brief of Y Combinator in Support of Plaintiffs [pdf]

Re:US vs. Google Amicus Curiae Brief of Y Combinator in Supp... by robertlagrant on Sunday May 11, 2025 @02:09AM (#43951773)

> while selling other businesses a direct line to its customers' wallets

What does this mean?

> Even if you discount the effectiveness of ads (which seems foolish given how many people have so much staked on them working), the eye-watering prices Google charges for them get directly passed to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

But then...why is anyone buying them if they don't work? How do you run this experiment without Google in to show that hand-curated ads on TV etc would've been a better, cheaper way to do ads in the long run than automated ones?

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Re:US vs. Google Amicus Curiae Brief of Y Combinator in Supp... by oezi on Sunday May 11, 2025 @03:13AM (#43952010)

You can read up on the advertising industry easily, right?

For consumers ads are a net negative. They inflate the cost of the product and favor incumbents and monopolists to retain that position.

Ads certainly work on average and Google has positioned itself in a way that they can extract much of the created value for businesses who buy them.

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Re:US vs. Google Amicus Curiae Brief of Y Combinator in Supp... by dev_l1x_be on Sunday May 11, 2025 @02:35AM (#43951865)

There are mire dark patterns in this than you can think of. Have you ever wondered what does Amazon do on the top of the search results typing “something ebay” into google?

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Re:US vs. Google Amicus Curiae Brief of Y Combinator in Supp... by robertlagrant on Monday May 12, 2025 @04:29AM (#43960788)

I can certainly think of some, but that doesn't mean that removing Google would result in lower prices. It could be that replacing automation with manual work could even raise prices.

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