Re:The Elephant in the Room: Google Monoculture
by joe_the_user on Monday February 09, 2009 @02:40PM
(#474043)
The thing about Google is that rather than seizing a market, they created it and their continued growth involves them improving their product so that they are used even more.
Sure, businesses depend on Google but Google was the first search that could be depended on. Google was the first search entity of any sort that allowed the web to be effectively monetized. They are that "???" in the three step plan "1. Get attention, 2.??? 3. Profit". Google did not create the web but they certainly "grew" it and thus they are currently the "good" kind of monopoly, one which aims to sell as much as possible, rather than the bad kind of monopoly which aims to extract the most rent possible from selling the same amount of stuff year-in, year-out (the model for a bad monopoly would be an unregulated electric company. Microsoft only partly fits this model but MS is still clearly closer to being a rent-extractor than Google).
Sure, businesses depend on Google but Google was the first search that could be depended on. Google was the first search entity of any sort that allowed the web to be effectively monetized. They are that "???" in the three step plan "1. Get attention, 2.??? 3. Profit". Google did not create the web but they certainly "grew" it and thus they are currently the "good" kind of monopoly, one which aims to sell as much as possible, rather than the bad kind of monopoly which aims to extract the most rent possible from selling the same amount of stuff year-in, year-out (the model for a bad monopoly would be an unregulated electric company. Microsoft only partly fits this model but MS is still clearly closer to being a rent-extractor than Google).