Specifically, what regulations would you propose for google that they are not already subject to?
The biggest is full transparency in their delisting rulings, as well as establishing a level of due process in them. Ideally, I would like it if Google had to go through an adversarial system, where they have to present their case for delisting to an impartial magistrate.
In addition, the lines for delisting need to be drawn clearly.
Specifically, what regulations would you propose for google that they are not already subject to?
The biggest is full transparency in their delisting rulings, as well as establishing a level of due process in them. Ideally, I would like it if Google had to go through an adversarial system, where they have to present their case for delisting to an impartial magistrate.
In addition, the lines for delisting need to be drawn clearly.
The easiest way for them to avoid that is to just to push the sites that would be delisted back a page or two in the results. Unless they're delisting by dropping them from data gathering anyway. You'll probably want a more rigorous solution.
+1
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
Yeah. Even with rap genius they didn't straight remove them. They coded around the bullship rg was doing manually which got them tossed waaaaay back. And as we all know, nothing exists past page 2 of the google search results.
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
It's actually easier than typing a different url. FF has the search engine chooser right next to the search box. Chrome has it on the first preferences page. IE defaults to bing/MS search anyway. The comparison to Windows-Mac is a bad one because there are
1) real costs to switching computers, like getting new hardware
2) need to relearn interfaces
3) feature and software disparity
Functionally, bing is basically the same as google. The interface is identical, searches return basically the same results in roughly the same order and even provide inline images and a context sidebar with basically the same data. The cost to switch is between two and four clicks, depending on the browser
All of which is irrelevant because people don't and won't.
You are rather missing the point here. The existence of an alternative does not negate monopolistic control over a market.
Right but if people won't then what are you going to do about it? Force people to keep bing as their search engine?
I've never said I wanted them to switch, so I'm not sure why you are asking.
I'm pointing out that Google exerts monopolistic control. That there are alternatives is irrelevant because no one uses them.
So what is the solution? Should Google make itself crappier so other search engines can catch up?
Again, this has been explained - they need to be regulated so that they are kept from abusing their position, like any other natural monopoly.
The search engine space is not one which provides a natural monopoly - certainly you know this, given all of your arguments have revolved around comparison to other situations in which there was no natural monopoly (such as the Internet explorer/Netscape issue from years past) regardless of whether there was (in effect) a monopoly of any kind.
I can easily see why something like roads, power lines or water distribution are natural monopolies, I can't see how that maps even remotely to the search engine space.
It's actually easier than typing a different url. FF has the search engine chooser right next to the search box. Chrome has it on the first preferences page. IE defaults to bing/MS search anyway. The comparison to Windows-Mac is a bad one because there are
1) real costs to switching computers, like getting new hardware
2) need to relearn interfaces
3) feature and software disparity
Functionally, bing is basically the same as google. The interface is identical, searches return basically the same results in roughly the same order and even provide inline images and a context sidebar with basically the same data. The cost to switch is between two and four clicks, depending on the browser
All of which is irrelevant because people don't and won't.
You are rather missing the point here. The existence of an alternative does not negate monopolistic control over a market.
Right but if people won't then what are you going to do about it? Force people to keep bing as their search engine?
I've never said I wanted them to switch, so I'm not sure why you are asking.
I'm pointing out that Google exerts monopolistic control. That there are alternatives is irrelevant because no one uses them.
So what is the solution? Should Google make itself crappier so other search engines can catch up?
Again, this has been explained - they need to be regulated so that they are kept from abusing their position, like any other natural monopoly.
The search engine space is not one which provides a natural monopoly - certainly you know this, given all of your arguments have revolved around comparison to other situations in which there was no natural monopoly (such as the Internet explorer/Netscape issue from years past) regardless of whether there was (in effect) a monopoly of any kind.
I can easily see why something like roads, power lines or water distribution are natural monopolies, I can't see how that maps even remotely to the search engine space.
Because you are so focused on your personal tree that you don't see the forest. Just because you can switch if you feel that a search engine no longer provides accurate search results doesn't mean that the search engine no longer possesses the ability to reshape the internet. If Google elevates your PageRank, you will become more visible on a global level. Conversely, lowered PageRank will lower your profile among all users.
It's actually easier than typing a different url. FF has the search engine chooser right next to the search box. Chrome has it on the first preferences page. IE defaults to bing/MS search anyway. The comparison to Windows-Mac is a bad one because there are
1) real costs to switching computers, like getting new hardware
2) need to relearn interfaces
3) feature and software disparity
Functionally, bing is basically the same as google. The interface is identical, searches return basically the same results in roughly the same order and even provide inline images and a context sidebar with basically the same data. The cost to switch is between two and four clicks, depending on the browser
All of which is irrelevant because people don't and won't.
You are rather missing the point here. The existence of an alternative does not negate monopolistic control over a market.
Right but if people won't then what are you going to do about it? Force people to keep bing as their search engine?
I've never said I wanted them to switch, so I'm not sure why you are asking.
I'm pointing out that Google exerts monopolistic control. That there are alternatives is irrelevant because no one uses them.
So what is the solution? Should Google make itself crappier so other search engines can catch up?
Again, this has been explained - they need to be regulated so that they are kept from abusing their position, like any other natural monopoly.
The search engine space is not one which provides a natural monopoly - certainly you know this, given all of your arguments have revolved around comparison to other situations in which there was no natural monopoly (such as the Internet explorer/Netscape issue from years past) regardless of whether there was (in effect) a monopoly of any kind.
I can easily see why something like roads, power lines or water distribution are natural monopolies, I can't see how that maps even remotely to the search engine space.
Because you are so focused on your personal tree that you don't see the forest. Just because you can switch if you feel that a search engine no longer provides accurate search results doesn't mean that the search engine no longer possesses the ability to reshape the internet. If Google elevates your PageRank, you will become more visible on a global level. Conversely, lowered PageRank will lower your profile among all users.
That may or may not be true, but a natural monopoly that does not make. I don't think we disagree on those facts, or indeed most of the facts about this issue. My point is/was simply that any monopoly google might have it is not obviously a natural monopoly.
Originally I thought it self evident that it simply was not a natural monopoly but upon reconsideration there might be just such an argument that can be made on the basis of relevance - there might be a single best algorithm in terms of providing people with the information they want and so an argument could be made that a natural monopoly is in effect in the instance that it is discovered. But A. that seems exceedingly unlikely, given the nature of the information landscape there's likely many peaks in terms of both results and engines and B. It would utterly undermine the rest of your argument if that were true.
It's actually easier than typing a different url. FF has the search engine chooser right next to the search box. Chrome has it on the first preferences page. IE defaults to bing/MS search anyway. The comparison to Windows-Mac is a bad one because there are
1) real costs to switching computers, like getting new hardware
2) need to relearn interfaces
3) feature and software disparity
Functionally, bing is basically the same as google. The interface is identical, searches return basically the same results in roughly the same order and even provide inline images and a context sidebar with basically the same data. The cost to switch is between two and four clicks, depending on the browser
All of which is irrelevant because people don't and won't.
You are rather missing the point here. The existence of an alternative does not negate monopolistic control over a market.
Right but if people won't then what are you going to do about it? Force people to keep bing as their search engine?
I've never said I wanted them to switch, so I'm not sure why you are asking.
I'm pointing out that Google exerts monopolistic control. That there are alternatives is irrelevant because no one uses them.
So what is the solution? Should Google make itself crappier so other search engines can catch up?
Again, this has been explained - they need to be regulated so that they are kept from abusing their position, like any other natural monopoly.
The search engine space is not one which provides a natural monopoly - certainly you know this, given all of your arguments have revolved around comparison to other situations in which there was no natural monopoly (such as the Internet explorer/Netscape issue from years past) regardless of whether there was (in effect) a monopoly of any kind.
I can easily see why something like roads, power lines or water distribution are natural monopolies, I can't see how that maps even remotely to the search engine space.
Because you are so focused on your personal tree that you don't see the forest. Just because you can switch if you feel that a search engine no longer provides accurate search results doesn't mean that the search engine no longer possesses the ability to reshape the internet. If Google elevates your PageRank, you will become more visible on a global level. Conversely, lowered PageRank will lower your profile among all users.
That may or may not be true, but a natural monopoly that does not make. I don't think we disagree on those facts, or indeed most of the facts about this issue. My point is/was simply that any monopoly google might have it is not obviously a natural monopoly.
Originally I thought it self evident that it simply was not a natural monopoly but upon reconsideration there might be just such an argument that can be made on the basis of relevance - there might be a single best algorithm in terms of providing people with the information they want and so an argument could be made that a natural monopoly is in effect in the instance that it is discovered. But A. that seems exceedingly unlikely, given the nature of the information landscape there's likely many peaks in terms of both results and engines and B. It would utterly undermine the rest of your argument if that were true.
Once again, "the internet trends towards monopoly." What this means is that the usual barriers that impede the development of a single incumbent don't really exist online - if a search engine can become predominant, it becomes difficult to push it out of that position. While it's not what you would consider a "traditional" natural monopoly, it functions much like one. When it comes to English language search, Google is, effectively, search.
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited February 2014
So, it functions like a natural monopoly, without being a natural monopoly?
I think we have a name for that, a monopoly.
Of course, we are at worst dealing with a near monopoly, not an actual monopoly in the case of google even if we grant the most dire interpretations of the facts.
And secondly, it doesn't actually function like a natural monopoly in that a natural monopoly has a number of unique properties with regard to market inefficiency brought about by adding additional players which don't clearly apply.
Furthermore, "the Internet trends toward monopoly" is an assertion no more useful to the discussion than "the Internet considers censorship damage and routes around it" is an explanation of network and routing policy. In fact, one of the touted strengths of the Internet is that the barrier to entry is so low in any data related market (comparatively speaking) that it is constantly disruptive. Your assertion is ...idiosyncratic at best.
Maybe he's saying the the costs to switching products and services is so low that everybody will naturally migrate to one best thing (assuming there is a single metric). Of course, I can't think of a single example that isn't either an official standard (and thus expected to be uniform, yet there is still the staying "standards are great, there's so many to choose from") or Google for search, and maybe wikipedia for information. But Google was simply better and the nature of user sourced information aggregation sites trends to single sites because people want to work on successful projects
It's actually easier than typing a different url. FF has the search engine chooser right next to the search box. Chrome has it on the first preferences page. IE defaults to bing/MS search anyway. The comparison to Windows-Mac is a bad one because there are
1) real costs to switching computers, like getting new hardware
2) need to relearn interfaces
3) feature and software disparity
Functionally, bing is basically the same as google. The interface is identical, searches return basically the same results in roughly the same order and even provide inline images and a context sidebar with basically the same data. The cost to switch is between two and four clicks, depending on the browser
All of which is irrelevant because people don't and won't.
You are rather missing the point here. The existence of an alternative does not negate monopolistic control over a market.
Right but if people won't then what are you going to do about it? Force people to keep bing as their search engine?
I've never said I wanted them to switch, so I'm not sure why you are asking.
I'm pointing out that Google exerts monopolistic control. That there are alternatives is irrelevant because no one uses them.
So what is the solution? Should Google make itself crappier so other search engines can catch up?
Again, this has been explained - they need to be regulated so that they are kept from abusing their position, like any other natural monopoly.
The search engine space is not one which provides a natural monopoly - certainly you know this, given all of your arguments have revolved around comparison to other situations in which there was no natural monopoly (such as the Internet explorer/Netscape issue from years past) regardless of whether there was (in effect) a monopoly of any kind.
I can easily see why something like roads, power lines or water distribution are natural monopolies, I can't see how that maps even remotely to the search engine space.
You can't? Have you looked at the search engine market?
Hell, I would say it tends towards natural monopoly based on the lack of any reason to shop around.
Whether it's natural or not seems wholly irrelevant to the point anyway.
It's actually easier than typing a different url. FF has the search engine chooser right next to the search box. Chrome has it on the first preferences page. IE defaults to bing/MS search anyway. The comparison to Windows-Mac is a bad one because there are
1) real costs to switching computers, like getting new hardware
2) need to relearn interfaces
3) feature and software disparity
Functionally, bing is basically the same as google. The interface is identical, searches return basically the same results in roughly the same order and even provide inline images and a context sidebar with basically the same data. The cost to switch is between two and four clicks, depending on the browser
All of which is irrelevant because people don't and won't.
You are rather missing the point here. The existence of an alternative does not negate monopolistic control over a market.
Right but if people won't then what are you going to do about it? Force people to keep bing as their search engine?
I've never said I wanted them to switch, so I'm not sure why you are asking.
I'm pointing out that Google exerts monopolistic control. That there are alternatives is irrelevant because no one uses them.
So what is the solution? Should Google make itself crappier so other search engines can catch up?
Again, this has been explained - they need to be regulated so that they are kept from abusing their position, like any other natural monopoly.
The search engine space is not one which provides a natural monopoly - certainly you know this, given all of your arguments have revolved around comparison to other situations in which there was no natural monopoly (such as the Internet explorer/Netscape issue from years past) regardless of whether there was (in effect) a monopoly of any kind.
I can easily see why something like roads, power lines or water distribution are natural monopolies, I can't see how that maps even remotely to the search engine space.
You can't? Have you looked at the search engine market?
Hell, I would say it tends towards natural monopoly based on the lack of any reason to shop around.
Whether it's natural or not seems wholly irrelevant to the point anyway.
Yes, I have looked at the search engine market and it looks nothing like a natural monopoly even if the argument that it is approaching a near monopoly is not, on it's face, absurd. A lack of reason to shop around does not a monopoly nor natural monopoly make.
It's relevant whether it is or isn't a natural monopoly or regular monopoly or near monopoly because there's virtue in being accurate in and of itself. And secondly, the primary proponent of regulating google "like any natural monopoly" began their contributions to the thread decrying sloppily or inconsistently applied legislation. So, if it isn't actually a natural monopoly then treating it as such would be sloppily or inconsistently applied legislation and thus...
It's actually easier than typing a different url. FF has the search engine chooser right next to the search box. Chrome has it on the first preferences page. IE defaults to bing/MS search anyway. The comparison to Windows-Mac is a bad one because there are
1) real costs to switching computers, like getting new hardware
2) need to relearn interfaces
3) feature and software disparity
Functionally, bing is basically the same as google. The interface is identical, searches return basically the same results in roughly the same order and even provide inline images and a context sidebar with basically the same data. The cost to switch is between two and four clicks, depending on the browser
All of which is irrelevant because people don't and won't.
You are rather missing the point here. The existence of an alternative does not negate monopolistic control over a market.
Right but if people won't then what are you going to do about it? Force people to keep bing as their search engine?
I've never said I wanted them to switch, so I'm not sure why you are asking.
I'm pointing out that Google exerts monopolistic control. That there are alternatives is irrelevant because no one uses them.
So what is the solution? Should Google make itself crappier so other search engines can catch up?
Again, this has been explained - they need to be regulated so that they are kept from abusing their position, like any other natural monopoly.
The search engine space is not one which provides a natural monopoly - certainly you know this, given all of your arguments have revolved around comparison to other situations in which there was no natural monopoly (such as the Internet explorer/Netscape issue from years past) regardless of whether there was (in effect) a monopoly of any kind.
I can easily see why something like roads, power lines or water distribution are natural monopolies, I can't see how that maps even remotely to the search engine space.
You can't? Have you looked at the search engine market?
Hell, I would say it tends towards natural monopoly based on the lack of any reason to shop around.
Whether it's natural or not seems wholly irrelevant to the point anyway.
Yes, I have looked at the search engine market and it looks nothing like a natural monopoly even if the argument that it is approaching a near monopoly is not, on it's face, absurd. A lack of reason to shop around does not a monopoly nor natural monopoly make.
No, your position is prima facie absurb. Google reigns over the search engine "market" as a megalithic titan with no challengers. It's a monopoly.
And the lack of reason to shop around does create a monopoly (or at least form a key component of it). It's how Google has one. Google is ubiquitous because there's no reason to ever use another search engine. There is no situation where you Google something and then think "I should Bing the same thing".
It's basically the answer to "Why doesn't anyone use Bing?". "Because I've already got Google and who needs another search engine?".
It's relevant whether it is or isn't a natural monopoly or regular monopoly or near monopoly because there's virtue in being accurate in and of itself. And secondly, the primary proponent of regulating google "like any natural monopoly" began their contributions to the thread decrying sloppily or inconsistently applied legislation. So, if it isn't actually a natural monopoly then treating it as such would be sloppily or inconsistently applied legislation and thus...
Except the "natural" part of the phrase "natural monopoly" is irrelevant to the argument since it doesn't effect the arguments being made or the evidence supporting them.
shryke on
0
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
A natural monopoly is an actual specific thing, defined as "an industry in which multi-firm production would be more costly than production by a monopoly". Which is different to a non-natural monopoly, wherein competition introduces cost savings. While they share some risks - like exploitation in terms of price - they have unique risks and properties and arise out of totally different circumstances. So, as I said while YOUR POSITION IS NOT ABSURD, it is not a NATURAL monopoly.
I don't see the attraction to defending incorrect definitions and sloppy arguments.
If you view the market in reverse, in terms of websites being supplied with pageviews as an aggregate function of searches and rankings then it sort of makes sense to see it that way. It is not a monopoly from the searcher's perspective since Google does not limit other search engines from entering the market (aside from providing quality search results that is hard to match, ie a good product), and cannot arbitrarily change the price or quality of its product (since if search quality dramatically increased, or they started charging people, people would then flock to bing et al)
From the website's point of view, it could be considered a monopoly since it is the primary source of pageviews, though that's a little weird since the firms are supply constrained in how many pageviews they can "sell" and really google is providing pageviews based on the quality of the site, so it's more like a monopsony where google chooses to buy from only a subset of sites depending on the search (ie, the first page).
A natural monopoly is an actual specific thing, defined as "an industry in which multi-firm production would be more costly than production by a monopoly". Which is different to a non-natural monopoly, wherein competition introduces cost savings. While they share some risks - like exploitation in terms of price - they have unique risks and properties and arise out of totally different circumstances. So, as I said while YOUR POSITION IS NOT ABSURD, it is not a NATURAL monopoly.
I don't see the attraction to defending incorrect definitions and sloppy arguments.
Right, so we've basically boiled down your argument back to only "just don't use the words 'natural monopoly'".
If you view the market in reverse, in terms of websites being supplied with pageviews as an aggregate function of searches and rankings then it sort of makes sense to see it that way. It is not a monopoly from the searcher's perspective since Google does not limit other search engines from entering the market (aside from providing quality search results that is hard to match, ie a good product), and cannot arbitrarily change the price or quality of its product (since if search quality dramatically increased, or they started charging people, people would then flock to bing et al)
From the website's point of view, it could be considered a monopoly since it is the primary source of pageviews, though that's a little weird since the firms are supply constrained in how many pageviews they can "sell" and really google is providing pageviews based on the quality of the site, so it's more like a monopsony where google chooses to buy from only a subset of sites depending on the search (ie, the first page).
I think it's simpler to view Google as the primary service that connects users with providers on the internet. Google is how buyers of web content and sellers of web content get together. I want, you have, Google connects us.
0
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
A natural monopoly is an actual specific thing, defined as "an industry in which multi-firm production would be more costly than production by a monopoly". Which is different to a non-natural monopoly, wherein competition introduces cost savings. While they share some risks - like exploitation in terms of price - they have unique risks and properties and arise out of totally different circumstances. So, as I said while YOUR POSITION IS NOT ABSURD, it is not a NATURAL monopoly.
I don't see the attraction to defending incorrect definitions and sloppy arguments.
Right, so we've basically boiled down your argument back to only "just don't use the words 'natural monopoly'".
And even then, it's debatable.
It's not debatable. The debate is whether there is a monopoly or near monopoly, not whether it is natural.
I never pegged you for having an anti-intellectual streak. It isn't a natural monopoly, that's not what it is. A natural monopoly is a specific economic and legal term with a specific meaning referring to a particular state of affairs. Saying it is is wrong, using it in your arguments and assertions is wrong - either in fact if you're being sloppy or in character if you're knowingly misrepresenting things knowingly.
Even if you want to charge pedantry and semantics then it's still relevant because as I alluded to AngelHedgie's position is inconsistent.
If you view the market in reverse, in terms of websites being supplied with pageviews as an aggregate function of searches and rankings then it sort of makes sense to see it that way. It is not a monopoly from the searcher's perspective since Google does not limit other search engines from entering the market (aside from providing quality search results that is hard to match, ie a good product), and cannot arbitrarily change the price or quality of its product (since if search quality dramatically increased, or they started charging people, people would then flock to bing et al)
From the website's point of view, it could be considered a monopoly since it is the primary source of pageviews, though that's a little weird since the firms are supply constrained in how many pageviews they can "sell" and really google is providing pageviews based on the quality of the site, so it's more like a monopsony where google chooses to buy from only a subset of sites depending on the search (ie, the first page).
I think it's simpler to view Google as the primary service that connects users with providers on the internet. Google is how buyers of web content and sellers of web content get together. I want, you have, Google connects us.
Maybe, but that obfuscates the fact that there are huge numbers of sellers, all the buyers want to buy from the same small subset and they very often don't know which one they want to buy from, or even what the options are. In this model each unique search is its own "market." Google's job is to decide which set of sellers is most likely to result in a "buy" from the buyer, for which they necessarily use an automated process due to scale, with manual tweaking when the automated process fails to produce the desired outcome, like when the automation is specifically exploited.
A natural monopoly is an actual specific thing, defined as "an industry in which multi-firm production would be more costly than production by a monopoly". Which is different to a non-natural monopoly, wherein competition introduces cost savings. While they share some risks - like exploitation in terms of price - they have unique risks and properties and arise out of totally different circumstances. So, as I said while YOUR POSITION IS NOT ABSURD, it is not a NATURAL monopoly.
I don't see the attraction to defending incorrect definitions and sloppy arguments.
Right, so we've basically boiled down your argument back to only "just don't use the words 'natural monopoly'".
And even then, it's debatable.
It's not debatable. The debate is whether there is a monopoly or near monopoly, not whether it is natural.
I never pegged you for having an anti-intellectual streak. It isn't a natural monopoly, that's not what it is. A natural monopoly is a specific economic and legal term with a specific meaning referring to a particular state of affairs. Saying it is is wrong, using it in your arguments and assertions is wrong - either in fact if you're being sloppy or in character if you're knowingly misrepresenting things knowingly.
Even if you want to charge pedantry and semantics then it's still relevant because as I alluded to AngelHedgie's position is inconsistent.
A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which it is most efficient (involving the lowest long-run average cost) for production to be concentrated in a single firm. This market situation gives the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming cost advantage over other actual and potential competitors, so a natural monopoly situation generally leads to an actual monopoly. This tends to be the case in industries where capital costs predominate, creating economies of scale that are large in relation to the size of the market, and hence creating high barriers to entry; examples include public utilities such as water services and electricity.
So, is this applicable to Internet search? Yes, actually. For a number of reasons such as consistency and ease of access, the search market is served best by having a single common provider for search, which acts as the standard. Capital costs in search are actually quite high - to make a search engine that is reliable and can reach the scale needed, significant outlays in server space and bandwidth are necessary.
Looking at the market bears this out - in English language search, the predominant search engine is Google, which won the industry shakeout by having the strongest search and access combination. In a distant second is Bing, which exists mainly because Microsoft and other companies see value in having an internet search and service stack not under Google's control, and thus are willing to invest in such for strategic reasons. Finally, there are several other minor engines that survived the shakeout, and are barely players. The pattern continues in foreign language search, but because language is one of the few natural boundaries on the Internet, it's not always Google that controls those markets, as was pointed out earlier in the thread.
A natural monopoly is an actual specific thing, defined as "an industry in which multi-firm production would be more costly than production by a monopoly". Which is different to a non-natural monopoly, wherein competition introduces cost savings. While they share some risks - like exploitation in terms of price - they have unique risks and properties and arise out of totally different circumstances. So, as I said while YOUR POSITION IS NOT ABSURD, it is not a NATURAL monopoly.
I don't see the attraction to defending incorrect definitions and sloppy arguments.
Right, so we've basically boiled down your argument back to only "just don't use the words 'natural monopoly'".
And even then, it's debatable.
It's not debatable. The debate is whether there is a monopoly or near monopoly, not whether it is natural.
I never pegged you for having an anti-intellectual streak. It isn't a natural monopoly, that's not what it is. A natural monopoly is a specific economic and legal term with a specific meaning referring to a particular state of affairs. Saying it is is wrong, using it in your arguments and assertions is wrong - either in fact if you're being sloppy or in character if you're knowingly misrepresenting things knowingly.
Even if you want to charge pedantry and semantics then it's still relevant because as I alluded to AngelHedgie's position is inconsistent.
A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which it is most efficient (involving the lowest long-run average cost) for production to be concentrated in a single firm. This market situation gives the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming cost advantage over other actual and potential competitors, so a natural monopoly situation generally leads to an actual monopoly. This tends to be the case in industries where capital costs predominate, creating economies of scale that are large in relation to the size of the market, and hence creating high barriers to entry; examples include public utilities such as water services and electricity.
So, is this applicable to Internet search? Yes, actually. For a number of reasons such as consistency and ease of access, the search market is served best by having a single common provider for search, which acts as the standard. Capital costs in search are actually quite high - to make a search engine that is reliable and can reach the scale needed, significant outlays in server space and bandwidth are necessary.
Looking at the market bears this out - in English language search, the predominant search engine is Google, which won the industry shakeout by having the strongest search and access combination. In a distant second is Bing, which exists mainly because Microsoft and other companies see value in having an internet search and service stack not under Google's control, and thus are willing to invest in such for strategic reasons. Finally, there are several other minor engines that survived the shakeout, and are barely players. The pattern continues in foreign language search, but because language is one of the few natural boundaries on the Internet, it's not always Google that controls those markets, as was pointed out earlier in the thread.
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
What? No!
Consistency and ease of access? I think this needs a lot more unpacking, but on its face it seems a non sequitur. They are fine principles to which to aspire, to be sure, but irrelevant to natural monopolies - after all the browser, operating system and smart phone markets would all benefit from consistency and ease of access but they are clearly not natural monopolies,
As for the high capital costs, the very definition you offered tells us that it's neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for natural monopolies. It TENDS to be a property but need not be, and saying "the search engine space has a high initial capital investment requirement therefore it is a natural monopoly is affirming the consequent. For a specific refutation I would suggest that international airlines and mining concerns ALSO require a a high initial capital expenditure but do not in any way represent natural monopolies.
As an aside I would dispute that the initial capital expenditure is particularly high for search engines - it's feasible to scan the entire internet from your own home with relatively modest systems and a small handful of broadband connections as HD Moore demonstrated. Of course doing text analysis and scanning is a level of complexity above, but it's capital vs marginal costs aren't as obviously skewed compared to something like building roads.
And that's the main thing - roads ARE natural monopolies. Building a other search engine and setting it free on the Internet has little to no negative effect (especially if we discount the very minor increase in traffic) on the Internet at large, businesses that operate upon it or anything else whether it's used or not. The same cannot be said of having two separate but parallel sets of roads.
A natural monopoly is an actual specific thing, defined as "an industry in which multi-firm production would be more costly than production by a monopoly". Which is different to a non-natural monopoly, wherein competition introduces cost savings. While they share some risks - like exploitation in terms of price - they have unique risks and properties and arise out of totally different circumstances. So, as I said while YOUR POSITION IS NOT ABSURD, it is not a NATURAL monopoly.
I don't see the attraction to defending incorrect definitions and sloppy arguments.
Right, so we've basically boiled down your argument back to only "just don't use the words 'natural monopoly'".
And even then, it's debatable.
It's not debatable. The debate is whether there is a monopoly or near monopoly, not whether it is natural.
I never pegged you for having an anti-intellectual streak. It isn't a natural monopoly, that's not what it is. A natural monopoly is a specific economic and legal term with a specific meaning referring to a particular state of affairs. Saying it is is wrong, using it in your arguments and assertions is wrong - either in fact if you're being sloppy or in character if you're knowingly misrepresenting things knowingly.
Even if you want to charge pedantry and semantics then it's still relevant because as I alluded to AngelHedgie's position is inconsistent.
And I never pegged you for a silly goose, and yet here you are again.
Google clearly has a monopoly on the search engine space. The only question is whether it's a natural monopoly or not, hence why I said that's what's debatable. (technically it's more like arguing whether the search engine market is such that is leads to natural monopolies or something like that) That's all I said and whatever you are going on about here does not make any sense in the context of my reply.
As to whether it's a natural monopoly, that depends on what you think but the argument can be made on the grounds that getting in to the market is incredibly expensive and the nature of how people use search engines these days means people have zero reasons to try different ones out, meaning that the market trends towards one search engine only, with the prize going to whomever reaches critical mass at the right period in history.
And I never pegged you for a silly goose, and yet here you are again.
I don't get this sentence
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited February 2014
Shryke, I think you need take a step back and a deep breath. Your contribution to our exchange has been to be dismiss whether the distinction between a natural monopoly and regular monopoly as trivial - effectively declaring "well, it's a monopoly, who cares whether it's natural or not". My point with regard to anti-intellectualism was with relation to this.
Furthermore you confused "it's not a natural monopoly" with "it's not a monopoly at all" as seen by your post beginning "Your position is prima facie absurd...". You've shifted the focus of your argument a ton of times all the while getting all the more irate it seems. You're correct that I do not believe that Google or the current search engine market represents a monopoly everything about the arguments with regard to natural vs non-natural monopolies have been separate to that. It is perfectly feasible that I am right about the non-natural monopoly but wrong about Google not holding a monopoly.
Furthermore, in keeping with my theme of precision, I would submit that the existence of competitors would suggest that google's position would be that of a near monopoly, which again, is like a monopoly, but isn't exactly one.
Talking about monopolies, has there been any word from the capitol about Comcast? Either the merger or the 'so totally not violating net neutrality' netflix deal
Shryke, I think you need take a step back and a deep breath. Your contribution to our exchange has been to be dismiss whether the distinction between a natural monopoly and regular monopoly as trivial - effectively declaring "well, it's a monopoly, who cares whether it's natural or not". My point with regard to anti-intellectualism was with relation to this.
Furthermore you confused "it's not a natural monopoly" with "it's not a monopoly at all" as seen by your post beginning "Your position is prima facie absurd...". You've shifted the focus of your argument a ton of times all the while getting all the more irate it seems. You're correct that I do not believe that Google or the current search engine market represents a monopoly everything about the arguments with regard to natural vs non-natural monopolies have been separate to that. It is perfectly feasible that I am right about the non-natural monopoly but wrong about Google not holding a monopoly.
Furthermore, in keeping with my theme of precision, I would submit that the existence of competitors would suggest that google's position would be that of a near monopoly, which again, is like a monopoly, but isn't exactly one.
I haven't shifted the argument, since you state again in this post as you did in those before it that you don't even accept the "it's a monopoly" position anyway. So I dealt with that.
The question of Google having a monopoly on the search engine market and whether it's a natural monopoly are, yes, two separate questions. That I dealt with separately in that post. I'm not sure why you act like I didn't. Shall I quote the sentence at the start of the 2nd paragraph where I separate the two for you? It's right there for you to see.
The first question, is as I said, bald-facedly true. Google is synonymous with searching something on the internet. It's what everyone uses. It's a freaking verb. The second question, whether it's natural, is debatable. And I raised several points in favour of the suggestion.
My dismissal of your comments about natural monopolies was that the distinction is irrelevant to the point since whether it's a natural monopoly or not doesn't matter for the issues being raised. The anti-intellectualism charge is still just bullshit attempts at insulting me and you know it since even your explanation here doesn't make the statement make any sense. The point in that first sentence is not "anti-intellectual".
Of course, in the end your point about natural vs normal monopoly is irrelevant even to your argument since you don't believe it's a monopoly anyway. Your other equally pointless distinction about near monopoly is the same since the terms are often synonymous and the results for the market are the same.
So maybe at some point you will actually get around to addressing the actual points raised. Maybe.
Jesus Christ Google is a natural monopoly. A natural monopoly is one in which it occurs without government intervention. Unless there is some law that forces people to use Google it's a fucking natural goddamned monopoly. This isn't hard.
Additionally we can see that the internet and search engines in particular have the requisite properties that we consider for natural monopoly formation in spades these being efficiencies of scale ( both on the utility side and the cost side) which give us no reason to suspect that Google isn't a natural monopoly or would be even if there was some law that forced people to use google (which there is not).
+1
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Before we even get to the question of google I think we really need to nail the definition of natural vs non-natural down.
That's not how anything I have ever read characterises a monopoly. Perhaps I've not reached a sufficiently high thetan level to be given access to the gnostic economic texts but certainly my reading of any definition I've found is the potential for the introduction of inefficiency with competition as being the distinctive factor and a high minimum efficient scale being the other factor - hence why when natural monopolies arise/are found they are regulated rather than broken up or run as public utilities.
The examples given are always roads, pipes, cables - running two sets/networks of roads is bonkers, there's only a finite number of ways you can connect roads with sufficient space for cars, the cost of running new pipes every time someone switches their gas provider would make it impossible to ever recoup the costs etc...
A situation in which a major player in an industry is the only player - buying out/undercutting competitors and driving them all out of the market, unnoticed by government/prior to the anti-monopoly/anti-trust laws of the present day - or occurring via a culmination of other factors (such as a particular synergy of their product with another) - doesn't strike me as fulfilling that definition.
tl;dr - I am not an econodog, nor an econosquiggle (econodong?), but my understanding prior to this discussion of Internet policy and every text/wiki/page/paper I have checked since then characterise a natural monopoly as distinct from a regular monopoly based upon their introduction of inefficiency with competition and high minimum scales of efficiency with no mention made of their arising absent government intervention. In fact it would seem that given the kind of behaviours and monopolies that can occur absent government intervention that are born of anti-competitive behaviour rather than the nature of the world/market that would not ring true as an equivalence.
Maybe this will make sense. Those definitions you're reading are born from the very basic one. Economic thought progresses from a free market to potential monopolies to "how do monopolies form in free markets" with the answer to that question being "how natural monopolies are formed"
In order for a natural monopoly to occur it must be the case that the most efficient outcome is a single firm (if it was not the case competition would drive them out). In order for this to be the case it must be the case that efficiencies of scale are not exhausted. It doesn't matter how those efficiencies of scale are created they or some other mechanism must exist in order for the monopoly to exist. Since we don't have other mechanisms like laws or google goon squads intimidating yahoo out of business we are left with one plausible alternative Note additionally that Google has two methods by which it has unexhausted efficiencies of scale; one in the architecture of the internet and one in network effects.
And if you want to know whether or not Google is large enough to be onside red a monopoly look at whether or not they have advertising market power (answer they have all of the advertising market power)
Now maybe you want to call them a natural monopsony instead but who cares it's the same damned concept.
Providing Google quality Google speed searches has a pretty massive cost associated with it, however the only fixed costs are the costs of indexing. Providing a lower quality of service has a minimal cost
Disk costs are 4c per gb, bandwidth is 3c per GB or $30/tb. 100pb of disk costs $4m and a petabyte of bandwidth costs $30000. Disks last a few years, so $2m per year plus say 10pb/mo for bandwidth plus say 1000 machines at $1000 each is 6.6m plus power and employee costs and then searching costs which scale. Chump change really
The trick is not providing searches cheaply, its providing good searches because the cost to the consumer to make a search is zero so nobody can compete on price
If you're selling steel, paper, or ink, or even the transportation of sealed envelopes containing paper with ink stamped onto it, we can usefully talk about whether your monopoly is natural or not because your production is quantifiable in terms of tonnages of steel or paper or ink or packages, and we can compare your cost of operation as a monopoly against the cost of multiple entities producing the same quantities of stuff or moving the same quantities of stuff. This works just as well for bits so long as we have net neutrality ensuring that the bits are treated equally. A net-neutral ISP can have a natural monopoly, and we can treat them as a utility, and that's really where the discussion ends except for a few wacky holdouts who think we ought to dig the same routes of fiber a dozen times so that the invisible hand can get to work on making that efficient, somehow. A non-neutral ISP operated as a public utility, though? That's a completely different ball game, and actually more analogous to the search engine question.
If web search is a natural monopoly, what about publishing and television? After all, it's cheaper to produce one book a couple of million times and run just one television network. IP is obviously very valuable, but it's basically impossible to quantify productivity. The quantity of news sources might seem counterproductive to one person, overwhelmed by the torrent, even as another person applauds the diversity of content and tone, and neither is objectively wrong. There are fans of Bing - hell, fans of Yahoo and Ask, of all things - and while I think they're wrong I cannot point to a single quantitative assessment that proves this. A less fraught example would be novels; more are published than any person could read, so the "productivity" in a quantifiable metric like word counts or whatever is obviously meaningless. Even if we could clearly establish that publishing or news networks or search engines are truly more efficient as monopolies, somehow, most people would be very hesitant to suggest that they be run as utilities under the regulatory auspices of the government; we get itchy when our governments start to mess with our information for, I think, very good reasons.
But we don't yet get that same itch when Google starts messing around, and perhaps we should. I am personally completely unmoved by the plight of RapGenius, because I think that SEO is one of the worst aspects of an industry (marketing) that is venal at best, but I can't honestly refute AngelHedgie's contention that the total absence of accountability in the act of torpedoing a site is a scary amount of power. It obviously wouldn't be a problem if Google didn't have monopoly or near-monopoly status, but it's frightening where (neutral) Time-Comcast is merely annoying. It's frightening in basically the same way that non-neutral Time-Comcast would be, actually, in a hypothetical situation where your independent news source of choice loads at 56k if it loads at all while the Wall Street Journal blares into being in glorious gigabit. That will probably never happen, of course, but I think something like it might have to before people start to recognize the issue. The US had the USSR as a bogeyman for so many years that we're all fairly well conditioned to suspect government control of information, but we don't have a similarly extreme example with private influence. Hearst, maybe?
Google's mission is to organize all the worlds data.
If Google ran its own wires, does that mean someday, Google could become the internet, and ultimately organize all data? Would this be the climax of Google as a company? Would ISPs shut down for good?
Would this be dystopian?
No. Google doesn't have the worldwide market share to do that. Google doesn't host websites or the majority of pay sites, so they can't "become" the internet. They could become a powerhouse of an ISP, but they will not gain total dominance.
Regulating ISPs as common carriers would prevent even the most minute notion of any ISP in the US discriminating based on websites or domain without facing penalties.
Also, I don't trust the FCC briefs, not only has their new chairman been doing what he can to sabotage the efforts to reign in ISPs but he's being a weasel and saying that he wont regulate them through the regulations already in place that would regulate them in the exact manner he has already tried to. Previous FCC chairmen have already said to just regulate them as common carriers, but Tom Wheeler is waffling like an breakfast restaurant.
What I'm understanding from the admittedly brief information presented in the thread is that Rap Genius was abusing Google, by committing some kind of PageRank shenanigans to boost their results, so Google punished them by manually removing them from the results (presumably after warning them to stop and being ignored?) and once Rap Genius straightened up and flew right they got put back in. Is that about right?
Honestly, that's not evil or scary or anything. In fact it sounds like a pretty fair system to me.
But more importantly in the context of this thread, it's very much different from what Verizon wants to do.
Verizon is not planning to go after sites that exploit some kind of flaw in their network. They are planning to go after all sites for money. They plan on selling preferred traffic treatment to sites that pay them to or earn them money somehow, and curb traffic to sites that don't pay as much. The only "abuse" they are going after is the "abuse" of not giving them enough money.
Verizon is not eliminating Net Neutrality because they want to punish abuse. They want to become the abusers.
Google already does that to a degree with sponsored links. There's also been points raised about them giving their own systems preference in search. So the difference isn't nearly as wide as you think.
As for the infrastructure vs. service argument, I'd say that Google has long since passed from the latter to the former. Network effects point out why the "use another search engine" argument really doesn't work - after all, when it comes to search engines, who's left? At best, you have Bing, which remains viable mainly because Microsoft wants its own network service stack.
The fact is that if Google delists you, you will effectively cease to exist to users. No matter how defensible the Rap Genius decision is, it doesn't change the fact that Google has that power now.
That doesn't make Google no longer a service provider. It makes them a very potent service provider, but not a part of the infrastructure.
The infrastructure is actual infrastructure like server farms, ISPs, cable contractors, ICANN, domain name registries, ect. Those are groups that make up the internet infrastructure.
When Google gets into the ISP business it will make their ISP part of the infrastructure. It will not make Google search part of the infrastructure.
You're using a term that has real world meaning to mean something that's "very important", but that isn't what it means.
WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission will propose new rules that allow Internet service providers to offer a faster lane through which to send video and other content to consumers, as long as a content company is willing to pay for it, according to people briefed on the proposals.
The proposed rules are a complete turnaround for the F.C.C. on the subject of so-called net neutrality, the principle that Internet users should have equal ability to see any content they choose, and that no content providers should be discriminated against in providing their offerings to consumers.
The F.C.C.'s previous rules governing net neutrality were thrown out by a federal appeals court this year. The court said those rules had essentially treated Internet service providers as public utilities, which violated a previous F.C.C. ruling that Internet links were not to be governed by the same strict regulation as telephone or electric service.
The new rules, according to the people briefed on them, will allow a company like Comcast or Verizon to negotiate separately with each content company – like Netflix, Amazon, Disney or Google – and charge different companies different amounts for priority service.
That, of course, could increase costs for content companies, which would then have an incentive to pass on those costs to consumers as part of their subscription prices.
Proponents of net neutrality have feared that such a framework would empower large, wealthy companies and prevent small start-ups, which might otherwise be the next Twitter or Facebook, for example, from gaining any traction in the market.
The F.C.C. plans were first reported online Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal.
The new proposals, drafted by the F.C.C.'s chairman, Tom Wheeler, and his staff, will be circulated to the other four commissioners beginning Thursday, an F.C.C. spokeswoman said. The details can be amended by consensus in order to attract support from a majority of the commissioners. The commission will then vote on a final proposal at its May 15 meeting.
Posts
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
The biggest is full transparency in their delisting rulings, as well as establishing a level of due process in them. Ideally, I would like it if Google had to go through an adversarial system, where they have to present their case for delisting to an impartial magistrate.
In addition, the lines for delisting need to be drawn clearly.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Oh, it exists.
It's just almost all porn and links to bullshit from a decade back that's utterly unrelated to what you were looking for.
The "within the last *time frame*" feature is the best thing.
The search engine space is not one which provides a natural monopoly - certainly you know this, given all of your arguments have revolved around comparison to other situations in which there was no natural monopoly (such as the Internet explorer/Netscape issue from years past) regardless of whether there was (in effect) a monopoly of any kind.
I can easily see why something like roads, power lines or water distribution are natural monopolies, I can't see how that maps even remotely to the search engine space.
Because you are so focused on your personal tree that you don't see the forest. Just because you can switch if you feel that a search engine no longer provides accurate search results doesn't mean that the search engine no longer possesses the ability to reshape the internet. If Google elevates your PageRank, you will become more visible on a global level. Conversely, lowered PageRank will lower your profile among all users.
That may or may not be true, but a natural monopoly that does not make. I don't think we disagree on those facts, or indeed most of the facts about this issue. My point is/was simply that any monopoly google might have it is not obviously a natural monopoly.
Originally I thought it self evident that it simply was not a natural monopoly but upon reconsideration there might be just such an argument that can be made on the basis of relevance - there might be a single best algorithm in terms of providing people with the information they want and so an argument could be made that a natural monopoly is in effect in the instance that it is discovered. But A. that seems exceedingly unlikely, given the nature of the information landscape there's likely many peaks in terms of both results and engines and B. It would utterly undermine the rest of your argument if that were true.
Once again, "the internet trends towards monopoly." What this means is that the usual barriers that impede the development of a single incumbent don't really exist online - if a search engine can become predominant, it becomes difficult to push it out of that position. While it's not what you would consider a "traditional" natural monopoly, it functions much like one. When it comes to English language search, Google is, effectively, search.
I think we have a name for that, a monopoly.
Of course, we are at worst dealing with a near monopoly, not an actual monopoly in the case of google even if we grant the most dire interpretations of the facts.
And secondly, it doesn't actually function like a natural monopoly in that a natural monopoly has a number of unique properties with regard to market inefficiency brought about by adding additional players which don't clearly apply.
Furthermore, "the Internet trends toward monopoly" is an assertion no more useful to the discussion than "the Internet considers censorship damage and routes around it" is an explanation of network and routing policy. In fact, one of the touted strengths of the Internet is that the barrier to entry is so low in any data related market (comparatively speaking) that it is constantly disruptive. Your assertion is ...idiosyncratic at best.
So really [citation needed]
You can't? Have you looked at the search engine market?
Hell, I would say it tends towards natural monopoly based on the lack of any reason to shop around.
Whether it's natural or not seems wholly irrelevant to the point anyway.
Yes, I have looked at the search engine market and it looks nothing like a natural monopoly even if the argument that it is approaching a near monopoly is not, on it's face, absurd. A lack of reason to shop around does not a monopoly nor natural monopoly make.
It's relevant whether it is or isn't a natural monopoly or regular monopoly or near monopoly because there's virtue in being accurate in and of itself. And secondly, the primary proponent of regulating google "like any natural monopoly" began their contributions to the thread decrying sloppily or inconsistently applied legislation. So, if it isn't actually a natural monopoly then treating it as such would be sloppily or inconsistently applied legislation and thus...
No, your position is prima facie absurb. Google reigns over the search engine "market" as a megalithic titan with no challengers. It's a monopoly.
And the lack of reason to shop around does create a monopoly (or at least form a key component of it). It's how Google has one. Google is ubiquitous because there's no reason to ever use another search engine. There is no situation where you Google something and then think "I should Bing the same thing".
It's basically the answer to "Why doesn't anyone use Bing?". "Because I've already got Google and who needs another search engine?".
Except the "natural" part of the phrase "natural monopoly" is irrelevant to the argument since it doesn't effect the arguments being made or the evidence supporting them.
I don't see the attraction to defending incorrect definitions and sloppy arguments.
From the website's point of view, it could be considered a monopoly since it is the primary source of pageviews, though that's a little weird since the firms are supply constrained in how many pageviews they can "sell" and really google is providing pageviews based on the quality of the site, so it's more like a monopsony where google chooses to buy from only a subset of sites depending on the search (ie, the first page).
Right, so we've basically boiled down your argument back to only "just don't use the words 'natural monopoly'".
And even then, it's debatable.
I think it's simpler to view Google as the primary service that connects users with providers on the internet. Google is how buyers of web content and sellers of web content get together. I want, you have, Google connects us.
It's not debatable. The debate is whether there is a monopoly or near monopoly, not whether it is natural.
I never pegged you for having an anti-intellectual streak. It isn't a natural monopoly, that's not what it is. A natural monopoly is a specific economic and legal term with a specific meaning referring to a particular state of affairs. Saying it is is wrong, using it in your arguments and assertions is wrong - either in fact if you're being sloppy or in character if you're knowingly misrepresenting things knowingly.
Even if you want to charge pedantry and semantics then it's still relevant because as I alluded to AngelHedgie's position is inconsistent.
Maybe, but that obfuscates the fact that there are huge numbers of sellers, all the buyers want to buy from the same small subset and they very often don't know which one they want to buy from, or even what the options are. In this model each unique search is its own "market." Google's job is to decide which set of sellers is most likely to result in a "buy" from the buyer, for which they necessarily use an automated process due to scale, with manual tweaking when the automated process fails to produce the desired outcome, like when the automation is specifically exploited.
So, let's look at the definition of a natural monopoly:
So, is this applicable to Internet search? Yes, actually. For a number of reasons such as consistency and ease of access, the search market is served best by having a single common provider for search, which acts as the standard. Capital costs in search are actually quite high - to make a search engine that is reliable and can reach the scale needed, significant outlays in server space and bandwidth are necessary.
Looking at the market bears this out - in English language search, the predominant search engine is Google, which won the industry shakeout by having the strongest search and access combination. In a distant second is Bing, which exists mainly because Microsoft and other companies see value in having an internet search and service stack not under Google's control, and thus are willing to invest in such for strategic reasons. Finally, there are several other minor engines that survived the shakeout, and are barely players. The pattern continues in foreign language search, but because language is one of the few natural boundaries on the Internet, it's not always Google that controls those markets, as was pointed out earlier in the thread.
So, let's look at the definition of a natural monopoly:
So, is this applicable to Internet search? Yes, actually. For a number of reasons such as consistency and ease of access, the search market is served best by having a single common provider for search, which acts as the standard. Capital costs in search are actually quite high - to make a search engine that is reliable and can reach the scale needed, significant outlays in server space and bandwidth are necessary.
Looking at the market bears this out - in English language search, the predominant search engine is Google, which won the industry shakeout by having the strongest search and access combination. In a distant second is Bing, which exists mainly because Microsoft and other companies see value in having an internet search and service stack not under Google's control, and thus are willing to invest in such for strategic reasons. Finally, there are several other minor engines that survived the shakeout, and are barely players. The pattern continues in foreign language search, but because language is one of the few natural boundaries on the Internet, it's not always Google that controls those markets, as was pointed out earlier in the thread.
Consistency and ease of access? I think this needs a lot more unpacking, but on its face it seems a non sequitur. They are fine principles to which to aspire, to be sure, but irrelevant to natural monopolies - after all the browser, operating system and smart phone markets would all benefit from consistency and ease of access but they are clearly not natural monopolies,
As for the high capital costs, the very definition you offered tells us that it's neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for natural monopolies. It TENDS to be a property but need not be, and saying "the search engine space has a high initial capital investment requirement therefore it is a natural monopoly is affirming the consequent. For a specific refutation I would suggest that international airlines and mining concerns ALSO require a a high initial capital expenditure but do not in any way represent natural monopolies.
As an aside I would dispute that the initial capital expenditure is particularly high for search engines - it's feasible to scan the entire internet from your own home with relatively modest systems and a small handful of broadband connections as HD Moore demonstrated. Of course doing text analysis and scanning is a level of complexity above, but it's capital vs marginal costs aren't as obviously skewed compared to something like building roads.
And that's the main thing - roads ARE natural monopolies. Building a other search engine and setting it free on the Internet has little to no negative effect (especially if we discount the very minor increase in traffic) on the Internet at large, businesses that operate upon it or anything else whether it's used or not. The same cannot be said of having two separate but parallel sets of roads.
And I never pegged you for a silly goose, and yet here you are again.
Google clearly has a monopoly on the search engine space. The only question is whether it's a natural monopoly or not, hence why I said that's what's debatable. (technically it's more like arguing whether the search engine market is such that is leads to natural monopolies or something like that) That's all I said and whatever you are going on about here does not make any sense in the context of my reply.
As to whether it's a natural monopoly, that depends on what you think but the argument can be made on the grounds that getting in to the market is incredibly expensive and the nature of how people use search engines these days means people have zero reasons to try different ones out, meaning that the market trends towards one search engine only, with the prize going to whomever reaches critical mass at the right period in history.
I don't get this sentence
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Furthermore you confused "it's not a natural monopoly" with "it's not a monopoly at all" as seen by your post beginning "Your position is prima facie absurd...". You've shifted the focus of your argument a ton of times all the while getting all the more irate it seems. You're correct that I do not believe that Google or the current search engine market represents a monopoly everything about the arguments with regard to natural vs non-natural monopolies have been separate to that. It is perfectly feasible that I am right about the non-natural monopoly but wrong about Google not holding a monopoly.
Furthermore, in keeping with my theme of precision, I would submit that the existence of competitors would suggest that google's position would be that of a near monopoly, which again, is like a monopoly, but isn't exactly one.
I haven't shifted the argument, since you state again in this post as you did in those before it that you don't even accept the "it's a monopoly" position anyway. So I dealt with that.
The question of Google having a monopoly on the search engine market and whether it's a natural monopoly are, yes, two separate questions. That I dealt with separately in that post. I'm not sure why you act like I didn't. Shall I quote the sentence at the start of the 2nd paragraph where I separate the two for you? It's right there for you to see.
The first question, is as I said, bald-facedly true. Google is synonymous with searching something on the internet. It's what everyone uses. It's a freaking verb. The second question, whether it's natural, is debatable. And I raised several points in favour of the suggestion.
My dismissal of your comments about natural monopolies was that the distinction is irrelevant to the point since whether it's a natural monopoly or not doesn't matter for the issues being raised. The anti-intellectualism charge is still just bullshit attempts at insulting me and you know it since even your explanation here doesn't make the statement make any sense. The point in that first sentence is not "anti-intellectual".
Of course, in the end your point about natural vs normal monopoly is irrelevant even to your argument since you don't believe it's a monopoly anyway. Your other equally pointless distinction about near monopoly is the same since the terms are often synonymous and the results for the market are the same.
So maybe at some point you will actually get around to addressing the actual points raised. Maybe.
@apotheosis
Jesus Christ Google is a natural monopoly. A natural monopoly is one in which it occurs without government intervention. Unless there is some law that forces people to use Google it's a fucking natural goddamned monopoly. This isn't hard.
Additionally we can see that the internet and search engines in particular have the requisite properties that we consider for natural monopoly formation in spades these being efficiencies of scale ( both on the utility side and the cost side) which give us no reason to suspect that Google isn't a natural monopoly or would be even if there was some law that forced people to use google (which there is not).
That's not how anything I have ever read characterises a monopoly. Perhaps I've not reached a sufficiently high thetan level to be given access to the gnostic economic texts but certainly my reading of any definition I've found is the potential for the introduction of inefficiency with competition as being the distinctive factor and a high minimum efficient scale being the other factor - hence why when natural monopolies arise/are found they are regulated rather than broken up or run as public utilities.
The examples given are always roads, pipes, cables - running two sets/networks of roads is bonkers, there's only a finite number of ways you can connect roads with sufficient space for cars, the cost of running new pipes every time someone switches their gas provider would make it impossible to ever recoup the costs etc...
A situation in which a major player in an industry is the only player - buying out/undercutting competitors and driving them all out of the market, unnoticed by government/prior to the anti-monopoly/anti-trust laws of the present day - or occurring via a culmination of other factors (such as a particular synergy of their product with another) - doesn't strike me as fulfilling that definition.
tl;dr - I am not an econodog, nor an econosquiggle (econodong?), but my understanding prior to this discussion of Internet policy and every text/wiki/page/paper I have checked since then characterise a natural monopoly as distinct from a regular monopoly based upon their introduction of inefficiency with competition and high minimum scales of efficiency with no mention made of their arising absent government intervention. In fact it would seem that given the kind of behaviours and monopolies that can occur absent government intervention that are born of anti-competitive behaviour rather than the nature of the world/market that would not ring true as an equivalence.
In order for a natural monopoly to occur it must be the case that the most efficient outcome is a single firm (if it was not the case competition would drive them out). In order for this to be the case it must be the case that efficiencies of scale are not exhausted. It doesn't matter how those efficiencies of scale are created they or some other mechanism must exist in order for the monopoly to exist. Since we don't have other mechanisms like laws or google goon squads intimidating yahoo out of business we are left with one plausible alternative Note additionally that Google has two methods by which it has unexhausted efficiencies of scale; one in the architecture of the internet and one in network effects.
And if you want to know whether or not Google is large enough to be onside red a monopoly look at whether or not they have advertising market power (answer they have all of the advertising market power)
Now maybe you want to call them a natural monopsony instead but who cares it's the same damned concept.
A: they go up because the competing search engine needs entirely separate infrastructure and cannot provide searches as cheap per unit as Google can.
Disk costs are 4c per gb, bandwidth is 3c per GB or $30/tb. 100pb of disk costs $4m and a petabyte of bandwidth costs $30000. Disks last a few years, so $2m per year plus say 10pb/mo for bandwidth plus say 1000 machines at $1000 each is 6.6m plus power and employee costs and then searching costs which scale. Chump change really
The trick is not providing searches cheaply, its providing good searches because the cost to the consumer to make a search is zero so nobody can compete on price
If web search is a natural monopoly, what about publishing and television? After all, it's cheaper to produce one book a couple of million times and run just one television network. IP is obviously very valuable, but it's basically impossible to quantify productivity. The quantity of news sources might seem counterproductive to one person, overwhelmed by the torrent, even as another person applauds the diversity of content and tone, and neither is objectively wrong. There are fans of Bing - hell, fans of Yahoo and Ask, of all things - and while I think they're wrong I cannot point to a single quantitative assessment that proves this. A less fraught example would be novels; more are published than any person could read, so the "productivity" in a quantifiable metric like word counts or whatever is obviously meaningless. Even if we could clearly establish that publishing or news networks or search engines are truly more efficient as monopolies, somehow, most people would be very hesitant to suggest that they be run as utilities under the regulatory auspices of the government; we get itchy when our governments start to mess with our information for, I think, very good reasons.
But we don't yet get that same itch when Google starts messing around, and perhaps we should. I am personally completely unmoved by the plight of RapGenius, because I think that SEO is one of the worst aspects of an industry (marketing) that is venal at best, but I can't honestly refute AngelHedgie's contention that the total absence of accountability in the act of torpedoing a site is a scary amount of power. It obviously wouldn't be a problem if Google didn't have monopoly or near-monopoly status, but it's frightening where (neutral) Time-Comcast is merely annoying. It's frightening in basically the same way that non-neutral Time-Comcast would be, actually, in a hypothetical situation where your independent news source of choice loads at 56k if it loads at all while the Wall Street Journal blares into being in glorious gigabit. That will probably never happen, of course, but I think something like it might have to before people start to recognize the issue. The US had the USSR as a bogeyman for so many years that we're all fairly well conditioned to suspect government control of information, but we don't have a similarly extreme example with private influence. Hearst, maybe?
No. Google doesn't have the worldwide market share to do that. Google doesn't host websites or the majority of pay sites, so they can't "become" the internet. They could become a powerhouse of an ISP, but they will not gain total dominance.
Regulating ISPs as common carriers would prevent even the most minute notion of any ISP in the US discriminating based on websites or domain without facing penalties.
Also, I don't trust the FCC briefs, not only has their new chairman been doing what he can to sabotage the efforts to reign in ISPs but he's being a weasel and saying that he wont regulate them through the regulations already in place that would regulate them in the exact manner he has already tried to. Previous FCC chairmen have already said to just regulate them as common carriers, but Tom Wheeler is waffling like an breakfast restaurant.
That doesn't make Google no longer a service provider. It makes them a very potent service provider, but not a part of the infrastructure.
The infrastructure is actual infrastructure like server farms, ISPs, cable contractors, ICANN, domain name registries, ect. Those are groups that make up the internet infrastructure.
When Google gets into the ISP business it will make their ISP part of the infrastructure. It will not make Google search part of the infrastructure.
You're using a term that has real world meaning to mean something that's "very important", but that isn't what it means.