On Monday, August 5th, US Federal Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google is a monopoly. Shocker, I know. This may seem like another case of “boomer politicians just don’t get it”, but it’s actually a pretty big deal.
To be precise, Google’s search business was ruled to be a monopoly. An illegal one at that. And this ruling wasn’t reached by looking at the well-known market share numbers, no. Instead, it was two key pieces of evidence that damned Google.
Evidence of anti-trust
First, Google has been paying its competitors billions to prioritize Google’s search. That’s Apple, Samsung, and even Firefox. Not only that, but it even has a non-compete clause with some of them. Google is essentially bribing their competitors not to develop a competing search engine.
Second, and perhaps more chilling, are Google’s internal studies. The “quality degradation experiments.” In a series of experiments, Google intentionally worsened search quality without losing users. And, as a result, proceeded to worsen it. Because why not?
“When Google creates significant reductions in search engine quality, substitution to other alternatives is limited.”
As depressing as that is, it lines up with anecdotes of Google’s search indeed getting worse with time. This is often attributed to AI and SEO hell. It must be the case that this is happening despite Google’s best efforts, not because of them. Why would a company ever degrade its product on purpose?
The knee-jerk reaction to this news is anger. The hubris of it! Being so aware of their dominant market position and using it to make their product worse?! In fairness, they’re intentionally worsening their search. Rather, these studies determine how much freedom they have to experiment with moonshots. AI being the popular one right now.
It pays to be king
Like it or not, this risk-tolerant behavior is what made Google what it is today. Like YouTube, that hemorrhaged money for over a decade before becoming sustainable. Or how Google Fiber made 1Gig networking popular and affordable, despite the financial and legal costs of going against ISPs.
Without Google’s monopoly-fueled confidence, we the consumers would have been worse off. We wouldn’t have many innovative (and free*) products we rely on everyday. Google tapped into something very human, which is our need for convenience. That’s how they disrupted the once-dominant Microsoft Office with their free, cloud-based solution. It’s why we have Android, Chromebooks, and so on.
Only a monopoly would have mapped the world using satellites and camera-equipped cars.
Another sobering fact that came to light in the recent court case is Google’s payoffs to Firefox. These payments make up 86% of Firefox‘s revenue. It’s ironic that Google is single-handedly maintaining its biggest competitor. Without Google, Firefox can’t survive.
Does Google offer the best cloud storage service? It doesn’t matter, because you get it for free with your Gmail account. Which also gives you YouTube. Do they offer the best photo backup service? It doesn’t matter, because it’s free. Do they offer the best office suite? It doesn’t matter, because it’s free and you don’t have to install anything. This is how Google became a monopoly. They recognized early on the human need for convenience, and weaponized it to the fullest. If you think Apple has you locked in, wait till you try to DeGoogle your life.
Where do we go from here?
Readers of my blog know my stance on Google. A huge portion of my content is helping people get rid of it in favor of more privacy-friendly options. So it wouldn’t make sense for me to defend its anti-competitive behavior. With that said, it is a fact that we, the consumers, benefited from it. Unintuitive as it may be. Like the example of Netflix we covered previously, monopolies aren’t always bad. Google is a good monopoly. And we shouldn’t be so hasty to break it up without considering the consequences. Rather than demonize Google, we should use laws to guide it in pro-consumer directions.