It's odd to see so many comments siding with Google on this one considering HN historically celebrates small startups "disrupting" existing markets and sides against big monopolists and Google especially.
I wonder if this is a consequence of early-stage underdog startups having grown to significant sizes over time (or being bought out by the more established competitors) and loyalties continuing to align with those companies rather than their original positions.
Maybe the US's political polarization of the discourse around regulating "big tech" (with the anti-regulation Republicans insisting on tight regulations and the "pro-regulation" Democrats siding against it in response) is also having an effect.
I don't know when I last saw so many people implicitly arguing Google is not acting anti-competitively or that antitrust laws are just a pesky legal technicality that is moral and just to guard against by shaping your company's internal communication about your market dominance.
I wonder if this is a consequence of early-stage underdog startups having grown to significant sizes over time (or being bought out by the more established competitors) and loyalties continuing to align with those companies rather than their original positions.
Maybe the US's political polarization of the discourse around regulating "big tech" (with the anti-regulation Republicans insisting on tight regulations and the "pro-regulation" Democrats siding against it in response) is also having an effect.
I don't know when I last saw so many people implicitly arguing Google is not acting anti-competitively or that antitrust laws are just a pesky legal technicality that is moral and just to guard against by shaping your company's internal communication about your market dominance.