We don't need an anti trust breakup of big tech. Their own decisions are causing them to lose customers.
I'm doing the unthinkable, I cut half my Google usage. No more music, no more photos, no more Android Chrome, significantly less Google search.
It's happening, although I feel like anti-consumer practices hurts Google more than Apple. Maybe my original claim about not needing anti trust is a bit simple.
> We don't need an anti trust breakup of big tech.
This is a really bad take. The amount of Google's power and control isn't something a handful of HN users switching to Firefox can fix. Most people literally don't realize there's alternatives. There's a silent majority feeding the Google beast, and they aren't going to switch from the defaults. Tech industry members can set the tone, we can spread good behavior to our friends and family, but the government is needed to move the majority.
Bear in mind, everyone hates Microsoft (seems like sometimes anyways), they did face antitrust law, and still in 2020, they're one of the world's most powerful and valuable companies, and everyone still uses Windows at work. Which is to say, if we want to take Google down, it needs to come from every direction, and it needs to be incredibly harsh. And once Google is no longer running the web, stronger privacy and consumer protection laws need to be passed to make sure it's understood that behavior like Google's will never be tolerated again.
As I remember it, a major reason why Chrome became so dominant is that the tech community fell in love with it and recommended it unreservedly to everyone else.
I think we give ourselves more credit than it's due. Average users get Chrome shoved down their throats. Plenty of users are happy to use Edge or even IE until they update Adobe Reader and find Chrome is now their default browser.
Or how when I signed into a Google account once for five minutes on my iPhone in a private Safari window and immediately got an email from Google inviting me to set up Chrome on my new iPhone...
Kindasorta. Chrome on iOS is using Safari's rendering engine, yes. But it's still collecting data on you to send to your Google account, just like Chrome proper.
That, and the fact that Google would get it bundled along with stuff like Adobe Flash and AVG Antivirus, so that it would be installed and set as your default browser if you weren't paying attention.
I'm doing the unthinkable, I cut half my Google usage. No more music, no more photos, no more Android Chrome, significantly less Google search.
It's happening, although I feel like anti-consumer practices hurts Google more than Apple. Maybe my original claim about not needing anti trust is a bit simple.