The AI dooooooom thread

[Admiral Yi]

Vertical integration is where the same company owns multiple steps of the supply chain.
A company which owns the farm, the factory, and the supermarket.
In Googles case they own absolutely everything around advertising. Buyer software, seller, exchange.... It's all Google.
Breaking them up could mean focusing on this behind the scenes bit.
But even breaking up the public facing parts of the business would weaken their hold on the advertising market. At the the least takes some seller space away from them, but also weakens the amount of data they have to offer in the buyer tools.

I don't know what "breaking them up could mean focusing on this behind the scenes bit"  means.

Why do you want to weaken their hold on the advertising market?  They're a near monopoly in search, not in advertising.

[Josquius]

Vertical integration is where the same company owns multiple steps of the supply chain.
A company which owns the farm, the factory, and the supermarket.
In Googles case they own absolutely everything around advertising. Buyer software, seller, exchange.... It's all Google.
Breaking them up could mean focusing on this behind the scenes bit.
But even breaking up the public facing parts of the business would weaken their hold on the advertising market. At the the least takes some seller space away from them, but also weakens the amount of data they have to offer in the buyer tools.

I don't know what "breaking them up could mean focusing on this behind the scenes bit"  means.

Why do you want to weaken their hold on the advertising market?  They're a near monopoly in search, not in advertising.

Come on. That's playing too dumb. You don't know what I mean by behind the scenes when I specifically mention it in a paragraph about advertising?

They absolutely do have a monopoly in parts of advertising on a par with their search dominance. Something like 90% of ads flow through their server.

[Admiral Yi]

Come on. That's playing too dumb. You don't know what I mean by behind the scenes when I specifically mention it in a paragraph about advertising?

They absolutely do have a monopoly in parts of advertising on a par with their search dominance. Something like 90% of ads flow through their server.

I can infer that behind the scenes means all the activities Google engages in apart from the directly consumer facing aspects.  I don't understand focus.  Who is supposed to focus?  What will their focus result in?  I don't understand the relationship between focus and breaking up the company.  Will more attention be paid to their back room shenanigans once they are broken up?  Will breaking them up make it harder to hide their back room shenanigans?

Google has a monopoly on advertising on their site to the exact same extent the owner of a single billboard does.

[crazy canuck]

Vertical integration is where the same company owns multiple steps of the supply chain.
A company which owns the farm, the factory, and the supermarket.
In Googles case they own absolutely everything around advertising. Buyer software, seller, exchange.... It's all Google.
Breaking them up could mean focusing on this behind the scenes bit.
But even breaking up the public facing parts of the business would weaken their hold on the advertising market. At the the least takes some seller space away from them, but also weakens the amount of data they have to offer in the buyer tools.

I don't know what "breaking them up could mean focusing on this behind the scenes bit"  means.

Why do you want to weaken their hold on the advertising market?  They're a near monopoly in search, not in advertising.

The early 2000s are calling and they want their understanding of how google works back.

[Josquius]

Come on. That's playing too dumb. You don't know what I mean by behind the scenes when I specifically mention it in a paragraph about advertising?

They absolutely do have a monopoly in parts of advertising on a par with their search dominance. Something like 90% of ads flow through their server.

I can infer that behind the scenes means all the activities Google engages in apart from the directly consumer facing aspects.  I don't understand focus.  Who is supposed to focus?  What will their focus result in?  I don't understand the relationship between focus and breaking up the company.  Will more attention be paid to their back room shenanigans once they are broken up?  Will breaking them up make it harder to hide their back room shenanigans?

I don't know what you mean. I never mentioned the word focus.
 I think I've been pretty clear what the issue is.

Google has a monopoly on advertising on their site to the exact same extent the owner of a single billboard does.

In this analogy Google is the owner of a huge chunk of the billboards in the world, owns the poster printing machine and all the guys who put the posters up work for them.... And it has detailed information about the people who will see all the billboards, even the ones they don't own.

[Admiral Yi]

Seven posts up, fourth line down, fifth word.

If you've been clear what the issue is, the answers to my questions should be simple.

Google is the owner of a small fraction of the billboards in the world, owns a small fraction of the printing machines, and employs a small fraction of the guys who put the posters up.

Googled it and turns out the own 29.7% of the *digital* ad market, which is not the total ad market.

[HVC]

Don't know what any of this means but this is the reply I got when I searched

Google's control over the digital ad ecosystem
Ad exchange: Approximately 50% of the market share.
Publisher ad server: Approximately 90% of the market share.
Buy-side market: Approximately 40-80% of the market share.

*edit* unvetted AI reply, FYI.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.marketingcharts.com/charts/us-digital-ad-spend-share-google-vs-meta-vs-amazon

My source.

[Tonitrus]

I asked Google AI if Google is a monopoly.

It said "yes".

[Josquius]

Seven posts up, fourth line down, fifth word.

If you've been clear what the issue is, the answers to my questions should be simple.

Google is the owner of a small fraction of the billboards in the world, owns a small fraction of the printing machines, and employs a small fraction of the guys who put the posters up.

Googled it and turns out the own 29.7% of the *digital* ad market, which is not the total ad market.

Ah you meant focusing on the ad part directly vs focusing on the front end services.
It's breaking up the front end that usually gets the attention but it is the back end that is absolutely the problem.
 It is heavily reliant on the front end however so say forcing Google to sell youtube for example would damage the actual ad monopoly.

HVCs figures sound like what I've seen for what Google actually owns.
The actual ads on Google, on the space that it owns directly, is only a small part of its operations and alone wouldn't be an issue.

[The Minsky Moment]

The Sherman and Clayton antitrust statutes are over 100 years old.  The dominant legal paradigm for interpreting and applying those laws draws upon the work of Robert Bork in the Antitrust Paradox, a book published in 1978.  I.e. they are 50+ year old ideas at this point. Antitrust theory is still based on a late industrial economy, at a time when the leading companies were Exxon, GM, and US Steel and where "technology" meant IBM mainframes and long-distance hardline phone service.

The common law recognized the doctrine of "unconscionability": basically courts would police private contract for substantive fairness.  Those doctrines still have a vestigial existence but have been whittled done to almost nothing over the decades. The common law required that private contract involve true "meeting of the minds."  But when software companies sought to enforce "clickwrap" contracts, the courts and legislatures obliged. Now we accept the daily reality of a world where our participation in virtually every aspect of commercial and civil life is conditioned on clicking "I accept" to a vast array of complex terms that no one could or does read.  Our rush to encourage technological development has upended the basic assumptions underlying market capitalism.

The common law did not recognize the corporation.  A proprietor was personally liable for business obligations, as were the partners of a partnership. A corporate charter was a state privilege, given on conditions that it apply to a strictly delimited set of activities, and accompanied by obligations to maintain minimum levels of capital.  That is long gone; private capital easily led the states into a regulatory race to the bottom, where we have remained ever since. Now corporations are clothed with all incidents of personhood and the full panoply of constitutional rights, with no obligations other than the grudging limitation to not commit outright fraud. Except now even that is no longer strictly enforced, at least for the "right" people.

We do not live in the late 19th century world in which the antitrust laws were originally drafted, nor the mid-20th century world when they finally enjoyed meaningful application, nor even the late 20th century world that formed how we understand and apply those laws today.  We live in a very different early 21st century world where the organization and application of commercial power is fundamentally different.  But power is what the antitrust laws were about.  They were born in the last gilded age, out of concern over the gross mismatch between corporate power and citizen power. That same problem exists today, but in a different technological and organizational context. The paradigm of Bork's "Paradox" no longer applies and a new one is required that focuses on the realities of corporate power in the 21st century.

[Admiral Yi]

Ah you meant focusing on the ad part directly vs focusing on the front end services.
It's breaking up the front end that usually gets the attention but it is the back end that is absolutely the problem.
 It is heavily reliant on the front end however so say forcing Google to sell youtube for example would damage the actual ad monopoly.

HVCs figures sound like what I've seen for what Google actually owns.
The actual ads on Google, on the space that it owns directly, is only a small part of its operations and alone wouldn't be an issue.

I didn't mean anything by focus.  I was asking you what you meant.

I'm starting to get the impression that y'all are talking about the stuff in Hillary's link when you talk about "monopoly in advertising."  Am I right?  Ad exchange and publisher ad server (whatever that means).