You can, using just your skills and barely any money, compete with google and facebook this afternoon! (google and amazon will even give you a month to try for free) Your chances at winning are pretty low, but eventually someone will do it.
This has the effect of essentially creating a huge barrier to entry.
That's a 'lottery', not a 'barrier-lowering device'.
Please stop spreading this misleading idea.
Sure, not everything is that easy, but an open internet does allow for a massive leg up that many other industries could only dream of.
Imagine being able to take on Honda's lawnmower division competitively with less than $100 and a few months!
I should know - I am one of those corpses :-)
If not net neutrality helped you.
That's the misleading example I wish people to stop using.
It's certainly true that the barrier to entry for new products is lower because of net neutrality.
No, but as soon as Google starts abusing their monopoly status by turning into something reminiscent of Alta Vista, a new search engine will sprout up.
Google itself grew like wildfire in the late 90s not only because it offered superior search results, but because of the massive global reach it had, thanks to net neutrality! If the net wasn't neutral back then, AOL search would still rule the net.
You are right that net neutrality enabled Google's growth, but the barriers to a Google competitor are different now, and far more difficult to overcome than what Google faced.
Google is not trusted, but people use it because there is no alternative and the barriers to an alternative being built are monumental.
https://www.cnet.com/news/people-trust-nsa-more-than-google-...
The biggest challenge in replacing google would be getting the advertisers. Especially because at the start, your low userbase makes targeted adds much harder to pull off.
The fact that hasn't happened proves you are wrong.
Also nobody forces me or you to use google. It is a free choice, if a better search engine comes up we can use it and nobody forbids you to use other search engine or any site.
With net neutrality you are free. Without net neutrality you are bound to the services of the friends of the ISP. You have cable tv 2.0
no more freedom
However a better search engine cannot 'just come up', because Google is the result of billions of dollars of investment over more than 2 decades using data that is not publicly available.
Stop pretending otherwise.
1. Conglomo with 2 decades of competitive advantage
2. Conglomo with 2 decades of competitive advantage and the ability to pay ISPs for preferential treatment?
I am simply asking people to stop claiming that Google can be easily competed against with minimal resources if you are just clever. It's simply false.
Competing against google is a red herring when it comes to net neutrality.
Net neutrality hurts new products that don't compete against Google. It is barely relevant to competing against Google because the other barriers are so high.