I don't really know what headspace I should be in when I open these articles. I generally want to understand the underlying motivations of the publishers. How are y'all feeling?
Let's not limit it to antitrust issues since it's usually been about privacy, free speech, the rest
I don't trust them to report on tech companies objectively one bit. And why should I? They have a vested interest in presenting negative coverage.
[0]: https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/09/media/house-of-representative...
Similar to the exception that already exists for unions.
Read all the threads on HN about the Boeing 737 MAX, many from the same publications writing about Big Tech like the NYT, you never see any commentary about the publications and their motives like you do in the Big Tech threads.
The Occam razor's explanation for the difference is that the reaction to critical coverage when it's about your industry will be different in a predictable way.
NYT, WaPo, WSJ have all done fine while other publications that were founded on the premise of social traffic have gone out of business.
They're destination sites and brands in and of themselves, they don't rely on third party referral traffic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/09/business/media/google-new...
More that the press does narratives, which are often the creation of, or strongly influenced by, long-term PR campaigns.
My very fuzzy understanding is, atleast after the Microsoft-Google nonaggression pact some years ago, the largest interest pushing the anti-BigTech narrative has been Hollywood, wishing to regulate the lawless internet and reduce tech industry influence.
One thing that's puzzled me, and I'd appreciate any insight, is how Microsoft got dropped from the Big Tech set.
Interesting, though, how their compliance with censoring and filtering etc in China for years barely register compared to the outrage Google gets for even preparing for it.
And thinking about it, Microsoft IS big in social with acquisitions like LinkedIn, Skype and GitHub. But no one's getting concerned or outraged on those accounts. After being the nemesis for so long, I think they have learned to play this game very well this time around.
Oracle is unpopular, so let's add the noodle shop to compensate. You won't like EU fines, so we say that USA should fine before. Epic photo of the noodles guy. Very nice photo of Yelp people, who wouldn't like to work there?
To be honest, I believe that Google and friends are very dangerous right now. But with all HN limitations, any discussions here is light years deeper than this fluff.