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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised I haven't seen much in the responses to this comment that the issue isn't so much that consumers have other options (though given how high Google's search reach is, how relevant is that if hardly anyone does), it's that for most businesses your option is either have a strong search presence on Google or go out of business. There is just no viable path to avoid Google as a business when they control 80+ percent of search market share.

And you not only need to play the SEO game, you have to pray that Google just doesn't decide to get into your business and start returning their own results instead (which is exactly what this lawsuit is about). Especially since Google has had the chance to suck up all the data that you've provided in optimizing your site to provide the most relevant results.

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Yes, reading through so many responses it's clear that even on HN in 2021 we need to remind people that you are NOT Google's customer. You are the product!

That cliched sentence is bullshit. Google is an aggregator of supply, and profits off this position. The users are not “the product,” the products get commoditized for the users by Google, and it is this process that makes them money.

As a user, I am quite happy with this status quo. The quality of the service is pretty good, and there isn’t much user-facing rent seeking. Compare this to the app stores, which are a true public utility monopoly in Apple’s case, and you’ll immediately see the difference of true monopoly.

> ...most businesses your option is either have a strong search presence on Google or go out of business.

Your perspective is a bit skewed here towards the software world. There are businesses on every street-corner in the US, and for that matter world, without any meaningful internet presence or need for great search engine ranking. And for that matter, consumer products and consumer-facing businesses are only a subset of the $20T+ economy of the US.

These businesses without internet presence usually still want to be shown on g.maps.

OTOH maps add businesses even if the businesses don't add themselves.

That falls under what I'd call not a meaningful internet presence because it is google handing over the same info from maps and business directories.

Do you Google shoes to find shoes,some workout shorts or any consumer product line? Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. What do you Google from a consumer perspective?

> Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point.

I can't believe this is a serious comment. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars would say otherwise. I search for consumer products on Google all the time.

It's definitely hyperbole to say "irrelevant", but I think the overarching point is right.

When I'm looking to buy something, I'll usually start my search on Amazon or Pinterest or Walmart or eBay or Etsy. Google is definitely a search of last resort.

Everyone's behavior is different, but while Google may "own" search for knowledge, it absolutely does not "own" search for consumer products.

You should check shopping.google.com. They aggregate all these, and their search us way less broken than Amazon's.

I think they are right. Even personally with the Google/DDG split I use, I almost never search for products on them. I go to Amazon or any other retailer. If I don't know what to buy and I need reviews outside of Amazon then I might search for it on Google/Youtube or browse some specific site like WireCutter.

For me and for people I know, even the general search is now more and more served by new search engine platforms like Alexa/Siri which are the only search engines on products like Echo and have a monopoly.

With vertical search platforms coming up, looking at just a general search engine is the old way. Search is no longer just the traditional old style search engines from 90s. Alexa/Siri haven't been monetised yet, but you can see the dominance of Amazon in product search space by their rapidly growing ad revenue.

Ugh, no.

Nobody give a flying flitwick what products you buy - there are only products to buy on the major exchanges (Amazon/Walmart/<InsertGroceryStore>).

No, this has directly to do with stealing ideas on a mass scale, and then not really being able to cope without handing your sht over - if your business is to sell e.g. lift truck systems to big box stores, and you spend time, energy, effort, going through all the systems to figure out what you need to do properly build systems which those big box stores want, there NOTHING STOPPING GOOGLE FROM STEALING ALL THOSE IDEAS VIA SEARCH RESULT AND PUTTING THAT BIZ OUT OF BIZ.

Now yes you can argue some of it might* be covered by Patent - thing is lawsuits cost time and money, big biz like Google? It can hire a lot of fancy lawyers and spend a lot of time wasting your money while you try to litigate it's IP theft. Meanwhile, because it dominates search results, your revenue streams drop to zero and you can't afford the fees to win...patent becomes irrelevant.

Or worse, because patent's need to be complete ideas/concepts, it auto-files the patent before you ever get done dusting off the cobwebs on your concept.

"Just hire a patent lawyer" - don't be ridiculous, that's exactly how you kill/stifle innovation. Nobody's innovating by first hiring a patent lawyer, that's what you do after the fact or if you just have buckets of money to throw around... (again, killing innovation by reducing 'innovators' to rich fuckers versus anyone who has a good idea and can implement it).

I’ve built two multi-billion dollar consumer retail companies where we didn’t focus on SEO nor was organic or even SEM traffic a significant source of new customers. If you want to dump your money into SEO/SEM go for it but that’s not how the retail startups are spending their money.

Uh, yes? All of those. What do you do, hope a salesperson in a retail store doesn't rip you off?

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