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Comment by lvzw | Hacker News Reader

Exclusive deals can present antitrust issues, but the kicker is that this isn't even an exclusive deal, it's a default deal! Users can still can still use other search engines on iOS devices.

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You can change the default of Safari, but not for Siri. "Search the Internet" voice command always uses Google. I'm personally hoping that either part of this lawsuit or part of their Siri upgrade allows us to change it.

Does Siri show ads?

Microsoft lost cases against the EU because they made Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player the default on Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission

I believe it's because they were using their monopoly power to give that software away for free, while their competitors couldn't and ended up selling or going out of business.

The DOJ should really be looking at things like YouTube, which doesn't make any profit (I don't believe) but since Google proper supports it, no one can compete with it. That might be why Google is pushing so hard against ad blockers, they need to make YouTube profitable to avoid prosecution.

Or you know, revenue growth to serve the only stakeholders that means anything to them - their shareholders.

Google bought YouTube in 2006. Coincidence they care about YouTube ad revenue so much all of a sudden? I guess they were getting around to it eventually.

How come YouTube doesn't turn a revenue? Is it even possible, it uses so much bandwidth? Any sources?

YouTube makes a profit. Or it did at least, not sure what’s going on with the adblocker stuff.

using Kagi is pretty clumsy. We iOS users get to pick from a pretty limited list. In reality we should be able to set search to any endpiont that handles the ‘q’ param

Defaults matter. Google's internal communication indicates that they know this. Microsoft testified that defaults matter and that unless they (or anyone else) could put up more money than Google then they had no shot.

You could innovate and make a better product and it doesn't matter because you can't outbid Google.

In Europe Androids have had user decided default browser/search engine selection in the out of box set up for years. Google still wins massively because users know it is simply a superior product.

Part of the antitrust issue is that Apple never developed their own search engine because of these payments. Google paid Apple to not compete.

I doubt that the same number of people willingly choose Google, otherwise they wouldn't be paying so much money to be the default. That's a lot of money to throw away.

There would be no choice without that deal either, Apple would simply sell its users to the next highest bidder.

Or Apple would develop a search engine instead, which is exactly what they did with Maps.

How is this different from any typical outsourcing arrangement other than the size?

Outsourcing arrangements many different motivations, it’s not just money. Otherwise, basically any outsourcing arrangement can be said to be “throwing away money” for one party.

Right, which is also arguably why we’ve seen competition from other search engines.

It's a widespread assumption that defaults matter. But to what degree? I came across it first when I saw Dan Ariely's talk and his work on defaults (may not be the proponent)[1] but my takeaway is that it matters when you don't care about the as much.

For everyone with Windows, you start off with Edge/IE and then Bing as a default search engine. Yet, most switch to Chrome + Google almost instantly. People care about their browsing experience more than we give them credit for. Remember in 2009-10 when Chrome was new, it managed to win market share cos of superior product when it was not the default on Windows/Linux/MacOSX. On mobile too, the behavior is likely going to be there to a certain degree. While Google pays Apple a massive fee, there was an admission earlier in the trial that both Mozilla and Apple would still go ahead w Google (even without the deals) because of superior UX. Not sure if both said it, but one of them certainly did.

[1] https://danariely.com/the-power-of-defaults-in-how-we-eat/

Maybe look at some of the trial exhibits that have been posted on the DOJ website. Google sure as hell thinks defaults matter a lot. And intent matters at trial.

From the trial itself, Google has argued and questioned the expert witness from DOJ if defaults really matter. Whole Microsoft question was raised by them too. Exhibits are good with context, but without supplementing the context they are misleading. Hard to argue for something DOJ did not think would make their case stronger and did not refer to in the trial.

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