Friendly Google and Enemy Remedies

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3 pointsmfiguiere2 comments

>It’s a lot easier to pay off your would-be competitors than it is to innovate. I’m hesitant to say that antitrust is good for its subjects, but Google does make you wonder.

This line would ring more true if Google hadn't invented transformers and a host of other ML breakthroughs to bolster search. Also not search related, but inventing self-driving cars and solving protein folding are innovations that benefit consumers greatly.

I'd bet Ben himself has compared Google to Bell Labs in the past. To argue they don't innovate is insane.

I think this is misconstruing what he’s saying. I read the sentences quoted as him wondering aloud that Google provides so much benefit to the world there is some question to regulating them (despite what he views and argues as legitimate anticompetitive behavior and a good ruling).

More precisely to your point, he’s arguing that Google is paying off competition rather than spending time beating them (innovating) _within search_. He’s making no claims at least in this article that they don’t innovate anywhere at all. I don’t think he’s giving Google an unfair take in this regard.

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