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Comment by AnimalMuppet | Hacker News Reader

It appears to me that your two paragraphs contradict each other. If we break up Google and what comes afterwards is worse, then break it up or we'll get worse? Is it worse if we do and worse if we don't? Which "worse" is worse?

Or do I misunderstand your point?

The whole point of breaking up monopolies is not moral principle. It's so that things get better for customers. If they don't, then what's the justification for breaking them up?

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Going to the dentist hurts more than a cavity. Sometimes a period of acute pain is better than a lifetime of moderate pain.

this guy has a shitty dentist

The best time to break up Google was 15 years ago. The second best time is now.

Breaking up Google gets worse the longer we wait.

That seems to be in support of the parent's point.

So breaking up Google would have resulted in worse outcomes for consumers 10 years ago, but it would be even worse today? Then it wouldn't have made sense to break them up 10 years ago and it would make even less sense today.

I'm not claiming there aren't any good reasons to break up Google (I don't know), but this line of argumentation doesn't work as far as I can see.

If your of the opinion that Google should not be broken up at all, ever, then your point is valid.

If you are neutral on whether Google should be broken up, and breaking up the company results in consumer harm, then breaking up the company makes no sense.

Your argument only makes sense if you start from the premise that Google should be broken up, and then try to back into an argument supporting that premise.

> If your of the opinion that Google should not be broken up at all, ever, then your point is valid.

I don't think it's a good sign that you decided to resort to baseless personal accusations in reaction to a simple request to support your baseless clams.

The question is very simple: does it still make sense to break the company today? Not a decade ago, but today. It you believe so, why?

I don't see a baseless personal accusation in my comment. It wasn't meant to be anyway. More likely I still am not following your point.

Maybe so that there is at least the opportunity for things to improve?

Immediately worse vs. worse long term.

Things may get worse for a while, but then maybe they'll eventually get better than if we didn't break up Google.

> Things may get worse for a while, but then maybe they'll eventually get better than (...)

This argument is perplexing. Isn't the whole point of this sort of intervention to fix things that are broken so that everyone is better off? You're arguing for major interventions at a time they are arguably not needed at all and would expectedly leave everyone worse, and the only mitigating factor you could come up was that perhaps who knows things might "eventually get better". Maybe. I don't know?

What's the point, then?

Maybe they meant 3x worse vs 2x worse -- as in, we're in a death spiral one way or another

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