- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Shit or get off the pot.
As much as I want this to happen, I fear it’ll drag on for years and then never happen or end up watered down where they split the company and manage them independently (a bit like BT in the UK but still owned by Alphabet.
The last major antitrust action on this scale in the U.S. 8 years to process.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System
This type of lawsuit is why the billionaire bro’s are backing the senile rapist and felon. Making them play somewhat fair ruins their business plan.
A major issue for the US is that when the president changes, the DOJ can simply elect to stop processing the suit. It’s hard to get 8 years of uninterrupted movement on an action like this.
- Aetna CVS Caremark
- Cigna Express Scripts
- fucking ticketmaster
- Kroger (and they want to merge AGAIN?)
Let’s start here for now
Any guesses on how this would affect Android and Firefox?
I’m not 100% on how the Android business works so I’m not sure how important Goggle’s involvement is.
Firefox relies on Google’s ‘default search engine’ bribe quite a lot, and they might not be able to offer that anymore(?)
Android has been largely gutted and depends more and more on google play services, with few exceptions like some AOSP-based roms like lineageos, iodeOS, etc
Haha. OG conspiracy theory time! I was gonna say this breakup will never happen, but I could totally see it being a plutocratic quid pro quo to split Android from Google and set up an entirely new entity to start charging for the OS or closing it off as a pixel exclusive — something Google couldn’t do without major backlash and probably lawsuits, unless the government “forced” their hand and compelled them. The controlling shareholders would remain the same, and the government would get to act like it’s taking legitimate action, fighting for the working class, against monopolies.
I think Android is big enough to be immediately forked. There’s many existing forks already, if they tried to take it private many companies would be invested in a new “Android core” being developed upstream - it’s one of the few situations where open source can work, because businesses would throw money at an org that keeps them competitive
But I’ll be hopeful but pessimistic about a Google breakup. It would be huge, it would be real change
If they ruin Google Fiber I will personally de-bone every one of those motherfuckers.
Municipal fiber is better. Internet should be a human right anyways
Apple and Amazon next please.
And Microsoft for monopoly reasons.
Add AT&T, Time-Warner, and all of the other ISPs that own streaming platforms for anticompetitive reasons.
Microsoft again?
Ma Bell: “Just do a T-1000, pull yourself back together slowly over a decade or two.”
What exactly does Apple have a monopoly over? Or Amazon? Both have plenty of competition, while, let’s be honest, Google cornered a segment the market really well with Search + Chrome. Google is basically dictating direction of Web based standards towards an ad-driven, zero-privacy, centralized internet.
If anything, after Google it should be Microsoft again.
I don’t see Amazon as a monopoly, but as far as Apple goes, they currently hold the majority of phone sales in the US. A big reason for that is that they have a history of artificially preventing you from using certain device features with non-Apple products or services. iMessage is a good example as it took an order from China for Apple to add the RCS messaging standard that Android phones have had for years. Another example is that, while music apps on Android can use Google Assistant features, only Apple Music can utilize Siri features on iOS.
Sounds like regulations are in order, yes. EU (and ironically China) doing the good work. But it’s hardly a monopoly. They just have a successful product, like it or not.
DoJ is edging y’all too hard here
I will believe it when I see it
Agreed.
No f’in way this happens, especially not in the same week when Kamala Harris goes on national TV to say she’s a capitalist.
With that said, I still hope they try. It should be inconvenient at least to run a monopoly.
especially not in the same week when Kamala Harris goes on national TV to say she’s a capitalist.
You can rest assured that that is a meticulously prepared statement to curry favor and win elections in specific areas, and nothing to do with her personal ideology or how she will run things as President.
I’d love to believe that, but Democrats have ruled as pro-corporate assholes for 40 years now. The last Dem we had with the balls to oppose corporate rule was LBJ.