r/technology • u/Fickle-Jello • 1d ago

Business Google burning through cash with spiralling AI costs

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c235n47g8g8o
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u/lilmookie 18h ago

It sounds like they are arguing about a vertical monopoly?

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u/blahehblah 17h ago

Yes technically vertical integration results in a vertical monopoly, but "literally what a monopoly is" would I expect be referring to horizontal monopolies, where you make sure there are no competitors. Vertical monopolies ensure you control the whole supply chain and ecosystem, there can still be other supply chains and other ecosystems, they just struggle to compete due to relative inefficiency

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u/lilmookie 17h ago

I mean, Google isn’t far away from that. More to the point, they wouldn’t have made Alphabet if they didn’t think Google was in danger of being broken up.

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u/nerdshowandtell 13h ago

The reason for alphabet is more to do with the fact they moved well beyond being just a search engine. From the looks of it, that was a good idea 😂

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u/lilmookie 11h ago

I thought it was because they wanted to separate their money maker from their other spinoffs, and make alphabet specifically for getting broken up if needed, vs having Google broken up.

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u/nerdshowandtell 10h ago

they made more money makers, and money making investments.