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Yeah. The problem with splitting up Google is that Google products, taken in isolation, are themselves keys to preventing other monopolies.

Split off Android to swim on its own and we get an iPhone monopoly. Split off Workspace and we go back to the days of MSOffice's monopoly. Splitting out Chrome essentially kills the World Wide Web as an application platform as no one else wants to support it. Cloud would probably stand alone competitively, but if not it's going to be an Amazon monopoly.

Basically Google is strong in search and ads (also AI, though that isn't a revenue center yet and there's lots of competition) and second place in everything else. IMHO it's very hard[1] to make a pro-consumer argument behind killing off all those second place products.

[1] And yeah, they pay my salary, but I work on open source stuff and know nothing about corporate governance.

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BlueTemplar 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is like looking at a farm overrun by weeds but doing nothing using the pretext that just removing one of them isn't going to fix the problem.

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ajross 5 days ago | parent [-]

No, it's like refusing to use Agent Orange to kill the weeds for fear of poisoning the neighboring farms.

You walked right into that one, sorry.

	▲	BlueTemplar 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I guess we might have a mismatch in values. As you hint at it, "the World Wide Web as an application platform" specifically happened more because Google was wrestling with Microsoft over the future of personal computing than because of its inherent qualities. (And then they both got sidelined by Apple's iPhone, but Google (unlike Microsoft) did manage to both enter that battlefield and hold that front.)

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snozolli 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Split off Android to swim on its own and we get an iPhone monopoly.

Why? Android appears to be profitable.

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ajross 6 days ago | parent [-]

Only Google-integrated Android devices are profitable. You really think Graphene/Lineage/etc... devices have a chance in the market vs. Apple Computer? Splitting off the integration means those devices have to pay for it or go without. Even Amazon failed in this space.

Which is to say, the parts of Android that are "profitable" are the parts tied to the broader corporate product suite.

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snozolli 6 days ago | parent [-]

Only Google-integrated Android devices are profitable.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Pixel devices? Android devices being paid by Google to use Google's app store, browser, and default search engine? What does any of that have to do with whether or not Android is separated?

You really think Graphene/Lineage/etc... devices have a chance in the market vs. Apple Computer?

What does that have to do with whether or not the Android 'division' of Google would survive being spun off?

	▲	ajross 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		If the only way to sell a profitable product is to buy its core value-add (Google integration) from someone else, then your product isn't profitable by definition. Split off Android and Pixels become just another Fire Phone, and will compete just about as well (or worse, since the spun-off Android division wouldn't even have free Amazon integration). Again, there are Google-free Android phones in the market today. They do very poorly.