Do you think identifies never need to be verified? Seems like a central function in operating an accountable society, hence birth certificates, passports, etc.

There should not be a requirement to verify identity, but if a website owner only wants to provide access to their website to people with verified identities, why is that not their right?

Everything that gets money from ads. The network effects are too strong for competition against their ads platform and their ability to do targeted advertising based on data only they have. You can’t build a new ads platform and then use that to monetize your company’s other services, because the existing ad networks are so mature and established.

Phones. Your choice is Apple or Google.

As you said, YouTube. Again, they have users and creators in one place, so it’s hard for a new platform to compete.

There are also a lot of enterprise contracts that bundle many things together. Like cloud and their workplace apps (whatever it is now called).

But also, just their size is a problem. Look at their AI story. First off, many customers get forced into packages where they get Gemini included as part of the bundle (which means they’re paying for it automatically and have less of a reason to pay for something else). But also - Google was slow to build useful products here. Even though they are late and made many failed attempts like Bard, they can afford to take losses for years that no small company - or maybe even large companies that aren’t mega corps - can absorb. Those other competitors would go out of business and have to be careful and move slowly in spending. But Google’s capital lets them make mistake after mistake but still compete and eventually win. So it’s not a fair competition.