But imagine the backlash if Google announced that you'd not be able to appear in its search results if you used any advertising platform but theirs. It's completely unimaginable.
This is what I find frightening about the changing landscape of ever more tightly controlled "platforms". It used to be that the way software interacted with a platform was via APIs; now it's increasingly alignment with the platform owner's business goals as well.
When Microsoft crushed Netscape it did so by controlling the platform and making the alternative seem unnecessary, but it would have been unthinkably brutish for them to disallow another browser. But what the App Store and Facebook are doing makes Microsoft's actions look positively charitable.
I believe there is a question of at which point a platform becomes large enough that there is a legitimate concern of the public interest involved. Obviously the US and EU governments thought such was the case with Windows. I wonder if the resolution to these things will come by similar means.
Some Microsoft updates did disable Netscape and not in the nice "do you want this to be your default browser" kind of way. Not that MS was the only one; a version of Netscape disabled IE's ability to display XML of all things. http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-advises-IE-users-to-uninstall... (However, based on the late date I think this was more done out of spite than anything else.)
There are older examples that predate the popularity of the Internet: Microsoft specifically made earlier versions of Windows rely on DOS only work with Microsoft provided DOS and not DR-DOS.
You're playing with fire. Monopolies that form naturally also perish naturally (and quickly). Consider Rockefeller & Standard Oil. They got 90% of the market and bought the trains so as to force their competition to pay 200% more in shipping. But by the time the government antitrust case started, Standard Oil's market share had naturally fallen to ~60%.
On the other hand, if you solve the problem with regulation, then the regulated body has a powerful tool for maintaining their monopoly: forcing their regulation onto their startup competitors. For example VOIP got saddled with regulation for local 911 calling and easy government wiretapping. Internet radio has to pay some of the worst rates possible under the agreement content producers made with radio stations -- I think this is largely due to gov involvement in radio.
Isn't a consequence of what you are suggesting that in exchange for appearing in the Google search index, websites would be legally forced to accept Google Ads at Google's discretion?
>..."the changing landscape of ever more tightly controlled "platforms". It used to be that the way software interacted with a platform was via APIs; now it's increasingly alignment with the platform owner's business goals..."
What I love and find scary about this whole thing is that i feel like I am watching Neuromancer come to life - the online landscape of the internet - which used to seem like a massive coop of all these companies for the greater good of information freedom is now replaced by massive walled gardens, protected not so much by lethal ICE apps, but by corporate dogma, policy and ruthless greed.
Sure, its not quite a dangerous network in which your wetwire cant be used to kill you -- but we aren't yet in 2020.
I am in wonder and shock that the Cyberpunk fantasies of my childhood are the reality of my adulthood. My children will be the characters I used to role play when I was slightly older than they are now.
This is what I find frightening about the changing landscape of ever more tightly controlled "platforms". It used to be that the way software interacted with a platform was via APIs; now it's increasingly alignment with the platform owner's business goals as well.
When Microsoft crushed Netscape it did so by controlling the platform and making the alternative seem unnecessary, but it would have been unthinkably brutish for them to disallow another browser. But what the App Store and Facebook are doing makes Microsoft's actions look positively charitable.
I believe there is a question of at which point a platform becomes large enough that there is a legitimate concern of the public interest involved. Obviously the US and EU governments thought such was the case with Windows. I wonder if the resolution to these things will come by similar means.