Is Google now a monopoly?

[Vepres]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a83f3f02-230f-11df-a25f-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

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[Bo]

No.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a83f3f02-230f-11df-a25f-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

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Does Google create barriers of entry?

[Earth]

Out of the three major search engines, Google is obviously doing the best. Diversifying, and expanding into other areas. Bing, on the other hand is still lowly, and Yahoo is dying. Yahoo itself has major financial problems, if I remember a recent article correctly. A monopoly of sorts isn't far off for Google. 

[King]

"Monopoly" is word that has lost its meaning in society.  Now, any company that does well in an industry is a monopoly.

AT&T was a legitimate monopoly because of the barriers they set up to prevent competition, but nothing internet based will ever be a monopoly because the internet is impossible to setup such barriers and censorship.

Yahoo and Bing and all competition could close their doors tomorrow and Google could have 100% marketshare, but as long as anybody can still, in theory, buy some servers and start a search engine site, they will never be a monopoly.  Google would have to branch out heavily in computer server manufacturing and telecom before they can say they are a monopoly.

[phk]

"Monopoly" is word that has lost its meaning in society.  Now, any company that does well in an industry is a monopoly.

This.

This thread should be put in the Economics section as well.

I'd like to chime in that in network industries that there is potential for a natural monopoly and almost always ends up in a lopsided oligopoly due to consumer brand preferences.

Why?

Simply because a consumer's utility function is dependent upon how many others use the service.

This is intuitively seen in Facebook for example where as the amount of users was just one person, being simply yourself. You would obviously not enjoy it. But if it increased to say 1 million users, you would gain more utility.

[Vepres]

I guess the problem is that Google is moving into other areas, and will favor itself in searches, which could be seen as anti-competitive.

[Vepres]

BTW, I though monopoly was something like more than x% share, but not 100%.

[phk]

BTW, I though monopoly was something like more than x% share, but not 100%.

Monopoly means a single firm. Hence the "mono" prefix.

Furthermore

Oligopoly means multiple, but few sellers. Like video game consoles.

Perfect competition means a large amount of firms to the extent that if one disappeared that nothing would change since the scope of the amount of firms is so large.

In between this we have something called monopolistic competition that is a hybrid of oligopoly and perfect competition.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

"Monopoly" is word that has lost its meaning in society.  Now, any company that does well in an industry is a monopoly.

This.

This thread should be put in the Economics section as well.

I'd like to chime in that in network industries that there is potential for a natural monopoly and almost always ends up in a lopsided oligopoly due to consumer brand preferences.

Why?

Simply because consumer's utility function is dependent upon how many others use the service.

This is intuitively seen in Facebook for example where as the amount of users was just one person, it would be simply yourself you would obviously not enjoy it. But if it increased to say 1 million users, you would gain more utility.

 

i was thinking the same exact thing,but i think asking individuals simple qeustions is enough.

[k-onmmunist]

Nope, and very few of the other 'monopolies' in history were either.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No. eBay is arguably one now though.

[k-onmmunist]

No. eBay is arguably one now though.

Nonsense. What about amazon?

[phk]

No. eBay is arguably one now though.

Nonsense. What about amazon?

There is nothing arguable about a monopoly. A firm is a monopoly or it is not a monopoly.  A lot of people have a tendency to label a firm that is dominant in a lopsided oligopoly as a monopoly when it is not a monopoly itself.

As another thread whenever a utility function for a product follows the general format of

U(.) = (β - p) + αq

(β - p) = General utility absent of network effects.
α = Network effect intensity parameter.
q = Number of users on network.

There is potential for a natural monopoly. If it ends up in a lopsided oligopoly than we can than say.

U(.) = (β - p) + αq - δ

(B - p) = General utility absent of network effects.
α = Network effect intensity parameter.
δ = Distaste for switching to another brand.
q = Number of users on network.