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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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While Google failing would definitely cause a disruption, I don't think they are too big to fail. I've done some experimenting with other search engines and Kagi & Duckduckgo are both sufficient.
Gmail is very popular, but everyone could find another email provider. Losing YouTube would hurt but we have other large sites with infrastructure that could cover. Facebook, Twitter, reddit, Instagram, tiktok, etc. Together I think they could take on the bandwidth
As for the browser, I'd be glad if Chrome died. We need more browsers. Chrome dying would force all of the derivatives to do something else. Vivaldi, edge, brave, etc would all need to either switch to Firefox or a project for a new browser would begin
I think while disruptive Google failing would ultimately be good. We have anti-trust laws for a reason and we need to actually use them. If we don't enforce them, why did we pass the laws in the first place? The market stagnated and the consumers lose. Plus we fall behind pragmatic countries like China who are blazing forward full speed. Their government is more than willing to turn the $$$ hose to innovate in technology. Here in the US we rely on the market. But if we hamstring the market with a monopoly... just a recipe for disaster in my opinion
Anyone who hasn't planed for this with an account on another service, at the very least like proton, kinda deserves whats coming due to the signs.
I'm no soothsayer and even I can see that Google is making enemies with governments, China, US, and Europe. You can survive one or two but not all three.
The world is much larger than just the wealthy nations. Where I'm from, the internet is synonymous with Google, emails with gmail and online video sharing with YouTube.
Digital literacy is hard to worry about when you are struggling to improve your life. Even outside of harsh situations it's not okay to expect everyone to literate themselves.
People like that need to be educated more than any other and liberating them of that responsibility only harms them, it does not help them.
Nobody is claiming it wouldn't be disruptive, but the question is if the long term it would be better for society. Monopolies are not good and the longer we allow them to survive, the more ingrained they become.
Free market capitalism only works well when there is competition. When big companies are so powerful they can just buy up any potential competitors, we're not in free market capitalism anymore. We're entering a merger of corporate and state power - teetering slowly towards a "tolerant" fascism. It's something that desperately needs to be addressed.
Digital illiteracy is easy to combat. You just put the person on a different service. As long as it "just works" they'll be fine.