Capitalism Destroying the Web

How Internet Monopolies Are Destroying the Web | Ian Welsh:

But Google is a particularly bad actor: for years it has been evident to everyone in the space that they are hovering up most of ad revenue. In the early 00s, till 2006/7 it was fairly easy for relatively small websites to make money from ads.  That went away as Google cornered much of the market and it’s only gotten worse since then.

Google’s relationship to websites is almost identical to railroads and farmers in the 19th and early 20th century: without railroad shipping farmer’s products couldn’t make it to market, so the railroads set rates that maximized their profit, driving many farms into bankruptcy and keeping most in penury. They took virtually all of the profit.

For smaller, and even mediums sized websites Google (and Facebook, to a lesser degree) are in the same position. They determine who gets traffic, especially to newer websites without established audiences. Since without them you get little to nothing, they get the money.

That means, in effect, that Google and Facebook and other similar companies, exist by taking away the value of other people’s labor: value without which they would have no business or profits. The web’s content comes first; Google’s “finding” comes second.

I think it's time to start using another search engine.

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