HACKER Q&A
📣 silexia

Is Google a Monopoly?


Do you see Google as a monopoly? I have noticed a lot of behaviors by Google that seem like a monopoly. There is no way to reach a person for support, even when you are paying, for most of Google's products. For example, I was trying to run Google Ads to help my wife and I find a pregnancy surrogate, but my ads were incorrectly automatically flagged for violating Google's birth control policy, which stated no birth control products in Muslim countries like Iraq and Egypt and no mention of the USA. But my appeal was denied even though that is for an entirely different category of ads in entirely different countries. No way to talk to a person to explain or ask questions. Super frustrating. Has anyone else been frustrated by Google's monopoly?

  👤 bubblehack3r Accepted Answer ✓
Monopoly behavior is not what you describe it to be. Not providing customer support is a whole different issue and has nothing to do with Google maybe being a monopoly.

Monopoly behavior is buying out competition forcefully and dominating a market with an unfair advantage ensuring they are the only ones in the market. I personally don't believe Google is a monopoly in the Search Engine market but that's only my opinion.

👤 vmoore
> There is no way to reach a person for support

If you're signed up to Google One[0], you get proper (human) support. Luckily I never had to reach out.

[0] https://one.google.com/about/support

👤 sylware
There is worse.

For instance the couple vanguard/blackrock (= google + msft + apple + etc) has a monopoly on web engines (geeko and blink are financed by google and webkit by apple hence all are financed by the vanguard/blackrock galaxy).

👤 rvz
Not yet, but they are becoming a monopoly, hence why they have been fined already by the EU. Twice: [0] [1]

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/MEMO_1...

[1] https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/202...

👤 silexia
I hate these automated systems that are poorly built and have zero human interaction. If you are building an SAAS... avoid that!