> Google is doing what is best for it's customers.
But is it? Because right now I basically can't stop using Google services at this point because they pushed out many others from the market. I would however greatly prefer some competition in the field.
Google Search for a start. Youtube is effectively standing alone in the space. Google Maps is completely dominating the space (in particular there is nothing that replaces the Earth product or the parts of Earth in maps).
Gmail is taking over the world over here. Most local mail solutions are irrelevant at this point and the only real alternative to gmail even intentionally is outlook now.
Chrome effectively took out the rest of the bunch as well, at least on desktop and Android.
Lastly Google's ad business is something nobody can avoid.
Right, but unless you are accusing Google of foul play, their market dominance is just evidence of the superior consumer value they provide. In other words, they are doing what is best for its customers.
The question of this thread is: did Google unfairly push out their competition. If you can't argue that, then this is just pointless Google hand wringing.
I know it's not illegal to be a monopoly, that's actually my point. I was responding to the_mitsuhiko's complaints of Google monopoly in certain areas, to which I argue that Google's monopoly status isn't inherently a problem.
> their market dominance is just evidence of the superior consumer value they provide.
I don't think that's true.
They leveraged their search engine dominance to push Chrome on people with banners stating that the user experience would be better on Chrome.
They bundled the Chrome installer with a load of other app installers and users would immediately find themselves with a new, default browser, because Google knew most users never explore advanced installer options to discover they needed to opt-out.
Google maps is far worse than OSM and HereMaps in my opinion, but it is far more pervasive because it is the go-to mapping service when users perform a search.
Do you run a website where those are significant traffic? It's been a long time since not-Google search has been more than a rounding error in my experience, with the exception of Yandex for Russia and Baidu for China if you have content for those audiences.
Vimeo and Firefox are trying but the trajectory has not been good.
The question was about alternatives to Google services (which do exist in almost every category), not about the share of traffic that websites receive from various search engines. If websites want to avoid being overly dependent on Google then they're going to have to get creative and figure out ways to drive traffic other than search.
Your last sentence is the point: it doesn't matter if there are alternatives which are either unused and so far the only company which has figured out how to out-drive Google is Facebook, hardly more responsive to the rest of the web's needs.
That was the problem: in search, Google effectively has no competition. The fact that there are other areas like social networking doesn't change the fact that if you're a website operator you have to work well with Google even if you can write off everyone else.
Fastmail is actually an amazing alternative over Gmail. Have been using it for half a year now and will never go back. I use my own ___domain with it, so even if Fastmail disappears, I am still in control.
But is it? Because right now I basically can't stop using Google services at this point because they pushed out many others from the market. I would however greatly prefer some competition in the field.