Analysis

Google is paying someone else $40b to make sure you keep using it

The US government has made its case to prove Google is a monopolist. The Breakdown explains why some of the tech giant’s excuses are tortured.

Nick BonyhadyTechnology writer

Nov 6, 2023 – 10.00am

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Billionaire technology investor Peter Thiel declared in 2014 that competition was for rubes. “Monopoly is the condition of every successful business,” he wrote. His case study: Google.

The company held the overwhelming majority of the US search market, letting it sell ads on which it made enormous profits. In Thiel’s eyes, that made the company great. It had made a product so good it faced no serious competition, letting it justly earn a great deal of money.

Nick Bonyhady is a technology writer for the Australian Financial Review, based in Sydney. He is a former technology editor, industrial relations and politics reporter at the Sydney Morning Herald and Age.