Hey, now. Snooty bay-area transplants were a substantial portion of my cohort at some point.

Both you and goobster are missing the big picture. Here's the bulletpoints:

- 70-90% of Google's revenue is ads, depending on how you measure it

- Google ads are driven by search

- Search is driven by ads

- Maps are driven by ads

So you can go "lol give them a chance to install Duck Duck Go and the problem is solved lol" but the fact of the matter is, the only advertising worth doing anymore is SEO and everyone knows it. The only place worth doing advertising anymore is Google and everyone knows it. I say this as someone who pays Google $100 a month, someone who pays Yelp $100 a month and someone who used to pay Facebook $100 a month: There's no point in doing any advertising at all if you aren't also arranging your entire business case around Google.

And that.

Is a monopoly.

Look - used to be there were all sorts of tiny papers. They were paid for primarily by ads. Then Google hit, then Craigslist hit, and now all we have are pay-for-play Republican bullshit. If you aren't a shitty Chud PAC there's no reason to even bother with it. On the plus side, they make voting easy. "Do whatever pisses off the local paper."

Look - you can't "shop elsewhere than the A&P" when the A&P has driven everyone else out of business, and where the A&P shuts down anyone who attempts to open through unfair competition. That's Google, Amazon and Facebook. Always has been. They've been in violation of anti-trust law for decades. "Good for the tech industry?" I mean yeah, Google and Amazon don't exist without Microsoft being wrapped in an anti-trust case over Netscape for a decade so the point is valid. Microsoft is still here and instead of Netscape we have those choads at Andreesen-Horowitz which gave us a bunch of parasitic, zero value bullshit so... yay tech industry? But the amount of brocoder "they'll never take 'em alive" cheering in this thread for a company that fuckin' censors Tienamen Square results for Xi is frankly appalling.

For the record I drive a 911 so I'm not predisposed to running over in traffic. And for the record, I've been hit in traffic three times on a bicycle so... yeah.