“Google doesn’t excel at anything anymore — not even search, which has become abysmal. It’s unfortunate to see the once-mighty Google become such a middling version of itself” (Om Malik).

Ouch!

How Google could win.

“In other words, Google can enjoy the natural fruits of being an Aggregator, it just can’t use artificial means — in this case contracts — to extend that inherent advantage.

[…]

Aggregators have powerful justifications for their dominance. That, though, is why the real question is a political one: are we as a society comfortable with a few big companies having such an outsized role in our lives? If the answer is no, the ultimate answer will not be through the courts, but through new laws for a new era. Anti-aggregation, not antitrust” (Ben Thompson).

“I’m all for making Big Tech small again and fixing the internet so that it’s not just five giant websites filled with screenshots from the other four, not to mention doing something about market dominance, corporate bullying, rampant privacy invasions and so on” (Cory Doctorow).

“Yaniv Leviathan, Google Duplex lead, and Matan Kalman, engineering manager on the project, enjoying a meal booked through a call from Duplex.

(Google AI Blog).

Mm-hmm.