Plausibly, comcast could create its own "google" and direct all search traffic there. It could sell ads and use the ad revenue to lower monthly subscription fees to its customers.
Except they wouldn't do that. They would use QoS to make sure their search engine was the only one usable to their customers and then they would charge extra for access to the search engine as an added feature.
What's wrong with that? Do you really think there would be so little benefit from building a good search engine that Comcast would build a lousy one? They could even license one from any number of third parties.
Well sure, that's the point - there would be little benefit from building a good search engine if you couldn't choose a different one. Google has to be great because otherwise somebody will get all its traffic. A monopoly can give lousy service because you can't leave.
True, but if the search engine is lousy there won't be much traffic. Google has gone to great lengths to build a service that lots of us wouldn't want to live without. So why worry?
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Plausibly, comcast could create its own "google" and direct all search traffic there. It could sell ads and use the ad revenue to lower monthly subscription fees to its customers.
Except they wouldn't do that. They would use QoS to make sure their search engine was the only one usable to their customers and then they would charge extra for access to the search engine as an added feature.
What's wrong with that? Do you really think there would be so little benefit from building a good search engine that Comcast would build a lousy one? They could even license one from any number of third parties.
Well sure, that's the point - there would be little benefit from building a good search engine if you couldn't choose a different one. Google has to be great because otherwise somebody will get all its traffic. A monopoly can give lousy service because you can't leave.
True, but if the search engine is lousy there won't be much traffic. Google has gone to great lengths to build a service that lots of us wouldn't want to live without. So why worry?