[runtime_blues]

As the old saying goes, good ideas shouldn't require force. If they have a "no-brainer" offering, no need to strong-arm people into using it, right?

I get it that they are not a charity and can monetize or paywall their platforms as seen fit, but there's something just sad about the model where you build a customer-friendly and open platform, then progressively crapify it once you capture a niche and eliminate most alternatives, and then start penalizing users for trying to work around that.

[DanielHB]

Pretty much all big tech companies figured out this is the recipe for infinite money

Only Microsoft seems to be aware this causes Dutch Disease, min-maxing your monopolistic platform revenue is terrible long-term for you company

[gordian-not]

Google is pretty far from maximizing their monopolistic platform

What about selling your gmail data? Selling your search queries directly to third parties? Forcing your maps navigations to route near advertisers?