Google’s Monopoly Hurts You. Check out a Search on Tee Shirts:

[Troy]

Anyone who has read anything I've written over the past decade knows I attribute the dearth of web-based book sites directly to Google's perversion of their search engine. Despite the cute little video Google supported for one small indie bookstore.

 

The article referenced, and the video below, is on the money.  The example used is for Tee Shirts, but the case for book is actually worse, because Google has it's own bookstore.

 

The article could go much deeper by describing how people are also hurt because businesses that they might have enjoyed have been hobbled or have destroyed because Google has rendered them invisible in search, unless they can pony up advertising dollars.  When you are competing against Amazon, the way a bookseller might have to, for ad space even advertising is not a viable option.

 

Ranking in search is every harder. The notion that a web based bookseller has to be more skilled in SEO that selling books is just crazy.

 

As the video states, Google search engine was much better in the past.  This is one reason they were propelled into a virtual monopoly.  However, today they have taken advantage of their monopoly in search and this is to our collective detriment.  

 

The problem is no one really seems to care.  Well they may care, but they feel like they are helpless to do anything about it, or nothing they can do will ultimately matter. It is the same sentiment that people who choose not to vote often express -- what difference will it make?

 

I'll already boycott Amazon and social media for (personal content) and I really should boycott Google too.  But these companies are so pervasive, large, and powerful you can't realistically run a web based business and boycott them all.  For all practical purposes, in 2020, the WWW is Facebook, Google, and Amazon.

 

From today's Washington Post:

 

How does Google’s monopoly hurt you? Try these searches.
Right under our noses, the Internet’s most-used website has been getting worse

 

[Pioneer1]

Troy

The article could go much deeper by describing how people are also hurt because businesses that they might have enjoyed have been hobbled or have destroyed because Google has rendered them invisible in search, unless they can pony up advertising dollars. 

 

Perhaps this is an incentive for AfroAmerican business owners to STOP relying so much on private Caucasian owned establishments like Instagram and Facebook to promote and carry their businesses!

A little over 10 years ago I noticed a RUSH of AfroAmericans who had their own websites who just abandoned them and decided to do all of their promotions and advertising on Facebook....like fools.....because they thought it was easier to manage.
They let their laziness get the better of them.
Now they're complaining about how Twitter and Facebook are treating them.

Infact, we need to  relying so much on the internet in general and start building more 4-WALL BRICK AND MORTAR businesses and other institutions!

Stop relying so much on the cyber world for your sustenance.
 

Troy, do you have an actual warehouse where your books are stored and secured?
 

[Troy]

1 hour ago, Pioneer1 said:

A little over 10 years ago I noticed a RUSH of AfroAmericans who had their own websites who just abandoned them and decided to do all of their promotions and advertising on Facebook

 

Yeah, authors abandoned their own websites using Facebook as their primary web presence. I completely understand the lure, but I'm also old enough to remember the limitation so AOL when it was a walled garden and how liberating the WWW was.  Facebook even took away the ability to reach your fans directly.

 

Facebook will allow me to upload AALBC entire book database into their system to sell book on their platform.  It is a great feature, but I will not be using it why would I just hand over a list f books that I've curated over the past 24 years?  That is just crazy?!  

 

Many booksellers have done this with Amazon, and we see where that has gotten us.

 

1 hour ago, Pioneer1 said:

Infact, we need to  relying so much on the internet in general and start building more 4-WALL BRICK AND MORTAR businesses and other institutions!

 

We can, and should, build on the web and in the real world.

 

1 hour ago, Pioneer1 said:

Troy, do you have an actual warehouse where your books are stored and secured?

 

Yes, it is called my garage. 

 

[Pioneer1]

Lol....
Man, why are you always grinning in your pictures and videos?

 

Seeing that pallet of shrink wrapped boxes just gave me a flashback of past warehouse jobs.
I can still feel the tough texture of the plastic I'd cut and pull open to receive products.

 

 

 

We can, and should, build on the web and in the real world.

 

As my West Indian brothers would say, that's the LIVING truth!