I don’t need a court case to tell me Google is a monopoly

As an e-commerce entrepreneur, I loathe Google. I know all too intimately after spending $2 million advertising on Google, that Google—yes, beloved Google—is in fact a monopoly.

In 2020, the same year the federal government launched its antitrust lawsuit against Google for monopolizing “search” options in America, my company’s Google ads account was mysteriously and erroneously suspended, resulting in a loss of over $150,000.

Our team lost countless hours investigating the suspension and trying to get through to someone—anyone at Google—who could help. We even had our lawyer send a letter. We quickly learned: Google is “too big” to care. Eventually, we created a workaround, which was not a solution but a triage to recoup revenue we were losing dramatically. We never heard from anyone at Google, the triage became a permanent fix, and we went on with our lives.

The experience, however, altered my understanding of the world. The internet, I realized, was not equal—it was monopolized by Google. When there’s one main place where people go to search it, with approximately 90% of internet searches happening on Google, there is one main street where all the shoppers in the world are shopping.

The internet is real estate

Imagine you want to sell lemonade on a hot day. Instead of multiple locations in your city for people like you to serve thirsty customers looking to drink lemonade, imagine there is only one small street that has three storefronts.

As a business I want to be on this street, and this street is called “Google.” The first few results on a Google search are exceptionally prime real estate. Industry calls Google a “high-intent” marketing channel, which simply means people searching on Google are actively looking to make a purchase (thirsty people looking for lemonade).

As a business I must compete against everyone in the world who wants American customers for these top three to four “storefronts,” also known as “sponsored” search results.

The cost of doing business can get quite expensive when there are only three to four storefronts for lease on Main Street, continually being auctioned off at all hours of the day.

How Google makes money

We all innately understand that Google searches the internet for results to an inquiry and prioritizes the results according to its algorithm.

But search on its own doesn’t pay. Google makes nearly 80% of its $278 billion dollar revenue (just in 2021) from companies like ours (and anyone) willing to pay top dollar to have their advertisements featured in the sponsored section above search results, for a search query.

According to Google: “Google Ads runs an auction every single time it has an ad space available—on a search result, or on a blog, news site, or some other page. Each auction decides which ads will show at that moment in that space. Your bid puts you in the auction.”

Relevancy is necessary to entice people to click on an ad and for Google to see it as related to the search terms. In addition, the responses are weighted to give an advantage to the highest bidder, meaning the company willing to pay the most for eyeballs and clicks usually wins.

What about organic, unpaid search results?

When I type in “can a business survive without showing on Google search” in Google, its AI overview response is: “While technically possible, it is extremely difficult for a business to survive without being on Google in today’s digital landscape, as most people use Google to search for businesses online, making it a crucial tool for reaching potential customers….”The problem with this answer is that about 96% of webpages get zero organic traffic from Google search at all. If a business does not show up in those first few ad results it is unlikely that it will succeed.

To be seen on Google one must almost always pay both for ads and for organic ranking through search engine optimization (SEO), a critical backend technique to get any form of visibility on Google. SEO has become so valuable that AI is now being deployed to steal competitor businesses’ years of SEO work in what are called “SEO heists,” which steal the organic ranking of a competitor business.

The rise of LTV tactics

Digital marketing is expensive. In fact it is frequently more expensive than what the company will receive from a customer making an individual purchase. A company might charge $5 for a lemonade, even though it cost them $7 to get that purchase.

With digital marketing so expensive, e-commerce businesses often push for more return from every customer through LTV: customer lifetime value. Simply put, consumers are valued by how much they spend over their lifetime with a company..

The LTV push is inescapable these days as e-commerce companies try to keep customers close to balance the expense of digital advertising.

It’s the “Now! Limited time if you sign up for email” culture. And the “Oh, actually sign up for text messages too!” messaging. The “please and thanks and like us on Instagram and tag us and tell your friends and get a free lemonade if you tell your friends and make free content for us” tactics. And on and on.

It is exhausting and never-ending for both consumers and entrepreneurs alike.

But this is the world we live in. All e-commerce companies must optimize for Google or die. And that is the very definition of a monopoly, whether or not a court case says so.

Maureen Brown is cofounder and CEO of Mosie Baby.