Goliath, Meet David

BY KIM BELLARD I’m a sucker for underdog stories.  I love unconventional wisdom overthrowing conventional wisdom. I’m deeply suspicious of Big Tech, Big Oil, and big health.  I know unfettered competition is not always to my benefit but get nervous when I don’t really have many options.   So when I read that Google is starting to worry about a threat to its search dominance and that TikTok and other social media giants are scared of a rival start-up, well, count me in. I just wish it was health care goliaths that were worried. ————– You probably use Google to search online.  “Google” has become a generic term for search, like Xerox was for photocopying.  Depending on the source, it’s share of search is north of 80%, probably closer to 90%, and it’s been that way for a long time. Larry and Sergey built a better mousetrap and the world, indeed, build a path to their door.  TikTok might change that. Yes, TikTok again.  Face it, it’s hard to keep a finger on today’s culture without that finger pointing to TikTok. Last month the finger pointed directly to healthcare, this month it is pointing to search, and that’s what has Google nervous.  “In our studies, something like almost 40 percent of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram,” Prabhakar Raghavan, a Google senior vice president, said at Fortune’...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Policy Public Health BeReal Healthcare financing tiktok Source Type: blogs