Every time Ukraine asks for a new weapon system, there is a lot of debate but they eventually get it. We have seen this song and dance with HIMARs, and tanks before.

During the "debate" phase both Ukraine and the western allies are preparing for the systems to come over.

There are a bunch of different companies doing personalized ads. Google, Twitter, TikTok all use different data to personalize ads.

This is the business model of most social media companies and I don't know what the alternative would be except making people pay subscriptions to use sites.

My point was: would the MapQuest in your timeline where Google doesn't exist be a better product than Google Maps today? I am not convinced that MapQuest would have made an even as good product as Google Maps without having the Google Ad system to help develop it.

I agree that Google seems to have a monopoly on internet ads. You are totally correct about that. But my point is that we need to be careful when we start "breaking up" tech companies since the unintended consequences can be dramatic for every day systems that we take for granted. The average consumer doesn't care about there being a competitive digital advertising market. The average consumer wants free services and will resent those services being taken away because the DoJ broke up Google. The government genuinely cannot afford to disrupt services hundreds of millions of Americans have come to rely on.

Yeah and you used to have to print out the directions on your home PC. You still needed to go to their website which had ads too.

This is a legitimate issue regarding "breaking up" a lot of tech companies. You can use a ton of Google services for free in exchange for seeing some ads. Nobody wants to be responsible for forcing Google to have to charge a subscription for Google Maps for example.

If you are young and have a steady stream of income, this is actually a great time to invest in the stock market. Keep investing in established companies or ETFs and learn to ignore the red. When the stock market rebounds you will see big growth. It just may take a little while. Be patient.