Google doesn’t give anyone access to said cache. I mean one crawler with a shared api among competitors. So exactly the same as the public cache, but run my a private company and accessed for a small fee
I don't think you're quite clear on what the words "public" and "private" mean. "Public" is not a synonym for "run by the government" and "private" is not a synonym for "closed to everyone but the owner". Restaurants, for example, are generally open to the public, but they are not public. A restaurant owner is, with a few exceptions, free to refuse service to anyone at any time.
If it's "exactly the same as a public cache" then it's public, even if it is managed by a private company. The difference is not in who has access, the difference is in who decides who has access.
Ok I am not clear then, but I’m less clear after your comment! In a public cache, who would you want to decide who has access? Is simply saying “anyone who pays has access” enough to qualify as public? if so, then I agree and this was my (possibly poorly phrased) intention in the original comment.
But imo the restaurant model is also fine; in most cases people have access and it works.
> Is simply saying “anyone who pays has access” enough to qualify as public?
No because someone has to set the price, which is just an indirect method of controlling who has access.
> the restaurant model is also fine
It works for restaurants because there is competition. The whole point here is that web crawling/caching is a natural monopoly.
A better analogy here would be Apple's app store, or copyrighted standards with the force of law [1]. These nominally follow the "anyone who pays has access" model but they are not public, and the result is the same set of problems.
Just because it serves the same function does not mean the implementation is the same. Private military contractors and a US infantry squad serve the same function, but the implementation completely changes their context.
That being said what I think you're arguing for would be the implementation of a public utility or private-public business. If that's the case then yes, what you're saying is correct.
