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Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

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Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#41

Post by true_religion »

teddyh wrote: post #33
mseebach wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a contradiction if you think short term. Long term, it's clearly in Google's interest to engender sustainable consumption. People who are comfortable with the role their smartphones play in their lives are much more valuable consumers than addicts who are apprehensive over it. They are also much less likely to seek radical action which may damage Google in hard to predict ways.

It has not, historically, been in the nature of companies to think or act in the long term. People inside companies have incentives to bring short term profits, while long term profits benefits only the company as a whole, not any individual internal actor who may be positioned to make them happen. Therefore, they don’t happen, and large organizations basically always act only in the short term.

I don't think this is quite true. Companies which are privately owned, or run by their founders tend to have long term interests. People get tied up in the idea of their 'legacy', or move beyond the ideals of mere profit and want to affect change in the world and build a world more to their liking.

It's things like that which motivated Henry Ford to pay his workers are more fair wage than his competitors.

Google's founders still control either the majority or a large plurality of the voting stock, so they can have the company align with long-term profit motives, and sustainable existence.

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#42

Post by dschuetz »

agumonkey wrote: post #17
dschuetz wrote: post #3

It's clearly a contradiction. Companies like Google thrived on addictive behavior of users online. Now that Google basically is the Internet for consumers they want to crack down on online and tech addiction? Really? What I've read in the article means to me that Google will toss away the responsibility to users by making them aware of their usage patterns. "We told them they need a break from consuming our apps, but…

It's called balance. They made it an official notion and released a few things. It's a tangible effort. I give them a bit (a bit) of trust regarding the wisdom needed to make a good "business". I don't subscribe to the responsibility shift. Unless they make their notification and metrics bogus, hard to notice etc it's a good measure. And yes, let's make user "responsible" or IMO.. in control. The system informs me, I…

Well, in my opinion, the users actually are always in control. Don't buy shady and addictive stuff. Or throw away, sell whatever you've got. But, let's face it, that's not a productive solution Google would suggest, right? Making good and lasting tech is really expensive, there is no denying that. But I'd rather have that, instead of shady and addictive consumer products. The tech industry always fails to deliver neutral products. Every Internet enabled gadget has some shady twist and the respective companies don't give a damn if something fails to live up to expectations of consumer neutrality.

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#43

Post by wkmeade »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #16

My cynical read of this is that it's an attack on Facebook. Google has a giant attention platform in YouTube, but Facebook and Instagram are attention platforms. I think YouTube will decline a bit as a result of this, but the rest of Google - and the data collection of Android are untouched. If people become less addicted to their phones, they're still going to have their phone when they go to restaurants and take ph…

PR&D?

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#44

Post by teknopaul »

Qwertie wrote: post #30
reificator wrote: post #2

> Big Pharma's Plan to Make Prescription Drugs Less Addictive > Local Heroin Dealers' Plan to Make Heroin Less Addictive > Coca Cola's Plan to Make Soda Less Addictive LGTM.

Most of googles products are not based on addiction. You use google search because you have to find something. You don't spend hours randomly browsing search results. Youtube will take a hit from this but the rest of google is not an addiction business.

Sometimes you Google cos you carnt be arsed to think about it.

Sometimes you google something and get a full page of paid for clickable links and you click one of them instead of scrolling to the "organic search".

Sometimes you dont pay enough attention to what are real search results and what are adverts.

A statistically significant sometimes.

Is instant gratification at the cost of long term gain adiction? Not sure. Its pretty close.

Dont put your phone face down, put it away.

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#46

Post by scarface74 »

teddyh wrote: post #33
mseebach wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a contradiction if you think short term. Long term, it's clearly in Google's interest to engender sustainable consumption. People who are comfortable with the role their smartphones play in their lives are much more valuable consumers than addicts who are apprehensive over it. They are also much less likely to seek radical action which may damage Google in hard to predict ways.

It has not, historically, been in the nature of companies to think or act in the long term. People inside companies have incentives to bring short term profits, while long term profits benefits only the company as a whole, not any individual internal actor who may be positioned to make them happen. Therefore, they don’t happen, and large organizations basically always act only in the short term.

In the case of both Google and Facebook, the founders still have more than 50% of the voting rights (not ownership) and I don't believe that they are necessarily motivated by making another billion. I think they are interested in the long term success of their company.

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#47

Post by gnicholas »

0xBA5ED wrote: post #7

The first two features are nice, but the cynical side of me thinks this is all about the third feature. They will simultaneously appear concerned and helpful, easing the growing negative sentiment against them while introducing even more pervasive tracking.

I’m not on Android so I’m not familiar with the level of tracking that currently exists, but can’t they track this usage data already, even if they’re not showing users the results right now?

My understanding from talking with folks at Apple and Microsoft is that they track time spent in various apps/applications so they know what is popular with users. Is Android different?

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#48

Post by scarface74 »

gnicholas wrote: post #47
0xBA5ED wrote: post #7

The first two features are nice, but the cynical side of me thinks this is all about the third feature. They will simultaneously appear concerned and helpful, easing the growing negative sentiment against them while introducing even more pervasive tracking.

I’m not on Android so I’m not familiar with the level of tracking that currently exists, but can’t they track this usage data already, even if they’re not showing users the results right now? My understanding from talking with folks at Apple and Microsoft is that they track time spent in various apps/applications so they know what is popular with users. Is Android different?

Yes. I was shocked when I logged into my dad's Google account that Google recorded every app that he opened and closed and the times.

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#49

Post by mistermann »

mic47 wrote: post #31
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #16

My cynical read of this is that it's an attack on Facebook. Google has a giant attention platform in YouTube, but Facebook and Instagram are attention platforms. I think YouTube will decline a bit as a result of this, but the rest of Google - and the data collection of Android are untouched. If people become less addicted to their phones, they're still going to have their phone when they go to restaurants and take ph…

"Shush" and "Wind Down" are already on Samsung phones, and FB is in good relations with Samsung (see oculus), so doubt this would be Facebook killer. Additionally, Facebook already turn down video in newsfeed (it decreased time-spent), and changed goals to 'meaningful social interactions'. Long term, being useful is more important than grabbing attention (and FB plays long-term game). The fact that FB, Instagram, You…

> Most engineers, managers, designers, ... in these companies are people who want to build useful stuff, rather than maximizing short term gains for share holders (additionally none of these companies are paying dividends, so if you maximize value for share holders, you should play mid to long game)

This sounds very nice but is a little hard to believe considering the behavior of the company.

> I don't believe that there sinister master-plan behind every feature they release

You don't need to have a sinister master plan - extreme greed, a lust for power, and a lack of ethics is more than sufficient.

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#50

Post by gnicholas »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #16

My cynical read of this is that it's an attack on Facebook. Google has a giant attention platform in YouTube, but Facebook and Instagram are attention platforms. I think YouTube will decline a bit as a result of this, but the rest of Google - and the data collection of Android are untouched. If people become less addicted to their phones, they're still going to have their phone when they go to restaurants and take ph…

> The real genius is that it fits Apple's brand really well, way better than Google's

Agreed. Of course, Apple would hate to look like they’re late to the party, but it’s probably too late for this to be introduced st this years Apple Developers Conference, right? Or perhaps it doesn’t need to be introduced there and could just be rolled out on the next version of iOS this fall?

Regardless, I wonder what will be the fate of apps like mine (BeeLine Reader), whose entire purpose (making reading on-screen easier by using line-wrapping color gradients) would be thwarted by Wind Down. We’ve already seen implications from Night Shift, which is especially annoying for our users who use our app for accessibility reasons and have to toggle the mode just to use our app.

Of course, you wouldn’t want apps to be able to unilaterally exempt themselves from the greyscale mode. But if you let users choose which apps to exempt, then would they just end up whitelisting (“colorlisting”?) Facebook and other addictive apps — defeating the purpose?

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