Why people are afraid of dystopian future? Enjoy it!
Don't let Google take over Berlin
11–20 of 120 posts
Re: Don't let Google take over Berlin
#12> Instead of a nice friendly “campus” we see a Google farm for harvesting Kreuzberg’s brains and talents, or a Google mine in which ideas and data will be extracted out of Berlin It's simply not a zero sum game. Google will bring culture and resources with it that could enhance Berlin.
That’s up to the people of Berlin to decide, not a faceless American tech company.
Is that actually even true? Google already has an office in Berlin. They can just buy more buildings.
Even if some local politician decides to block a construction plan, I’m not sure how they would stop Google from just buying existing stuff nearby their old office like Amazon does.
Google in Manhattan bought a building the size of an entire block essentially. It isn’t even what I would call a campus there either.
Re: Don't let Google take over Berlin
#13That's a nice Material Design on that page that's saying Google is Evil!
It's a reasonably sleek Wordpress theme [1], but pretty far off from Material Design proper [2].
The animation while clicking links/buttons typically gives away if something was designed to implement Material Design or not.
Re: Don't let Google take over Berlin
#14[deleted]
Re: Don't let Google take over Berlin
#15I wish there was a way to make the page appear as though it was drawn in Crayon. It would be appropriate.
Re: Don't let Google take over Berlin
#16That's a nice Material Design on that page that's saying Google is Evil!
They nailed the look tbh. Sarcasm at its finest.
Re: Don't let Google take over Berlin
#17> Instead of a nice friendly “campus” we see a Google farm for harvesting Kreuzberg’s brains and talents, or a Google mine in which ideas and data will be extracted out of Berlin It's simply not a zero sum game. Google will bring culture and resources with it that could enhance Berlin.
What "culture and resources" will Google bring that will benefit anyone except Googlers?
Re: Don't let Google take over Berlin
#18The rents in Kreuzberg already increased a lot this past decade: https://guthmann-estate.com/marketreport/micro-market-report... Gentrification is a problem, but long time renters in Germany are really having it good. An example of how does the system works here: I pay twice as much as some German friends living in my district because my parents didn't sign me up in a union 20 years ago. I'm OK with that, it's the ga…
I don't understand this new mentality that "Gentrification is a problem," companies and wealthier people moving in makes everyone in the area more wealthy. The problem of affordable housing has less to do with those companies moving in and more to do with local real estate monopolies that lobby against rezoning for residential and expanding building permits. That's basically the bay area in a nutshell. People complain about the lack of affordable housing, yet building new residential areas is a tapestry of red tape. And let's face it, that's largely to protect real estate investors that don't want prices to come down.
I would like to see bigger companies that move new offices to areas to use their weight to push for more housing developments and permits as part of their local agreements. I think that would go a long way (though still short) in helping the situation.
Re: Don't let Google take over Berlin
#19Pretty immature website, I get why people are against Google and specifically this campus but this website rubs me the wrong way. If they made the same arguments, cleaned up the language and delivery and cited it with studies, papers and facts it would be a much more credible site. They should probably change the domain name as well.
Re: Don't let Google take over Berlin
#20> Instead of a nice friendly “campus” we see a Google farm for harvesting Kreuzberg’s brains and talents, or a Google mine in which ideas and data will be extracted out of Berlin It's simply not a zero sum game. Google will bring culture and resources with it that could enhance Berlin.
What culture could Google bring to Berlin?
There are tons of books written about Google's culture, but my favorite is ”How Google Works” by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg.