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Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

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Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#671

Post by vmurthy »

cletus wrote: post #415
hcnews wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sundar has been leading Google for a few years now. Larry/Sergey have been out and about for a while now. I am a Xoogler myself.

Yes and no. Sundar has no more vision than Larry does yet somehow is paid $200m+ a year and in my mind is the most unjustifiably overpaid CEO by a huge margin. At least Larry founded the company and contributed to turning into the behemoth it is. Sunday is a random associate product manager who somehow managed to ride the wave of Chrome to somehow becoming CEO.

> Sunday (sic) is a random associate product manager who somehow managed to ride the wave of Chrome to somehow becoming CEO

I'd be more careful about dismissing him as a random APM who "somehow managed to ride the wave of Chrome". Successes like these aren't wholly random and while there is certainly an amount of luck involved, you need to remember that Chrome is/was a crazy essential thing for Google's success before the smartphone/Android revolution.

It is more about not giving up the entry point to search (browser on PC -- mobiles weren't dominant in 2008) to a competitor (MS) who could stifle or charge a steep price to let it be the default search. If you need any more data on this, read up on how much Google pays Apple to be the default search engine ($5B a year IIRC).

So... Sundar's CEO status may or may not have been the best choice but don't discount years of work and navigating inside a behemoth like Google and getting st done :)

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#672

Post by nokya »

abhshkdz wrote: post #621
icinnamon wrote: post #617

If one doesn’t want their data to be consumed/owned by Google, what’s the best alternative fitness band (not smart watch) on the market? I specifically do not want all of the smart watch features... just fitness/health tracking.

Garmin

what about Polar?

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#673

Post by kbenson »

paul7986 wrote: post #664
chipperyman573 wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may have replied to the wrong comment friend :)

Hmmm i was following your question about who makes the rules up. I was shocked to hear and be told I can no longer talk negatively about Google on Hacker News and provide my reason why if asked.

> I was shocked to hear and be told I can no longer talk negatively about Google on Hacker News and provide my reason why if asked.

Because it's baiting people into allowing you to grind your axe? I just looked up what you are referring to, and while like the mods I agree there's likely something to your story, that doesn't mean it needs to be injected into every conversation, nor that you can be excused for saying "they are pigs" with regard to Google.

The job of the mods is to provide a civil place for discourse that people enjoy and find benefit in participating in. If they think you repeatedly bringing up something that you've already expressed on multiple occasions is impeding those goals, it's their job to take action.

The fact that you've started the same behavior over their actions to correct your prior behavior (note how the person you replied to thought you accidentally replied to the wrong person?) is evidence that you didn't understand what they tried to express initially, or possibly don't care.

The solution to this is simple, stay on topic, or at least make sure your tangents have a reason. A discussion about Google wrongdoing, or poor experiences, or even weird interview problems would be a good place to bring out your Google grievances. A discussion about who the moderators are and how they come to consensus for purely educational reasons is not an entirely appropriate forum to air your grievances about past moderator decisions, as it's a large shift in tone, and that's ignoring its tendency to derail any conversation it happens in.

If your message has merit, it will be better received when it's in the right context. In the wrong context, it's likely to be ignored, and possibly even negatively received, as you've seen.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#674

Post by baot »

JohnFen wrote: post #655
baot wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to believe that the data in my exercise tracker has real, fundamental worth when I see so much targeted advertising that fails to leverage the data they already have. I suppose it doesn't matter to Google if someone buys a location-specific ad for a place I used to live in despite them knowing where my phone, purchases, and electoral record say I live but then why would them knowing my heart rate help them…

> when I see so much targeted advertising that fails to leverage the data they already have. Targeted advertising is far from the only thing Google wants data for.

Well advertising is over 80% of their Q32019 revenue, what else do they want it for?

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#675

Post by ejain »

JohnFen wrote: post #652
dcgudeman wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to own or use any of Google's products.

People were using Fitbit, not Google, and now their data is in Google's hands without their consent. Even if they stop using their devices immediately, Google still has the data Fitbit collected previously. It's a good lesson about being willing to share data: even if you trust the company you're sharing with, a company you don't trust may end up buying that company and getting your data after all. If you're privacy-…

You can download your data [1] and delete your account [2]. These are two things I always check for before trusting anyone with my data.

[1] https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1133

[2] https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1285

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#676

Post by dang »

chipperyman573 wrote: post #648
dang wrote: post #436

We changed the URL from https://twitter.com/JonErlichman/status/1190252267406069760 to an article which adds at least a little more information. The press releases are https://blog.google/products/hardware/agreement-with-fitbit and https://investor.fitbit.com/press/press-releases/press-relea...

I see you replying to these threads sometimes, and you usually say "we" did thing. Are these decisions actually being made by a team and you the (possibly self selected) community lead? Or are you just saying "we" as in "I, someone whose actions represent the desires of the mod team, did thing"? Just curious, I've never had a problem with your changes.

Sometimes it's something another moderator did and I'm just reporting it; sometimes it's something I did qua moderator, in which case I tend to say "we" because it's a team action either way.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#677

Post by dang »

paul7986 wrote: post #666
dimator wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to believe that. The large majority of commentary here is negative towards Google, and in fact most of the big guys. Are you saying you got a private message about this?

Yes, dang has told me I can not speak negatively about Google and point to my personal reasons why. Nor point to a popular HN thread that clearly/flat out shows Google getting caught doing a bad thing.

That's not what I told you (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21332308). The issue is repeating the same thing over and over at any mention of a triggering topic, or even (as in this thread) with no mention of it.

Repetition spoils curiosity. When users repeat the same thing so often that it starts to sound like an idée fixe, other users get upset and call it spamming, and eventually we have to ask the person to just avoid that topic. Google isn't the issue; there's plenty of criticism of Google on HN, as of every other big tech co.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#678

Post by paulddraper »

dastbe wrote: post #607
paulddraper wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> small town high school football star That's odd thing to call the biggest software company* in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_software_c... * Alphabet

That wiki doesn't justify your statement. It's leveraging a list from 2017, but using Alphabet's market cap from 2019? And regardless, the actual market caps on that page would say Microsoft is the biggest software company in the world. I have no idea what Forbes is using for its ranking but it is obviously not by valuation. EDIT: And it should arguably be Apple, but for some reason neither Apple nor Amazon are softw…

The Wikipedia article sorts by sales. Not sure why the years are like that, but the relative values are similar in 2019. [1] [2]

> for some reason neither Apple nor Amazon are software companies?

Because they aren't software companies? Or at least principally software companies.

Amazon is categorized as an retail company. [3]

Apple is categorized as a computer hardware company. [4]

Nitpicking aside, I think my point stands about a $800B+ company.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/companies/alphabet/?list=global2000#5...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/companies/microsoft/?list=global2000#...

[3] https://www.forbes.com/companies/amazon/?list=global2000#2c4...

[3] https://www.forbes.com/companies/apple/?list=global2000#3d04...

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#679

Post by derwiki »

ejain wrote: post #675
JohnFen wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were using Fitbit, not Google, and now their data is in Google's hands without their consent. Even if they stop using their devices immediately, Google still has the data Fitbit collected previously. It's a good lesson about being willing to share data: even if you trust the company you're sharing with, a company you don't trust may end up buying that company and getting your data after all. If you're privacy-…

You can download your data [1] and delete your account [2]. These are two things I always check for before trusting anyone with my data. [1] https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1133 [2] https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1285

but now that could change

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#680

Post by braythwayt »

papln wrote: post #501
braythwayt wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You're painting analogies with an awfully broad brush." ---- "Painting with a broad brush" probably began as an analogy, but once enough people use it, it becomes an idiom . If understanding is shared between speaker/writer and listener/reader, idioms are a useful shorthand for sharing some commonly understood argument. So useful, in fact, that people often forget what the original analogy was. For example, the verb…

"Painting with a broad brush" is not an idiom, since it's meaning is deducible from its content, not only its contex. It's a metaphor (literally false as written, but calls to mind an analogy with truth -- both the comment and broad brushes apply the same thing to many targets without any careful differentiation) http://learnersdictionary.com/qa/Idioms-metaphors-similes-an... .

Great link, thank you, I will use these words with more rigor in future. I think that “metaphor” is a much better word for the thing that is used to illustrate or add emotional oomph to an idea rather than to argue its merits.
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