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Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

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Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#181

Post by na85 »

claudeganon wrote: post #167
verelo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this comment is being downvoted a lot, but i've got to say there was a lot of concern from local residents. The largest concern everyone raised with me was that "Google will ditch this as soon as it suits them, leaving us with a mess of 'smart tech' to deal with for decades to come". Well, i hate to say it, maybe they were right? Turns out they ditched it before it even got moving, this might be a blessing in disg…

Unfortunately, a lot of people in tech ascribe to a kind of utopian imperialism. It doesn’t matter what people themselves want, it’s about what engineered fantasies can be imposed upon them.

Yeah I dunno, I'm basically showering in downvotes right now but it seems to be just Silicon Valley types who are upset that Torontonians didn't welcome their dystopia with fanfare and adulation.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#182

Post by pb7 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #153
ehsankia wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Talk to Louisville, where Google put trenches in the roadways Yes, Louisville was indeed a failure. They tried something different to help speed up laying out lines, and it didn't work. All that is not really relevant to the comment above, which still is true regardless of the issue in Louisville. > Ignore the title, Google decided not to repair anything That's misleading, they decided to instead pay the city for t…

Originally they intended to repair the fiber lines and keep the network in Louisville, they decided to give the city money when they backed out so that the city could clean up the damage: Presumably by ripping up the fiber network entirely. Most of their other ideas were similarly discount. They bought fiber in places it was already run, and their issue with ISPs revolved around a push to demand the right to move AT&…

>ISPs have their problems but Google wasn't in it to build a long-term, quality infrastructure. They were trying to make a splash on the cheap, but the costs would be bound to go up anywhere they couldn't employ cheap hacks.

There is a disingenuous take. ISPs were provided $100Bs of taxpayer money to build out infrastructure in the last few decades. It is not theirs to control or monopolize. Everywhere Google Fiber was introduced, the incumbents' prices dropped and speeds increased. If they're able to operate at the reduced prices, why are they siphoning off additional profits after they were paid the aforementioned infrastructure money to provide these services? Google Fiber disrupting ISPs was exactly what people are clamoring to happen to other giants like Amazon and yet here you are bashing the initiative.

For the record, Google Fiber is still well loved everywhere it has been rolled out. I had Comcast and Verizon for decades and hated every moment of it -- constant battle for reliability, price increases, and hidden fees. Ever since I got WebPass (owned by Google Fiber), it has been nothing but bliss for a fraction of the price and 0% of the bullshit. You should be deeply upset by the fact that Google Fiber is no longer expanding. It is a hit against progress and we are all worse off for it.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#183

Post by sudosysgen »

WalterBright wrote: post #151
sudosysgen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and in most cities incredible amounts of condos have been built and prices of rent for low-income individuals have increased massively. It does not work in the real world. Supply is not supply. For one, these condos being built can essentially not be rented, and that means that they are not supply for low and middle income individuals.

If demand increases faster than supply increases, then prices go up. It does not mean supply&demand theory is invalid.

So, demand and supply has increased dramatically in almost every single city in the world, and in almost no cities has supply outpaced demand? The world is not an economics 101 textbook.

In Canada for example, the only province with functional and affordable housing is the one that enacted serious rent control and public housing, and they didn't have to build a lot. Seems to me that supply and demand isn't the whole thing if your goal is to have affordable housing.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#184

Post by WalterBright »

sudosysgen wrote: post #183
WalterBright wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If demand increases faster than supply increases, then prices go up. It does not mean supply&demand theory is invalid.

So, demand and supply has increased dramatically in almost every single city in the world, and in almost no cities has supply outpaced demand? The world is not an economics 101 textbook. In Canada for example, the only province with functional and affordable housing is the one that enacted serious rent control and public housing, and they didn't have to build a lot. Seems to me that supply and demand isn't the whole…

> in almost no cities has supply outpaced demand?

Detroit. Rural communities.

In real estate, it takes a while (years) for supply to catch up with demand. What you're seeing is simply city populations are rising quickly.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#185

Post by ocdtrekkie »

drusepth wrote: post #124
reaperducer wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we need is for people to understand how to choose better for themselves. Not a technology patch. Google only has one hammer: the algorithm. It just comes in different colors. Traffic? Waymo algorithm. Municipal planning? Smart Cities algorithm. Advertising? AdSense algorithm. Journalism? Google News algorithm. Google, and certain other tech companies, need to learn that not every problem can be solved by a compu…

Curious: what problem could be solved by a human (or group of humans) but not a computer (or group of computers)?

Security. Security cannot realistically be automated or scaled. Because any automated system at scale can be understood and gamed. And because humans interact with secure systems, and humans can be tricked. Even when you built a system that's say, cryptographically secure, you manipulate the humans to work around it, because humans aren't good at identifying cryptographic keys, and all automated systems serve human clients or masters.

This is why the Play Store and Chrome Web Store are full of malware, and why human-curated app markets have effectively zero.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#186

Post by zaidf »

save_ferris wrote: post #162
drusepth wrote: post #118

I know there's gonna be a lot of people here that are happy about this for various reasons (anti-Google, anti-"smart cities", etc), but this is really disappointing for me. It's true that the concept of "cities" (or even just "gatherings of people") predates the Internet by thousands of years, and that cities themselves haven't adapted much to the Internet and what it enables in the 40ish years it's been around. This…

How much have you read on the exploitative history of company towns[0]? There are some really good reasons why people are skeptical of a private company coming in and trying to reshape the foundation of a community, particularly when that company happens to be Google. Sure, there's something idyllic about the vision of a community driven by technology as a first-class citizen, but let's be real here: Google doesn't e…

Your questions are valid. But you could pick holes about any party trying to bring about change, right? For example, you say "let's be real here: Google doesn't exist to make the world a better place"...my question to you is, which org does exist purely to make the world a better place? And moreover, how are those orgs doing in terms of impact and scale?

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#187

Post by asdff »

ISL wrote: post #123
asdff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do when city council members profit off of the status quo? It's not that they are poorly informed, they are well aware of what they are doing and choose to ignore expert advice on city planning decisions. This is the frustration I have with my local government in LA. Most people who live in my city are renters, but most voters in local elections are homeowners so their voice is heard above all else, and c…

My belief, from personal experience, is that those who say "this disrupts my view" actually mean it. They've moved early into a place that suits them, and the place itself is changing. My neighborhood is slowly being transformed by increased density -- it is less and less the neighborhood into which we moved. It isn't the change in property value, it is the change in quality of life that matters. Different people mea…

The cognitive dissonance among NIMBYs is astounding. 80 years ago, many neighborhoods in LA were just oil derricks and orange groves, which were sold and cleared (or hidden behind facades in the case of the derricks, which still pump today) for housing to meet surging demand after WWII, which never went away. Decade after decade the demand has only grown, yet the people living in these first batches of housing quickly built to meet demand they themselves created fail to see that their situation is no different. NIMBYs just happened to find work in LA a little bit sooner and fail to see that they were once a changing force to the landscape as well.

If you want to preserve your neighborhood, you are free to buy as many parcels as you like and leave them be. If you can't afford the fair market price to dictate what gets built on the land, then you have no ground to stand on imo, but there are also plenty of options for you. There are planned communities you can move to with tight HOA regulations if you insist on limiting what others can and can't do with their belongings. To move to a city like LA, which experiences double digit percent growth decade after decade since its inception, and to expect nothing to change at all the minute after you sign your mortgage, is baffling to me. It isn't grounded in reality. Move to Cleveland if you want stasis, the greater metro population there is virtually unchanged over the past 50 years.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#188

Post by pb7 »

at_a_remove wrote: post #150
pb7 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Fiber was a major success that got ousted by the incumbents with never ending lawsuits and resistance. Take your anger out on the monopoly ISPs across the country.

I am not angry about Google Fiber, I'm disappointed . This project reminds me of Google Fiber in that it had a kind of optimism backed by a tremendous amount of capital, both in cash and in goodwill. For fiber, of course I knew about the incumbents. The 1990s were an enormous giveaway to the telecommunications industry in terms of tax breaks in exchange for a nebulous set of promises and, as far as I can tell, no tee…

Your comment resonates well with me but I'm still confused. Google Fiber wants to provide you service. They can't for reasons outside of their control (some of which you very accurately described). It is not Google Fiber you should be disappointed with. Fighting against the telecommunications industry that is actively hostile towards consumers is really tough. They took the cash and used it to better defend themselves against disruption rather than building out the infrastructure for all to benefit from. Google has money but it doesn't have infinite money to throw at this particular initiative. I too am disappointed by the situation. Thankfully I am someplace where I do reap the benefits of it but I really wish the whole country had what is available to me because it is wonderful.

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#189

Post by triceratops »

sudosysgen wrote: post #180
triceratops wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one, these condos being built can essentially not be rented, Non-occupancy tax. Vancouver has one.[1] 1. https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/empty-homes-t...

A non-occupancy tax is orthogonal to this particular issue, a lot of high rise condos cannot be rented, reasonably. And so they are only accessible to people that can afford to buy them, occupied or not.

Why can't they be rented?

Re: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto

#190

Post by WalterBright »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #166
WalterBright wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that means is demand is increasing faster than supply.

That’s a super simplistic perspective. Property developers are probably going to preferentially build high-margin housing, right? And they’re going to preferentially build those at a rate that doesn’t meet demand, in order to keep prices high. So what’s missing?

> super simplistic

The law of gravity is super simple, but it produces all kinds of complex results.

Underlying the complex behavior of the real estate market is supply&demand driving it.

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