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Web by Google (TM)

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Re: Web by Google (TM)

#251

Post by yoz-y »

emteycz wrote: post #52
lol768 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, they will be inclined to not use that device and use one that does not ask weird questions. Weird questions that they got asked already on their Windows machine as part of BrowserChoice.eu? They're only "weird" because this practice of forcing your own browser (IE, Edge, Chrome, Safari) down the throat of your users has become commonplace.

I have literally never seen that prompt, and I have turned hundreds of computers on for the first time. So yeah, just like that weird, never seen dialog.

I have seen it but only briefly at a time. I've installed windows 10 twice recently and never got to it. Only Edge begging to not be removed from the launch bar.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#252

Post by jt2190 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #129
kristopolous wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you have said the same thing 20 years ago and used "AOL" instead? There seems to be a large group of users who consistently fit this trend and the company names just get swapped occasionally

AOL at least was pretty strictly a US phenomenon. Here in Canada it wasn't a thing, and it wasn't a thing in Europe or Asia. FB's tendril's are international. What's worse is it's very walled off, it's not really searchable or properly indexed. FB's search facilities are a joke, such as they are, but they are only available to FB users. Information that goes in there is basically available to FB and to nobody else.

> Here in Canada it wasn’t a thing...

I sure remember it was a “thing” in Canada, especially before most people were on the internet.

https://youtu.be/iaJsc6DHYkE

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#253

Post by Dotnaught »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #196

"Looking at Mozilla's finances, it's reasonable to conclude that Google is keeping them on life support to keep the anti-trust hounds at bay." There seems to be an implicit assumption by those commenting on Mozilla's downsizing that the antitrust case against Google is going to take the same path as the case against Microsoft. Google's anti-competitive conduct under examination will not be focused on Chrome, it will…

Mozilla serves as a counter balance to Google in web standards discussions. Without enough Firefox market share, Mozilla will be less able to shape the web’s technical development.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#254

Post by thinkingemote »

onion2k wrote: post #199
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #103

A lot of talk in this article about Google capturing the whole web, all valid points, but I find the Facebook walled garden even more terrifying. I see people now, often in online school parent groups I'm a part of, etc. who cannot even use email anymore, who don't use web pages at all, they get all their information through Facebook groups and Facebook, and only talk through Facebook messenger or sometimes SMS. E-ma…

Something we (people who work in tech) should be acutely aware of is causing unnecessary distractions from important issues. When there's a discussion about the Google very often the first few comments are about how some other tech company also does something unsavory. This is a thread about how Google's engineers are actively working to take over the web as we know it and become the gatekeepers to all the benefit (n…

I wary from discouraging discussion in general, as we are encouraged to be charitable on this site.

Also, this type of thing happens in. every. HN. thread. ever.

If you are an expert in $topic and it gets discussed in HN, there will always be discussions about $other-related-topic - or side tracks.

If your comment was a clever troll, well done, I award you 9/10 as its possible to get responses from multiple people for multiple reasons!

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#255

Post by JadeNB »

biztos wrote: post #235
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #103

A lot of talk in this article about Google capturing the whole web, all valid points, but I find the Facebook walled garden even more terrifying. I see people now, often in online school parent groups I'm a part of, etc. who cannot even use email anymore, who don't use web pages at all, they get all their information through Facebook groups and Facebook, and only talk through Facebook messenger or sometimes SMS. E-ma…

I decided to take a break from FB for a few weeks as it was feeling addictive. (Still on Messenger and IG so I'm not a purist.) I quickly found that many of my local business have an online presence only on Facebook. No web site, no freebie aggregator type thing, nothing, just FB. This in a major European city. It makes me wonder if it might be useful, as a public service, to have some kind of free business listing t…

> It makes me wonder if it might be useful, as a public service, to have some kind of free business listing that (with your permission) automatically duplicates what you put on Facebook, just to encourage people to at least be discoverable outside that walled garden.

You know that Facebook would immediately start either offering incentives to keep all your data in the walled garden, or spreading FUD about the duplicator ("how can you trust what happens once your information leaves our loving embrace?").

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#256

Post by briandear »

anthuswilliams wrote: post #214
huffmsa wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is only 4% of the US retail sector though. I wouldn't call that dominant.

It's true that if you define Amazon's market segment to be "all of human commerce" then it doesn't look particularly dominant. But if you applied that sort of standard to monopolies, there would be no antitrust enforcement anywhere.

But we aren’t saying “all of human commerce,” but “the retail sector.”

We can always narrow things into absurdity to imply a monopoly. But as a matter of fact, Amazon isn’t a monopoly in retail, or even online retail. To give an anecdote of my online buying in the past few months: I bought furniture from Crate and Barrel and Design Within Reach, in-line skates and street hockey gear from Pure Hockey, pilot supplies from Sporty’s, a silly tshirt from some random Facebook ad/vendor, some paracord and survival water from Amazon, an aircraft emergency raft from some raft company in Florida, some Surefire flashlight batteries from Amazon, a piece of furniture from Wayfair, sunscreen from the Sun Bum website.

I know not many would care what I bought over the past few months, but without even consciously trying, Amazon was just a part of my normal shopping mix, not even a majority of purposes were from there and the dollar amounts were even smaller of my total shopping spend.

Of course there are people that use Amazon more frequently and regularly, but that doesn’t make it a monopoly. You can easily buy from other places. Amazon retail is really nothing more than a highly efficient version of Sears. Ubiquitous, but hardly a monopoly.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#257

Post by jdietrich »

thdrdt wrote: post #120
mattacular wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that Amazon dominates a lot more than just retail on the internet. With AWS they effectively run large portions of it as well.

Don't underestimate how Google is becomming the storefront of all retail on internet. Google can now dictate which webshop is shown first in search results on a product level. I know retailers are sick of this. They need Google to be found on the web but they don't like how Google is destroying retail.

Independent aggregators are staging a minor comeback, thanks in part to the dismal failure of Google Shopping. I only ever buy PC components through PCPartPicker, I only buy games through IsThereAnyDeal. Third parties can offer real value in this space.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#258

Post by vpzom »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #95
simias wrote: post #84

The problem is that, IMO, centralization of the internet is simply the natural course. Especially when people seem to care so little. Centralization is cheaper, easier to monetize, easier to control, easier to update and upgrade. That's why people prefer Discord to IRC, that's why people prefer Slack to SMTP or Jabber, that's why for many people these days the distinction between git and GitHub is blurry. I suspect t…

Meh, I think the longest lasting protocols are the decentralised ones, the good ones just can’t fail by design. SMTP is still going very strong, BitTorrent isn’t going away, bitcoin won’t die anytime soon slack/discord will probably disappear and be replaced by another closed system until we find the right way to do real time chat in a decentralised way.

well XMPP kinda did die

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#259

Post by JadeNB »

cblconfederate wrote: post #152
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #103

A lot of talk in this article about Google capturing the whole web, all valid points, but I find the Facebook walled garden even more terrifying. I see people now, often in online school parent groups I'm a part of, etc. who cannot even use email anymore, who don't use web pages at all, they get all their information through Facebook groups and Facebook, and only talk through Facebook messenger or sometimes SMS. E-ma…

It's the equivalent of people who always used the phone, and didnt give a toss about the internet. I 'm not sure why it's alarming

> It's the equivalent of people who always used the phone, and didnt give a toss about the internet. I 'm not sure why it's alarming

People who used the phone weren't deluged by calls designed to make it impossible to distinguish bot-strewn propaganda from organic activity of real-life friends. (We did get plenty of junk calls, but they were easy to distinguish from the real thing, and people were motivated to avoid them, not to get deeper into their filter bubbles by seeking out more of them.)

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