Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Web by Google (TM)

landshark.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 496 posts

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#271

Post by JPLeRouzic »

harpratap wrote: post #155
JPLeRouzic wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good time for Amazon or Google to buy a Telco, Telcos valuations have lost between 25 to 45% since the beginning of 2020 [0] I guess that a state owned company would willingly be sold by its owner because states urgently need money. For example Orange sa (ex France telecom) is owned at 25% by the French state and French state just had passed a budget which is financed at half by debt (2021). Selling a company…

There's no point in buying a Teleco today, with 5G any of the FAANGs can create one with the money they have. Infact Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook have proven experience in web scale, so 5G will be right up their alley

That's true in principle, they could buy directly at Telecom manufacturers, rent antenna space and use subcontractors to install base stations, but there are counter examples showing they are not so good at this business.

For example Google has tried to provide free Wi-Fi, at the time some people were afraid it would be some rehearsal for a Wimax deployment, it never happened.

8 years ago, Google made a lot of noise with their high altitude platforms (their so called balloons). They met some Telcos, but it went nowhere.

Long time ago Google had also a project to provide phone calls with interesting fees. It was a MVNO in practice but it never got traction even if Google had access to an incredible number of Android users.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#272

Post by The_rationalist »

cloudking wrote: post #133

Surprised the article doesn't mention Microsoft Edge built off Chromium, that was the nail in the coffin. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2020/08/03/micr...

Microsoft is shipping huge improvements to chromium for the benefit of everybody. They prove that with enough non-google human resources, chromium can be just fine. Mozilla will die before realizing they were the most needed chromium contributors.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#273

Post by Xorlev »

jacquesm wrote: post #239
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…

Textbook case of 'whataboutism'. Besides, avoiding Facebook is easy. Avoiding Google is impossible. I am much more worried about Google because of that.

Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not on Chrome or Search.

There's plenty of worry to go around. I would like to put aside the (very understandable) fear about Google for a second because I think the GP makes a good point.

My parents used to use the open web, but have also more or less exclusively started to use Facebook to "surf the web" and get all of their information. The 2016 election was a joke, my mother would constantly tell me about all these things she'd found out about "on Facebook". She'd click these links and keep getting more and more radical misinformation. I was honestly shocked at what her Newsfeed looks like. The worst thing is she isn't an abnormality, she's fairly typical of her generation.

I'm concerned by _any_ closed platform, especially when there isn't enough competition. I realize that's descriptive of many things my employer builds as well. But please don't discount the dangers of other closed ecosystems, it's a certainly related topic. The web by _anyone_ makes it a poorer place to be and there's attackers on all sides.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#274

Post by api »

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 see the same thing. I've heard lots of non technical people call facebook posts "e-mails" and they never leave the platform. They use a phone or a tablet to launch Facebook.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#275

Post by CameronNemo »

noahmasur wrote: post #218
fractionalhare wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there statistics on the browser usage on HN? Just for a good laugh. Here is a screenshot of my Cloudfront dashboard showing the breakdown of user agents into particular browsers when an article of mine reached the top of HN about two months ago: https://imgur.com/a/gQ2mxOM Looking at the number of distinct IP addresses in Athena for that day, about 20,200 of those hits were distinct viewers: https://imgur.com/a…

I wonder if mobile Safari domination is partly because iOS apps themselves use "Safari" when displaying webpages. If I tap an article using the Octal HN app, it opens in an internal "browser view" that is just an instance of Safari.

Is the Android webview using WebKit or blink now? I wonder how that would show up.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#276

Post by jefftk »

andromeduck wrote: post #184
searchableguy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://webmonetization.org/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/introducing-our-exper... https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/03/web-monetization-coil-and-...

Nice to see that there are efforts but until they can roll it out as a core feature with prompts/nudges it's not going to cut it and I'm not entirely sure they have the market/mind share to pull it off these days. Pateron came out in 2013 and has strong community/network effects now, YouTube Red/Spotify also address much the same problem. The current state of affairs is like their idiotic mobile 6 full years after th…

If they rolled out a payment option for third-party sites as a core feature with prompts and nudges, do you really think the reception would be positive? I expect the comment threads would be full of people telling Firefox to work on being the best browser they can, and not getting in people's way with a payment system that "nobody asked for".

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#277

Post by jacquesm »

This article hits the nail squarely on the head in a number of important ways.

There is one small silver lining: when and if Google manages to successfully turn the rest of the web into ca. 1992 style information providers for their updated version of videotext there might be just enough breathing room to create something even better.

After all the web killed AOL, with Google going after the AOL playbook they set themselves up for a similar debacle. When it isn't 'the internet' anymore a service will quickly lose value.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#278

Post by briandear »

duncanawoods wrote: post #99
huffmsa wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do cars and houses count in that measure?

Houses aren’t part of the retail sector. Cars are, and they represent 23% of the US retail sector in terms of dollar amount.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#279

Post by charrondev »

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 replaced the battery on my grandmothers phone recently (a galaxy s4 or s5 if I recall), and the only 3 apps she used were:

- phone - text messages - Facebook

She has no concept of the internet outside of the Facebook app.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#280

Post by andrewkdinh »

ramon wrote: post #206

I myself only build websites with Google Authentication I don't see any other competitor in this space everyone has a Google account and I don't have to deal with Infosec. Who doesn't have a Google account? Yes Google rules the web and there's not much we can do but live with it, I also like the fact that Google gives us a bunch of things for free and many people don't take this into account. Think about all the free…

I hate when websites do this. I don’t use anything Google unless I’m forced to (work email, Google Drive for my school, etc.). And unless I absolutely need to use your site, I will avoid it like the plague.

It’s not just limited to Google; it’s for any site providing only third-party OAuth login. I can never remember which one I signed in with, and if that service ever shuts down, it’ll be a pain to figure which of the hundreds of services I’ve signed up for using that OAuth login. It’s much easier to change an email.

And yes, I do use a paid alternative to Gmail (ProtonMail)

Post reply on HN