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Web by Google (TM)

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Re: Web by Google (TM)

#341

Post by simonkafan »

dmje wrote: post #303

Asking a rhetorical and irritating question - but one which web nerds need to be much better at answering: why, exactly does it matter? Don't get me wrong, I'm totally uncomfortable with a monopoly of this scale; I'm a Firefox user, a Pihole user, a non-FB user. But when people (non nerds) ask me why, it's hard to answer. They're all happy enough: Chrome is fast, AMP is faster, they get to find out the stuff they wan…

Take a look at what happend to Huawei. If your business is somehow dependent on the goodwill of one person or one company, they can decide if you live or die. And they will at some point.

This is the opposite of freedom.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#342

Post by jacquesm »

cheph wrote: post #293
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #23

The issue is not the fact that Google owns the web. It is that the web itself has become decimated to the point where a company like Mozilla does not have a future. Facebook, Uber, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp, etc. None of them are optimized for Google index. Most top consumer internet applications don't take place in your browser.

> Mozilla does not have a future. I would use Mozilla if the browser was just a little bit less bad. Currently it randomly takes me about 5 seconds to move my cursor in the hackernews input box. That is not Google's fault. Mozilla's future is mostly of their own making.

It's Firefox, not Mozilla in that context. Confusing, I know.

Using Firefox here with a few hundred tabs open, working just fine. I suspect your setup has other problems.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#343

Post by why_only_15 »

jdietrich wrote: post #248
BlueTemplar wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would one even break up Google ? You can only shut it down (which would allow competitors to emerge again).

Spin off the major parts of their business into genuinely separate companies - search, cloud compute, advertising, SaaS, Android and Chrome. With Google as a monolith, it's far too easy for them to bundle products and cross-subsidise unprofitable parts of their business to achieve dominance. Those independent companies can make deals that are mutually beneficial, but they'll have to answer to their shareholders and t…

Of all the tech companies people advocate breaking up Google is by far the most reasonable.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#344

Post by kevincox »

eigenvector wrote: post #287
Xorlev wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 woul…

YouTube is as big of a purveyor of misinformation as Facebook. I just spent two hours yesterday dissecting all manner of coronavirus misinformation my mom learned from YouTube. The insidious aspect of it is that she never went looking for that - she started off watching legitimate sources like credible media outlets but autoplay took her further and further down the rabbit hole without even realizing she was no longe…

This seems like a weird point when arguing against a closed platform. You are saying that it is hard to report misinformation. If we were using a distributed platform it would be impossible. So in this aspect centralized platforms are superior even if they are closed and not great in an absolute degree.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#345

Post by kbenson »

free_rms wrote: post #325
neves wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to be so Machiavellian. This forum is filled with Google and Facebook engineers. Some of them sincerely don't see anything bad in their companies. Others probably want to protect their stock options.

"It's impossible to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it." - Mencken

> - Mencken

Rabbit hole[1] successfully descended and eventually escaped. Luckily it was a very shallow one. :)

1: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#346

Post by why_only_15 »

mjburgess wrote: post #268
bambax wrote: post #261

The real mystery is why nobody has ever been able to do better search than Google, or at least just as good. Of course search is really hard, but how is it possible that huge companies with nearly infinite money and talent (MS / Apple / Amazon) were never able to do it? MS actually tried; it's unclear if the others even gave it a thought. The rest of Google is different. I use Gmail but could easily switch. I've not…

I suspect people optimising for google over the last, c. 20 years has made the difference. ie., people have spent years writing their sites explicitly with google SEO in-mind... add-in all the data google has via adwords...

Why can't other search engines just hook into those same signals though?

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#347

Post by Lammy »

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…

My favorite part of this comment is the lack of disclaimer for a decade-long career at Google :)

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#348

Post by dmitriid »

GuB-42 wrote: post #194
alangibson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by 'the concept' you mean 'be faster', then yea. But that's not much of an endorsement of AMP.

It is not just faster. It also encourages sensible design and cuts down on the most annoying ad practices. I always say there are two parts in AMP, a very sensible set of guidelines for good design, enforced by code, and Google services. The first ones benefit users, the second benefit Google. The unfortunate thing is that when I hear complaints, it is more often about the former than the latter. Something about "cre…

It's not about "creative freedom". It's about Google forcing its will on the internet.

- You want to be at the top of our search, in the search carousel? You must implement AMP. We don't care how fast or beautiful your website is. Oh, and only news sites may apply.

- You want to show people the canonical URL? To show the source of the website? No. We will show that it comes from Google, we will actively try to discourage people from finding links to your website, and we will actually launch an initiative in Chrome to kill the URL altogether

- You want to measure activity and engagement on AMP pages? Oh, no we're going to send you a different, very limited and reduced set of analytics data

- You want to show ads in your AMP pages? Oh, it will only be from the ad providers that we, the largest ad provider, allow.

- Do you want to engage in how AMP is defined and designed, and change how it works? No, you can't, we go through a totally opaque process, and we only deliver final decisions that you have no say on. Oh, yes, once we've made all the big decisions (including things like AMP for Email) that actively harm the web, we will create a token "governing organisation" that will do everything in the open, fingers crossed. Not that it matters at all.

And so on and so forth. This is a good article with links to other articles highlighting the many issues with AMP: https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/amplified/

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#349

Post by tikhonj »

bambax wrote: post #247
BlueTemplar wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would one even break up Google ? You can only shut it down (which would allow competitors to emerge again).

You can break it up geographically. Advertising is still very local. Or you could break up search / browser / advertising / mobile; search and browser would need to invent other ways to monetize themselves.

Search could still be funded by search advertising. It just wouldn't be combined with AdWords/DoubleClick/etc. Same idea for other products that have their own ads like GMail and YouTube.

Re: Web by Google (TM)

#350

Post by respondo2134 »

throwaway45349 wrote: post #324
jacquesm wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice of you to speak out. If I were working at Google I'd be more worried about Facebook too. Because your paycheck more or less depends on you being able to tell yourself that you are working for 'the good guys'. But in my book both are equally rotten, it's just that this thread is about Google, not about Facebook and that makes these clear attempts at deflection. Google does plenty to spread misinformation as well,…

> Youtube is a sewer giving outright conspiracy nutcases a platform, they continuously promote Breitbart, infowars and other despicable websites Well, glad you're not in charge, then. If these publications really are crackpots then surely people will stop reading them? Freedom of speech and all that. Disclosure: Googler.

Googler but still throw away account? You must not feel too strongly about your convictions.

You also obviously don't understand what free speech means, which is depressing of someone skilled & intelligent enough to work at the big G.

Free speech is not the right to say what ever you want. It's the responsibility to stand behind and defend what you speak with real evidence.

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