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Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

bbc.com

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Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#51

Post by vkou »

Clewza313 wrote: post #29

> Third, a lot of Pichai's big bets have failed: Google Glass, Google Plus, Google Wave, Project Loon Every single one of these predates Pichai, who only became CEO in 2015: * Google Wave was already turned down in 2012 * Google Plus launched in 2011 and the writing was on the wall by 2015 * Google Glass consumer edition was discontinued in Jan 2015 before Pichai started * Loon is the only arguable exception; it was…

Wave also largely turned into Enterprise Apps - docs, hangouts, etc.

Plus was Larry's and Vic's baby.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#52

Post by Santosh83 »

The "open" Internet is done for because in recent years most governments have realised that the natural culmination of an open Internet is in fact an open, cross-mingling, world culture, community and economy, and eventually, the deprecation of the traditional idea of nation states. And you can prise that control from their cold, dead hands.

PS. Include mega-corps in 'nation states' above. They both want total control over the Internet. They will get it too, in some proportion. Because truly democratic forces are too weak and disorganised, as always.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#53

Post by denkmoon »

MattGaiser wrote: post #44
denkmoon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governmental incompetence exceeds their ability to regulate. Google have the capacity to pull off a lot more than Governments. Google would have a walled garden if they could afford to lose the users and manufacturers that would revolt against it.

Google's main product is letting people find stuff on the web. What benefit would a walled garden be to them unless everything was on Google infrastructure? They would need to control everything. They lose the most if the internet balkanizes.

Google's main product is ads, not search. Search (and Mail, and Video) are just mechanisms for offering ads.

By balkanising the internet they can have a monopoly over offering ads to certain target groups that fall within their walled garden.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#54

Post by erdo »

acomjean wrote: post #9
Sophistifunk wrote: post #2

From where I sit the #1 risk to the free and open internet these days is Google. Edit: two reasons: 1) Because adtech is destroying society. Surveillance is never good. Ads as funding smears absolutely everything with perverse incentives that act consistently against both the explicit wishes and implicit best-interests of the viewers, and (it seems moreso every year) society at large. 2) Google is doing everything it…

How so? It seems that a search engine would need the internet to have as much information out there in the open to index and give us the results upon searching.. Because they are so dominate they exercise outsized control, but there are still a few others. Data behind paywalls/logins is useless to them.

Except of course Google is not a search engine company, Google is an advertising company

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#55

Post by erdo »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #12

Once a company is large and entrenched, regulation is how you stay in power. You create enough Byzantine rules that basically only the largest company can hire the lawyers and comply. It’s an effective way to kill off competition. Google is ready to start encouraging regulation.

Why is this being down voted? It's fairly standard practice for a large company isn't it?

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#56

Post by musicale »

echelon wrote: post #40
Spooky23 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is literally the only tech giant with an interest in the open internet. Facebook scored the mortal wound on the web — they reinvented a bigger, badder AOL closed garden.

And Apple crippled the web on its locked-down as chastity iOS devices. These companies -- all of them -- are fucking with each other. None of us matter in the end. It's all about which company can screw the other out of engagement and eyeballs. Meanwhile Firefox, the open web, open source, right to repair, and digital ownership all wither away.

> It's all about which company can screw the other out of engagement and eyeballs.

Well that is kind of how media companies compete against each other, but the key question is: is it beneficial or harmful to the public?

You could argue that Apple is acquiring users who they then lock in, sell to advertisers and developers (for a 30% cut on the App store) and monetize with service subscriptions, but you can also argue that half of Apple's profit is still from hardware sales, that apps and services are a big reason for buying that hardware, so Apple is still beholden to its hardware customers to some extent.

And Google has https://wellbeing.google as well as associated features in Android, and Apple has also implemented "screen time" tracking and limits.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#57

Post by bluthund »

iratewizard wrote: post #39
Spooky23 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is literally the only tech giant with an interest in the open internet. Facebook scored the mortal wound on the web — they reinvented a bigger, badder AOL closed garden.

Just like how YouTube has become a more open and free platform in their care. Or how search results have become more open and free since they dominated market share.

Do you guys factor the deplatforming they do into this or are you not aware that they are heavily involved in censorship on their platforms

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#58

Post by _huayra_ »

threatofrain wrote: post #46
Spooky23 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is literally the only tech giant with an interest in the open internet. Facebook scored the mortal wound on the web — they reinvented a bigger, badder AOL closed garden.

Google also seems to be one of the few entities in the world capable of building kick-ass web apps.

The one exception being any sort of chat app. Now they're going from crusty old Hangouts to Chat while plenty of other chat apps have been far more polished for a long time

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#59

Post by Barrin92 »

erdo wrote: post #54
acomjean wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? It seems that a search engine would need the internet to have as much information out there in the open to index and give us the results upon searching.. Because they are so dominate they exercise outsized control, but there are still a few others. Data behind paywalls/logins is useless to them.

Except of course Google is not a search engine company, Google is an advertising company

To this day I have no idea what that statement is supposed to express despite seeing it about a dozen times per week.

Google makes money selling ads yes, but their core product is search. Like a newspaper, which does journalism, and also has an ad department, or a TV show, with ad breaks, or a sports broadcast.

Do people think Google makes their search worse to... sell fewer ads?

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#60

Post by username90 »

denkmoon wrote: post #53
MattGaiser wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's main product is letting people find stuff on the web. What benefit would a walled garden be to them unless everything was on Google infrastructure? They would need to control everything. They lose the most if the internet balkanizes.

Google's main product is ads, not search. Search (and Mail, and Video) are just mechanisms for offering ads. By balkanising the internet they can have a monopoly over offering ads to certain target groups that fall within their walled garden.

That isn't how this works, Google doesn't have good enough content to compete with other tech giants without the open web. If Google kills the web then Google kills itself. Most of their money comes from their search web page and not the ads from other sites, so people browsing the web is their main source of revenue. Their other sites are big, yes, but not big enough to make them one of the few most valuable companies in the world.

Anyway, Google works hard to make the open web competitive with all the walled gardens around. When they do that they put up some fences to make the experience a bit more like walled gardens, but the open web is still just a few seconds and a click away.

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