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An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

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Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#61
post #12

I wonder how that code managed to stay secret so many years. How did they keep all the mass of data, the tickets, the user stories and pitch decks from being spilled online and get publicly dressed down? I guess that’s the one single major threat to effectively WHF: the need for maximum security secrecy and infrastructure control.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#62

I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…

I wonder if the behavior of the largest tech companies is a cause or an effect of their size. Is unethical behavior pushing companies to the top of the food chain? Or is it that other companies feel more ethical simply because they don't have as many chances to engage in unethical behavior? If it's the latter, all the push to split the companies is for nothing and we should just consider "ethics at scale" to be an un…

Criminal business is the most profitable business and "unethical" just means "white collar crime". If the law allowed drug trafficking and kidnappings, the biggest corp in the US would be a drug cartel and the only reason they are outlawed is because even people at the top agree that such cartels are bad. Things are different for white collar crime: most people believe that its OK to do shady things if nobody's obviously hurt. This is why senators brazengly trade stocks influenced by the laws they pass. They don't believe its a crime. So unsurprisingly, the biggest corps in the US exploit this weakness at scale. It may take centuries before the collective agreement will equate such business practices with drug cartels.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#63

I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…

Yep...in a very short amount of time they went from "dont be evil" to "hide your evil".

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#64

I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…

[deleted]

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#65

I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…

Being a xoogler used to be something to put in your profile bio, and basically an instant hire if in your CV. Now it almost carries a stigma.

Man, I don't know, if you need some binary trees inverted on a whiteboard, they are still the go-to folks.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#66

I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…

All that changed is a breakdown in perception management. Google definitely had positive and idealistic beginnings, but through growth eventually innate properties of the species will express and become difficult to centrally control. This is a feature Google has in common with any other large organization, be it IBM, Amazon or the Catholic church.

Your solution is finding a good employer who you know and vet personally, and avoiding working entirely for large companies. Managing human rot at scale is an unsolved problem, and few seem to survive exposure to extraordinary cash flows without some aspect or other of their humanity being impacted.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#68

I remember when google was the shining light of “be nice company” that we all dreamed of working for, at odds with the evil that was M$crosoft. And, from reading all the “why I left google” posts and hearing about them leaving China, the old google of 20 or even just 10 years ago was the good or even just a better google. With how google went from “do no evil” to this, with how Facebook has always been profits over e…

I got a Google Home a couple of years ago, cuz all my friends had one, but never got around to set it up. When it came out it was a magical box by a cool company that was like star trek had turned real.

The other day I unpacked the thing cuz I needed a Bluetooth speaker, and was swearing at the thing the whole time cuz I couldn't set it up as a speaker without downloading the app, hooking the device to WiFi and seemingly giving Google access to more of my data (you can turn off the mic, but it keeps complaining about it at full volume and u can't turn that off).

It's funny how the personal feelings associated with Google has changed. The device is the same, but the perspective, the emotion towards the company has changed so much.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#69

The bits about the ad auction are all what I expected as a user... Obviously they can adjust their fee up or down to further their interests. Obviously they have the right to set the 'floor' auction price, and can set it to maximize profits. Obviously they can take on business from Facebook, and limit how much they take on if they like. It doesn't include stuff about their recent switch to first price auctions, which…

They rejected bids with higher bid prices to prefer their own inventory. The auction was rigged.

If there was even a single instance of that, a bidder would know...

Every losing bidder gets information about the winning bid. Nobody is saying "I bid $1.00, yet the winning bid was $0.90".

You could almost argue that the auction time limits lead to this case "I would have bid a dollar, but you finished the auction before I could say that!". But the time limits are 100 milliseconds plus, which in computer terms is an age. If you can't get your bid in in that time, it's just badly written software that hasn't precomputed the bid ahead of time.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#70

Google seriously needs to be broken up into small pieces or disolved entirely. Their leadership just cannot be be trusted and the internet would be better off without them around.

From a staunch opposer to government regulation in tech 4-5 years back, I have turned into someone who will cheer a break up of these big tech companies.
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