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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

#331

Post by agumonkey »

bostik wrote: post #324
agumonkey wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's been studied or written but I'd bet solid money that every group / company starts nice, trying to differentiate from old rusty and corrupt only to become what they despised because that's just survival instinct and "efficiency" (short term, lazy). Same for people, new ones come fresh with ideals only to become sleazy when their spot is secured. It's a balance between knowledge of the old versus n…

> I don't know if it's been studied or written Yes, it has been written. And you almost certain will have heard the condensed version. You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.

come on, i need longer than this :)

there must be finer / wiser analysis about these antagonism.

I have a tendency to be a naive hero wannabee but I recognize when I become dark or complacent. Most probably people managed to do better and write about this in a social context.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#332

Post by kilbuz »

true_religion wrote: post #305
bluedevilzn wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you worked at FAANG and survived the treadmill for 20 years, you should be a Principal Engineer/Engineering Director at least. L8 compensation starts at a million dollars per year.

I’m not really a big fan of total compensation numbers when it comes heavily weighted into stock. After all, if I wanted to be paid for stock performance I would’ve been a stockbroker (and like I pointed out up there, gotten paid way more after 20 year survivorship). Also, I didn’t think it needed to be said but apart from Apple all the FAANG companies are really young, Google is only 23 years old. Back in 2001, they…

https://twitter.com/anothercohen/status/1343722582206377984

Multimillionaires are not people who joined Google 20 years ago. That's a different league altogether.

Multimillionaires are just normal people you've never heard of who work 9-5 and drink beer on the weekends with their friends and have a normal house in South Bay.

They joined Snowflake, Square, Airbnb, Lyft, Netflix, or any other of the hundreds of SV companies like those in the last decade, even the last few years.

They are the average homebuyers for 1500-2000 sq foot ranch houses in Bay Area right now.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#333

Post by greatgib »

jeffbee wrote: post #245
greatgib wrote: post #72

Best part for me: Users were led to believe they were encrypted. They were not. @MikeIsaac Google knew users were mislead. See quotes: >>

Why is that the best part? Isn’t that 100% the fault of WhatsApp and has more or less nothing at all to do with google?

No 50% whatsapp fault and 50% Google.

As an user, all claim to defend users and privacy, and users think that they have some features because it is in their interest. But in fact, they only care about their business objectives and would usually screw you if that can be in there interest. But with a very nice sugar coating.

For example, this kind of things explain why there was no backup alternatives except google.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#334

Post by p2t2p »

bagacrap wrote: post #225
p2t2p wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, look at me. I’m an immigrant. My wife’s useful skills would probably give her salary of about 5th of what we need, so she doesn’t work and takes care of the kid, house and engages in her hobbies, like making custom teddy bears. If I were put on a project like that I can easily imagine being quiet about it as I put well being of my family waaaay above any ethics. I can imagine that a lot of people do. So the onl…

above any ethics? You'd kill someone to support your family? Surely not. So there's somewhere you draw the line, you just don't think what Google's doing is that bad.

Define "kill". Is coding drones that do military strikes considered killing?

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#335

Post by stjohnswarts »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #195
FabHK wrote: post #128

Wow. We've just had a thread on how Facebook chooses profits over people ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28955579 ) and here's Google complaining that FB "at times" doesn't choose profit... > Google was frustrated @Facebook was not aligning with it to reduce users’ privacy. “We’ve had difficulty getting FB to align on our privacy goals and strategy, as they have at time[s] prioritized winning on reputation ove…

Personally, I don’t care that FB puts profits over people. That’s what I expect. They are a public corporation. FB’s board has a legal obligation (fiduciary responsibility) to make money for shareholders. Capitalism may suck, but it’s the law. Speaking of the law, Google’s abuses listed in this thread are what gall me. In Gulliver’s travels, the Lilliputians don’t strongly punish a common thief. You can just build a…

Well google needs to not complain then when the government comes looking around for anti-competitive practices or when they get broken up. Of the FAANG companies they could all pretty easily be split up easily into 3+ companies to compete in the social/advertising spectrum.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#336

Post by oth001 »

willvarfar wrote: post #5

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…

Epic Games seems like one of the good guys for the most part at least.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#337

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

_dain_ wrote: post #311
syngrog66 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US intel community assessed that Wikileaks was a thin front/wrapper for Russian intelligence operations intended to harm the US and allies. A kind of "launderer" at best for docs that Russian hackers or agents would steal or forge. Assange was the key guy behind Wikileaks. Therefore, Assange is... neither credible or honorable.

And you just believe everything the "US intel community" says?

Yeah if we're talking about "neither credible or honourable" then surely governments and their intelligence agencies fit that description

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#338

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

mrhands556 wrote: post #266
bsenftner wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a Capitalist, the only possible deal is a profitable one. However, to be profitable, the arangement between participants has to be unfair. It is only through an unfair exchange of goods and services is a profit produced. So it imperative the other parties believe they are getting a fair deal, otherwise they would not participate. So, it is unmentioned while required that the Capitalist control the information of t…

I pay an electrician a slight premium for knowledge and experience that won’t burn my house down. Sure, I could look it up on YouTube but the probability that I do something wrong probably outweighs the premium I would pay for a qualified electrician. How is this unfair?

Communism advocates for the workers owning their own means of production. An electrician working as a sole trader is an example of this. It is perfectly consistent with anti-capitalist thought to hire someone to perform work.

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#339

Post by boopmaster »

Who could have imagined that ad tech built with principles such as confusing UIs tricking customers into ad clicks, that fingerprint us and resell our personal info, that punish creators on the web by scraping answers from their sites, that built platforms like amp that diverted traffic away from sites, that’s okay with dragnets getting their customers scooped by the fuzz for being near a crime, that’s alright with censorship in China, that’s not into that “do no evil” garbage [just ask those employees that would publish papers on AI/ML ethics…] would ever have been caught up in something like this?

Re: An enormous thread on alleged Google Facebook collusion

#340

Post by dls2016 »

rajup wrote: post #309
dls2016 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also they were giving employees haircuts. Having been in the military and watched enough documentaries on the subject… any group that gives you a haircut is probably a cult.

This is false: they have vendors come onsite to give haircuts, but employees still pay for it. Had to point this out, since you jump from one false statement to a completely absurd conclusion.

The exact same was true in the military, re: vendors. The haircuts weren't free, at least as an officer.

Sure I was being hyperbolic, but the point is legitimate. They used benefits to get people willingly to sign up for a lifestyle, then used hierarchy to efficiently accomplish a bunch of insidious tasks.

You have an entire generation of students majoring in computer science and "grinding leetcode" to get a high paying job and never once stop to think about the consequences. The job is just like another homework set and the employees want those good grades (a PIP... oh no!). And like the military, you're a "professional" which means you aren't allowed to talk politics. (I know the Damore's of the world will complain that Google is run by "SJWs"... but that's only because that line of corpo-liberal talk is good for attracting people who don't think too hard about the actual mission.) I mean... they even had PIPs in the military (though had a different name)!

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