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Google Flight Search

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Re: Google Flight Search

#261

Post by danssig »

haberman wrote: post #188
throwaway32 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said profit was their only motivation, but it is the reason they are a corporation, and not a charity. I refer you to the comment above by jey What Google "wants" as an entity is different from what the individual component humans want. Although Sergey is an obviously important influence at Google, he is not Google.

You said profit was the "first" motivation. You haven't even justified that. Saying that a corporation has to at least break even to avoid being a charity is a far cry from your previous grandstanding. Just because a corporation has to make money doesn't mean that money is the "first" motivation for every decision. It doesn't explain why Google (not Sergey, Google) pulled out of China.

They pulled out of China because the government was hacking them! Do you think they had some knight-in-shining-armour reason? That was all just PR.

Re: Google Flight Search

#262

Post by danssig »

breck wrote: post #161
throwaway32 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the first motivation of any for profit corporation, especially one as large and successful as Google, is profit. That is their entire reason for existence, don't fool yourself into believing otherwise.

Profit is a large motivation, for sure. There are some folks at Google (I'm guessing particularly on the business side), who probably have that as their primary motivation. I think the core of Google is Larry, Sergey, Urs, Craig, and the other dozens of engineers I've read about (never met), and from their actions and words over a course of a decade, I think they've proved that a huge motivator for them all is to sim…

Haha, if you want to disagree with my rose-colored review of why Google are so benevolent then please do a bunch of work so I can just sit here nitpick with nearly no effort on my part.

Re: Google Flight Search

#263

Post by danssig »

crenshaw wrote: post #221
sharmajai wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not law enforcement and thank god for that. Unlike apple which strives to be the moral leader of the world that nobody needs. What google did here was illegal and it paid the price for it, but I don't see anybody getting directly harmed by google's decision, it was not google selling the drugs themselves or that the drugs were not upto the standards. Besides by the same reasoning google should block all the…

So let me get this straight. Protecting your IP with legal patents is evil. Willfully and knowingly getting paid to advertise illegally distributed prescription drugs is fine and dandy. Clearly Google can do no evil, because everything they do is good in your eyes. Next thing you'll tell me that collecting advertising for child porn, hitmen, or crack is fine too. They don't make moral judgments. Except in China when…

Even worse is the Orwellian Google love that's shitting all over this thread. Bill Gates started a charity because charities suck so bad and he wanted his billions to accomplish something. Steve Jobs doesn't even take money for his work (he gets stock options that he often doesn't even bother to extercise), hell, even Larry Ellison signed a thing to donate most of his fortune to charity when he dies.

But, no, it's Google who are the benevolent ones! Why? Well because their motto says so, duh?

Re: Google Flight Search

#264

Post by marquis »

goldfish wrote: post #90
marquis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the first site that has JetBlue and SouthWest comparisons with the major airlines will have my traffic. I usually prefer to travel on price when it's not business so I love how Google has made this clear - that's my core problem with Hipmunk and I'm not sure why they don't just tell you the cheapest days to fly, like Kayak at least tries to. I also like how http://skyscanner.com does it.

We (Hipmunk) have Jetblue, and so does Kayak and Google. We also let you figure out the cheapest days to fly: just click "I'm flexible."

Thanks, I just saw this (new?) feature. Works beautifully.

Re: Google Flight Search

#265

Post by sharmajai »

crenshaw wrote: post #221
sharmajai wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not law enforcement and thank god for that. Unlike apple which strives to be the moral leader of the world that nobody needs. What google did here was illegal and it paid the price for it, but I don't see anybody getting directly harmed by google's decision, it was not google selling the drugs themselves or that the drugs were not upto the standards. Besides by the same reasoning google should block all the…

So let me get this straight. Protecting your IP with legal patents is evil. Willfully and knowingly getting paid to advertise illegally distributed prescription drugs is fine and dandy. Clearly Google can do no evil, because everything they do is good in your eyes. Next thing you'll tell me that collecting advertising for child porn, hitmen, or crack is fine too. They don't make moral judgments. Except in China when…

Laws, being constructed by humans are not infalliable, or otherwise new laws won't replace existing ones. I don't know how willing the google's decision to permit advertising of prescription drugs was, but I am assuming they went with it because there was no precedent for such a thing in the past (the article mentions this as this is the first time a search engine being held responsible). But I hope and am almost certain that google won't do such a thing again. We will see.

Your example of child porn and crack is taking it too far and I am sure no such thing will happen. But if you want google to be enforcing all the laws for you, then maybe it should also detect your location and disallow all merchants catering to gay marriages in the search results, in states where it is prohibited.

Also I don't agree with your generalist approach to corporations that they are all equally evil. I for one would prefer a corporation which makes a bold statement about its policies being non evil and one which is ready to be called upon when it goes astray its path, than one which makes no such claims. To me this is not self righteousness but self discipline.

Re: Google Flight Search

#266

Post by danssig »

NuecadFoi wrote: post #225

Game over. Disclaimer: This is a throwaway account. I'm a person who has had a travel startup. I've decided to halt, once Google has finally acquired ITA Software. Travel is one of the world's largest industries (~5th), and online sales are its significant part (~10-30%, depending on the market), growing strongly. Online travel agencies (OTA) are among the few companies on web that get real money (~$150 per sale) fro…

This is one of the reasons I hate Google. I love to see normal people like me go make a startup and become successful. Escaping their corporate bonds. With companies like Google around who can use ad income to supplement dabbling in all sorts of things they can really weaken that option. And what's Google going to do with this? Add a couple percent on their revenue sheets? Great.

Re: Google Flight Search

#267

Post by NolF »

vaksel wrote: post #159
cletus wrote: post #20

Internally, this has been around for a little while (disclaimer: I work for Google but not on anything related to this). What continues to impress me about Google is: 1. Just how quickly this was built (really, it was quick); and 2. Google wants you to use our services because they're compelling not because we don't give you any other choice (ie "Don't be evil"). Sure there are limits to what it currently does but I…

No they want us to use their services because they make more money that way. And sure you have the choice of using competitors but let's be honest, Google has the option of always showing their own services in the #1 position in search results(i.e. search for any mortgage term). And they also dominate any local keywords. Instead of going to the actual business's website, the first 10 results tend to be Google places.…

If the results Google gave me were not relevant to what I needed (and that includes linking to third parties over their own excellent properties) then I would use bing, or find something else which accommodates to my needs better. However, this is currently not the case. I can quickly search the local weather without going to any random site, do quick maths or conversions without effort, search journals and books without second thought etc...

Re: Google Flight Search

#268

Post by sharmajai »

danssig wrote: post #263
crenshaw wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let me get this straight. Protecting your IP with legal patents is evil. Willfully and knowingly getting paid to advertise illegally distributed prescription drugs is fine and dandy. Clearly Google can do no evil, because everything they do is good in your eyes. Next thing you'll tell me that collecting advertising for child porn, hitmen, or crack is fine too. They don't make moral judgments. Except in China when…

Even worse is the Orwellian Google love that's shitting all over this thread. Bill Gates started a charity because charities suck so bad and he wanted his billions to accomplish something. Steve Jobs doesn't even take money for his work (he gets stock options that he often doesn't even bother to extercise), hell, even Larry Ellison signed a thing to donate most of his fortune to charity when he dies. But, no, it's Go…

Then maybe Steve Jobs should use his salary to make his products affordable to third world countries to do some real good than serving the riches of the world, and maybe Larry Ellison should have honored Sun Microsystem's policies of not suing anybody who uses Java APIs.

Re: Google Flight Search

#269

Post by NolF »

danssig wrote: post #266
NuecadFoi wrote: post #225

Game over. Disclaimer: This is a throwaway account. I'm a person who has had a travel startup. I've decided to halt, once Google has finally acquired ITA Software. Travel is one of the world's largest industries (~5th), and online sales are its significant part (~10-30%, depending on the market), growing strongly. Online travel agencies (OTA) are among the few companies on web that get real money (~$150 per sale) fro…

This is one of the reasons I hate Google. I love to see normal people like me go make a startup and become successful. Escaping their corporate bonds. With companies like Google around who can use ad income to supplement dabbling in all sorts of things they can really weaken that option. And what's Google going to do with this? Add a couple percent on their revenue sheets? Great.

And make my and million's of other live's much better. It takes a mammoth to disrupt such a consolidated (and crappy) industry.

Re: Google Flight Search

#270

Post by JohannTh »

I work for Dohop (www.dohop.com), a direct competitor of Google's new flight thing. We have been worried about Google's entrance into the field for a while, but after today we are breathing easier.

No international? No one-way? I know Google will change this, but why put out such a wildly underwhelming product?

And finally, since they are basing the whole thing on ITA anyway, we don't expect them to do anything Kayak isn't already doing.

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