I know this guy is one of the HN celebrity set, but can we please modify that title to something more meaningful?
Something like:
"Bullshit - what companies really mean?"
Bullshit
41–50 of 233 posts
Re: Bullshit
#42Does Apple actually claim that their app review process is in _everyone's_ best interests, or just their customers (which is frequently at 180-degree odds with sketchy devs)?
Re: Bullshit
#43With Apple, I'm the customer, not a marketer. This makes me comfortable with our relationship. I don't really care about Ping or app store approval policies, so, meh... With Google, I can see their ability to become a shady company pretty easily, but it is just too damn easy to switch search engines. Bing isn't so bad you know. But Facebook knows so much about me, and the network effects are so strong -- this is the…
The problem with Google is you get tracked even if you don't use any of their services. Almost every single web page has one of Google Adsense, Analytics, Maps, ... all of which can build up a profile about you. To a degree this same effect is happening with FB as more and more sites add like buttons, though they remain less common than Google's array of libraries.
Does Google have a look at Google Analytics? I thought it was only for the webmasters who set it up and that Google did not touch it.
It is nearly their only service that I haven't blocked (with the libraries available on their CDN).
Re: Bullshit
#44Deeply agree on that list. But there are some o at least one company that I'd actually trust more than others, and support, and that's Mozilla. Because there's no share holders. Because it's owned by non-profit. And because their track record is perfect so far. Everything's open. All the development is in the open, not just the code. Everything's made for our best interest actually.
What about Opera?
Their software is unfortunately proprietary, but I trust them. As far as I know, they never sold any data they got though their proxies with Opera Mini. And they got a lot.
Re: Bullshit
#45> Facebook: "Our users want to interact with brands." As distasteful as the hacker crowd may find it, this is probably a true statement. A significant number of people (in the developed world) really do construct a large part of their personal identity by buying branded products from companies in order to signal something about themselves. There's a section on this on the Wikipedia page for "Brand": http://en.wikiped…
Perhaps if you conflate "users want to associate themselves, from time to time, with brands" and "users want to interact with brands".
Re: Bullshit
#46I always, always, always find what I want from Google. So whatever they are doing is, in some way, for my benefit.
And even if I was ready to pay for every website/service I use (which I'm not), ads are not going away. So when they do whatever they are doing to show me better ads I'd say that's on my benefit too.
I'm not a Google unconditional fan (I hate Android, love iOS) and certainly they can do better. But implying they don't benefit the end user is what I find bullshit-y.
And I think that's a very poorly written article, btw. Marco can do a lot better.
Re: Bullshit
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but it is just too damn easy to switch search engines. and personal email, and collaboration tools, and project mailing lists, and photo service, and maps service, and video hosting.. If you consider google as the search engine maybe not, but if you consider google the company the it's downright scary how hard it would be to get out of their grasp, IMO.
I don't think it would be that hard. You're one MX record change away from changing your mailhost without anyone ever knowing. You can continue using your gmail.com address without ever seeing ads by connecting with IMAP. You can get maps from anywhere, including Open Street Map. You can move your photos from Picassa to your own machine and to Flickr, if you desire. Google Chat is XMPP, so you can get a new "chat pro…
This. Unfortunately I don't entirely share your optimistic sentiment regarding Google's intentions and potential for misuse of trust. The big plus with Google is that, by and large, they make it pretty easy for your to take your ball and go. If I want to switch mail providers, it's pretty easy to get all my emails and contacts off of GMail.
Re: Bullshit
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but it is just too damn easy to switch search engines. and personal email, and collaboration tools, and project mailing lists, and photo service, and maps service, and video hosting.. If you consider google as the search engine maybe not, but if you consider google the company the it's downright scary how hard it would be to get out of their grasp, IMO.
I don't think it would be that hard. You're one MX record change away from changing your mailhost without anyone ever knowing. You can continue using your gmail.com address without ever seeing ads by connecting with IMAP. You can get maps from anywhere, including Open Street Map. You can move your photos from Picassa to your own machine and to Flickr, if you desire. Google Chat is XMPP, so you can get a new "chat pro…
The mail host is the least I'd worry about. Migrating the mail archive is much more important. Furthermore Gmail's user interface beats anything else hands down, it's too hard to say goodbye to it.
Re: Bullshit
#49With Apple, I'm the customer, not a marketer. This makes me comfortable with our relationship. I don't really care about Ping or app store approval policies, so, meh... With Google, I can see their ability to become a shady company pretty easily, but it is just too damn easy to switch search engines. Bing isn't so bad you know. But Facebook knows so much about me, and the network effects are so strong -- this is the…
With Apple, I'm the customer, not a marketer.
I believe the party line is "I'm not the product being sold".
but it is just too damn easy to switch search engines.
Or, you know, run an ad-blocker - much easier than jailbreaking a phone and Google Search/Gmail will continue to work well with an ad-blocker running, even if they upgrade the site.
Re: Bullshit
#50With Apple, I'm the customer, not a marketer. This makes me comfortable with our relationship. I don't really care about Ping or app store approval policies, so, meh... With Google, I can see their ability to become a shady company pretty easily, but it is just too damn easy to switch search engines. Bing isn't so bad you know. But Facebook knows so much about me, and the network effects are so strong -- this is the…
The problem with Google is you get tracked even if you don't use any of their services. Almost every single web page has one of Google Adsense, Analytics, Maps, ... all of which can build up a profile about you. To a degree this same effect is happening with FB as more and more sites add like buttons, though they remain less common than Google's array of libraries.
http://www.ghostery.com/
It's a serious problem, though in this instance it's hardly Google's fault. I doubt Ghostery turns me into an internet specter, but at least I know I'm not pinging Facebook's, Google's, and God-knows-who-else's beacons whenever I open a web-page.