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No longer loving Google

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Re: No longer loving Google

#51

Post by beatle »

pg wrote: post #31
NelsonMinar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buried this in the post, but of all the things Google's done this month the promotion of Google Search Plus Your World (aka Search+) is what concerns me the most. The other negative stories are less significant, I only mentioned them because they're part of the trend I'm feeling. I think it's interesting that anti-Google posts are reflexively upvoted. Ten years ago that would have been Microsoft.

I agree that's the most worrying sign. In the past Google won by making what people needed. But it seems clear that was not their primary motivation for SPYW. Their primary motivation was clearly fear of Facebook. That hasn't made Google evil yet. It's just the first step down the road to mediocrity. Which may lead to evil in the long term, because to make lots of money despite being mediocre, you generally have to d…

>But it seems clear that was not their primary motivation for SPYW. Their primary motivation was clearly fear of Facebook.

This is my main issue with Google. Most of their products/services were created/acquired not because they want to innovate or create something awesome. it's usually to copy or kill newer and more innovative start-ups and products or more established companies (many of Google's services are mediocre versions given away for free).

Case in point: Yelp, Groupon, Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Skyhook, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc.

Re: No longer loving Google

#52

Post by hbar »

gabaix wrote: post #14

Mozilla Foundation has not moved on its position of bringing good. I think any IPO company is ultimately compelled to choose profits over values.

In a public corporation, this is always true. The first responsibility is to the shareholders. This point seems to be frequently overlooked.

Re: No longer loving Google

#53

Post by napierzaza »

pg wrote: post #23

Like any anti-Google post lately, this one has been reflexively upvoted, but if you look at his reasons for not loving Google, they're pretty thin. The Kenyan episode was obviously one rogue branch with insufficient oversight; as soon as the guys in Mountain View found out what was going on, they stopped it, and with a minimum of the sort of corporate doublespeak you'd expect from most big companies. The changes to p…

Like any Google apologizing your post was upvoted reflexively. You efficiently summarized the talking points you were given.

Re: No longer loving Google

#54

Post by cromwellian »

jcrites wrote: post #44
cromwellian wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't trust everything you see on PandoDaily if I were you. You're never going to find any large organization that satisfies all of your wishes, even a non-profit has internal political struggles. But on a relative scale of evilness, which big companies would you want to work for? For example, Apple (Doesn't trust employees, has them work on fake products, super-compartmentalized secrecy on campus, has agents sp…

Has them work on fake products?

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/01/30/apple_puts_som...

Re: No longer loving Google

#55

Post by spazcat »

cromwellian wrote: post #35
NelsonMinar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I wrote the linked blog post. I don't have many friends left at Google but from what I've heard there's a lot of internal debate about the direction of the company now. There's been years of grumbling about how big the company has gotten, but more lately there's a lot of dissent around the outsized role of Google+. If you believe this story, the debate is quite heated: http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/24/larry-page-…

I wouldn't trust everything you see on PandoDaily if I were you. You're never going to find any large organization that satisfies all of your wishes, even a non-profit has internal political struggles. But on a relative scale of evilness, which big companies would you want to work for? For example, Apple (Doesn't trust employees, has them work on fake products, super-compartmentalized secrecy on campus, has agents sp…

I've heard that they require that employees sign a new NDA every time there is a company all-hands.

The place reeks of lack of trust and just sounds _depressing_ to work at.

Re: No longer loving Google

#56

Post by spazcat »

cooldeal wrote: post #36
NelsonMinar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buried this in the post, but of all the things Google's done this month the promotion of Google Search Plus Your World (aka Search+) is what concerns me the most. The other negative stories are less significant, I only mentioned them because they're part of the trend I'm feeling. I think it's interesting that anti-Google posts are reflexively upvoted. Ten years ago that would have been Microsoft.

>I think it's interesting that anti-Google posts are reflexively upvoted. Ten years ago that would have been Microsoft. Ten years ago? How about now? The hate for Microsoft around here is so bad that winsupersite.com (the premier inside and latest Microsoft related news site) is completely banned from even submitting to HN, probably because of excessive flagging by haters [1]. Google hate is nothing compared to that.…

Observe the cognitive dissonance of people accusing Google of Big Company Badness and then going on to recommend Bing in the same breath.

Re: No longer loving Google

#57

Post by erichocean »

jrockway wrote: post #27

Google's problem is that their public communications only communicate a tiny fraction of the information they have available. For example, people are worried about privacy, so they say "you can choose what to share with these cool buttons" rather than discuss their internal procedures for employee access to user data. The other day, someone on HN wrote, "I trust Google, but what about a laptop with malware?" Google c…

> The more evil you think Google is being, the more likely they're doing the opposite of what you think they are.

I've seen variations on this line by people who presumably have insider knowledge of how Google operates. (If they don't, they shouldn't be saying things they clearly have no clue about.)

Anyway, as someone who doesn't have that insider access, and only knows a few people who work at Google, I wanted to let you know how comments like that read to me:

I find them extremely arrogant.

I don't mean to imply you are lying, or untrustworthy, or are somehow a bad (or even just arrogant) person. But as an independent, thinking mind, I find it mindboggingly-arrogant to tell someone – anyone – to think the exact opposite of what their mind is telling them, without any proof, on the basis of some supposed "authority". Not only bad advice, but dangerous.

Can you imagine how many crimes against humanity have been perpetrated with that kind of logic? "Sure, it may seem like persecuting group X is bad, but comrade, trust us, we have your best interest at heart. When it looks like we're at our worst, well, that's when we're at our best." Uh huh.

Again, I'm not calling you out specifically, but I would suggest that Google employees stop with this line of argument. I can't think of any better way to get people motivated against Google than what you're doing.

Thanks.

Re: No longer loving Google

#58

Post by ajross »

cageface wrote: post #40
pg wrote: post #23

Like any anti-Google post lately, this one has been reflexively upvoted, but if you look at his reasons for not loving Google, they're pretty thin. The Kenyan episode was obviously one rogue branch with insufficient oversight; as soon as the guys in Mountain View found out what was going on, they stopped it, and with a minimum of the sort of corporate doublespeak you'd expect from most big companies. The changes to p…

When a single company has a record of almost everything I do online I have to hold them to a much higher standard than other companies. Arguments about Google's intentions tend to swing to the emotional because the nature of their business requires that we trust them indefinitely. And the way they've handled a handful of these issues recently signals to me that they're feeling more and more comfortable straining that…

Arguably, it's also a barometer of Google's increasing status as the primary corporate enemy of Apple Computer, Inc. My gut tells me that if someone actually did the survey they'd find that "Google is Evil" posts and upvotes correlate less with Civil Libertarian politics than they do with the manufacturer of the poster's phone and laptop.

Re: No longer loving Google

#59

Post by spazcat »

kprobst wrote: post #12

I don't understand why people thought that somehow a publicly traded corporation was going to behave forever in the same way as a garage startup. Once Google reached a certain size, a certain revenue level, and became beholden to institutional shareholders plus (in this case) found itself in a position of largely uncontested market control, I think it was inevitable that it would turn into the all too familiar carica…

Read the IPO letter to investors. They have two classes of voting shares, like Berkshire Hathaway, which enables them to make longer term bets than the market's attention span can handle.

Re: No longer loving Google

#60

Post by tansey »

pg wrote: post #23

Like any anti-Google post lately, this one has been reflexively upvoted, but if you look at his reasons for not loving Google, they're pretty thin. The Kenyan episode was obviously one rogue branch with insufficient oversight; as soon as the guys in Mountain View found out what was going on, they stopped it, and with a minimum of the sort of corporate doublespeak you'd expect from most big companies. The changes to p…

Hence the need for honeypots, pg. :)
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