Anyone that ever belived into the "Do no evil" motto was only fooling themselves, companies only care about their profitability.
I bet $10 you once believed that motto yourself. of course you have long since changed and that is good
Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
281–290 of 427 posts
Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
#282Unpopular opinion here for sure as I see enty of calls for regulation and antitrust suits, the easiest answer is for people to simply stop using Google products. Sure that's easier said than done given how much we depend on them today, but is it really harder than convincing the federal government to step in and break up companies that pay huge lobbying bills, understand how tech companies work in the first place, de…
You’re assuming a level of understanding of the market structure and technical details of browsers and web advertising that probably less than 5% of Chrome users possess.
Yeah for sure, but the solution to an uneducated populous isn't large governments and regulation. That's a bandaid at best, but it's never sustainable.
Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
#283Unpopular opinion here for sure as I see enty of calls for regulation and antitrust suits, the easiest answer is for people to simply stop using Google products. Sure that's easier said than done given how much we depend on them today, but is it really harder than convincing the federal government to step in and break up companies that pay huge lobbying bills, understand how tech companies work in the first place, de…
>simply stop using Google products
Google squashed most of the competition in a lot of sectors, and the few remaining competitors aren't any better often.
Aside, even if you do not actively use google, google will still be in your life, by tracking and selling you. Already there is realistically no way to entirely "ungooglify" your life as long as you live and partake in some modern western society.
And soon it seems, you will be using a Google browser because you have to, because your bank or employer website or whatever will require their web "attestation" DRM, and will not accept your Firefox, Brave, Chromium, Vivaldi, Opera or whatever attestation.
And if you're hoping for other attestation vendors... Try streaming anything that needs a subscription without using Google's widevine DRM. You will be surprised on how few options there are, not just in implementations but in streaming services that support anything besides Google's widevine.
Google and probably Microsoft and Apple will be big enough browser vendors to be widely supported "attested environments" and attestation providers. Everybody else will bite the dust on that front.
E.g. "x% of websites do not accept Firefox's attestation" will drive more users away from Firefox, and that in turn will lead to even fewer websites supporting Firefox attestation because why spend the dev resources to support it with that measly market share when people can just use one of the big browsers?!
And google knows this very well, from the "works best/only in Chrome" to widevine. They were even able to make MS abandon their browser engine and jump on the google engine train, after all.
This to me is very clearly an antitrust issue that needs antitrust suits and regulation.
Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
#284In 2012, I interviewed at Google Ireland for an SRE position. I ended up not taking the job due to family issues, but I somewhat regretted having missed the opportunity to tackle Google-sized problems and make FAANG-sized money for a few years after. This feeling has ceased entirely in the meantime, due to what Google has become, and how its understanding of its role in the world seems to have shifted. Or maybe its t…
Money is a hell of a drug.
Early Google seemed to be genuine and upstanding fellas. The dotcom crash made everyone scramble to pay the bills and monetize which is where the seeds were sown for what we have today.
Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is safe to assume that every big internet/data/telco company from big nation states has some kind of relationship with national intelligence agencies, dating back from the 60s at least, if we just talk about the modern information age. Nothing strange or mind blowing really, for example Crypto AG, a famous swiss crypto vendor was secretly a joint USA-Germany operation from the 70s onward.
Oh I absolutely agree wrt internet/telecom/utah datacenter panopticon/etc. For me the nuance is in the origins and ongoing leadership and effects on the consumer experience. The "Killed by google" phenomenon paints a darker picture in my mind. I start to read each google product as a folder in a CIA Sharepoint system - Only to be kept around until it is no longer valuable to the agency. Each with some sort of ulterio…
One thing is sure: Sharepoint is definitely a US government cyber weapon, judging by the damage it's doing worlwide XD.
Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if you split the search and ads divisions into two companies, what prevents them from entering into a partnership and keep doing whatever they do now?
Enshittifying search to serve ads' end goals/margins will go against the search company's shareholder interest, and they can be sued for that.
Good chance the shareholders would be the same people for both.
Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
#287It's time to start lobbying hard for an antitrust breakup of Google. This DRM plan, as abuse of a monopoly position, provides more political coverage for a forced breakup. It's pretty clear how to break up Alphabet, because it grew mostly by acquisition. - Google - search, ads on search pages and nothing more. - DoubleClick - third party ads on other sites. - Analytics - services to web sites. - Cloud - the money-los…
It is highly unlikely that Android, Chrome, and Analytics can be viable businesses on their own. I can perhaps see a viable path for analytics if a lot of things go their way but those three are almost entirely successful because they are subsidized by the other businesses. Youtube, and the other ads business can probably survive okay on their own but Chrome and Android I suspect can't.
Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
#288I've been wary of Google for a while now, and this is further proof my wariness is justified. However, one thing I can't seem to kick is using Google search as a fallback. I use DuckDuckGo or Brave search for most of my searches, but half the time I have to add "!g" to the search to switch to Google to get actually useful results. Does anyone have any tips or tricks (or search engines I'm unfamiliar with) so I can br…
I use DDG and never feel the need to add !g, but if you do, try using !sp instead. Startpage takes Google’s results and proxies them.
> try using !sp instead. Startpage takes Google’s results and proxies them
Ahh, this is an EXCELLENT tip.
Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
#289Anyone that ever belived into the "Do no evil" motto was only fooling themselves, companies only care about their profitability.
I bet $10 you once believed that motto yourself. of course you have long since changed and that is good
Great, because I am a grey dog, born in the 1970's, first generation after the Portuguese dictorship, still experienced the leftovers of it, and don't belive in giving human attributes to capitalist corporations.
Where can I collect my $10?
Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
#290Google has evolved to a size and point where they really can't (and shouldn't) be trusted to manage their own vision and direction. Critical infrastructure like this should belong to and be beholding to the people.