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Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

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Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#21

Post by scrollaway »

candiddevmike wrote: post #15
scrollaway wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re comparing vscode telemetry with “selling your data”? For real? Do you think the amount of time you spend in the File menu is as monetizable as your search history?

It's quite valuable to vendors who are trying to gauge usage and interest, yes.

… what?

I don’t even know how to find common ground with such a take. You’re saying vscode telemetry (which can be turned off by the way) is as bad as other data monetization because building a better product is profitable?

I hope I completely misunderstood you.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#22

Post by bbkane »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #5

I generally avoid Google products, but I do not understand the animosity towards YouTube, nor why anyone would not just pay the very small fee for YouTube Premium and do away with all the ads. The content being created for YouTube is fantastic, you can easily watch news from all over the world, conference talks, lectures, interviews, in-depth documentaries and deep dive analysis that blows away anything you'll ever s…

I'd like to take this paid option, but for some reason the official YouTube app on my Google Pixel is broken - the screen overlay never goes away, I can't see comments on videos, and trying to go to a channel takes me to "An error occurred RETRY" screen.

Unfortunately, I don't think Google does any kind of support for their YouTube app on their phones. Casual googling brought me to some forum posts that didn't seem helpful, and I've heard too many horror stories about Google support to put much effort into this route.

Quite unfortunate. Other options (NewPipe, Firefox Android + uBlock Origin) have their own problems. I might try to turn channels into podcasts and listen to them from my podcast player. Maybe that'll work.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#23

Post by formerly_proven »

saiya-jin wrote: post #19
jrm4 wrote: post #10

Interesting, I still don't, though I acknowledge perhaps Google has the greater capacity for harm; here's why. Over time, Google absolutely has been in a position to abuse data, and to some extent it has done so -- but honestly, if you compare what they COULD do to what they END UP DOING, they're not doing so bad at all. They mostly self-correct relatively nicely. Microsoft, on the other hand, clearly does the bare m…

From my personal and limited view I agree. But to be honest, I don't trust neither, at all, probably forever. MS actively destroyed 1 decent thing I liked about them, their OS. First they tried to make it better and actually succeeded over the years (anybody who went from Windows 95/98 into 2000/XP and realized MS can actually make stable usable modern OS would probably agree, 7 was their best OS for me). And then th…

All of these companies are obviously totally untrustworthy and anyone trying to convince you otherwise is either incredibly naive, stupid or has an ulterior motive.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#24

Post by dale_glass »

candiddevmike wrote: post #15
scrollaway wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re comparing vscode telemetry with “selling your data”? For real? Do you think the amount of time you spend in the File menu is as monetizable as your search history?

It's quite valuable to vendors who are trying to gauge usage and interest, yes.

It's valuable to Microsoft, but why would anybody else want to pay for data about the usage of a Microsoft product?

And why would Microsoft sell it? Like would you want to sell information like "X% of users can't figure out how to change the code formatting settings"? Or if you did learn something cool and useful, why would you sell it to the potential competition?

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#26

Post by cypress66 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #8

This is a dumb take. They're both equally untrustworthy. VSCode has an insane amount of telemetry turned on, ChatGPT is monitoring everything you type, and GitHub was abused to train a LLM. Microsoft and Google have both shown they would sell your data in a heartbeat to make a quick buck.

Github wasn't abused to train LLMs. Whatever website existed that openly hosted OSS repositories would have been scrapped if it had such a large number of repos. You don't need to be Microsoft to train on github.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#27

Post by logdap »

candiddevmike wrote: post #8

This is a dumb take. They're both equally untrustworthy. VSCode has an insane amount of telemetry turned on, ChatGPT is monitoring everything you type, and GitHub was abused to train a LLM. Microsoft and Google have both shown they would sell your data in a heartbeat to make a quick buck.

It's a product of sports-teams consumerism. People make affiliation with a sports team or corporate brand into part of their identity. When they fall out with one brand they feel compelled to fill the resulting void in their soul with another affiliation. That's why Google behaving badly prompts them to reconsider the merits of a completely different corporation.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#28

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

You updated a bias that was originally strengthened by meme reinforcement more so than firsthand experience, after acquiring enough new facts and ideas and life experience to recontextualize it. Sounds very normal, why not ask instead why it doesn't happen more often?

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#29

Post by imchillyb »

saiya-jin wrote: post #19
jrm4 wrote: post #10

Interesting, I still don't, though I acknowledge perhaps Google has the greater capacity for harm; here's why. Over time, Google absolutely has been in a position to abuse data, and to some extent it has done so -- but honestly, if you compare what they COULD do to what they END UP DOING, they're not doing so bad at all. They mostly self-correct relatively nicely. Microsoft, on the other hand, clearly does the bare m…

From my personal and limited view I agree. But to be honest, I don't trust neither, at all, probably forever. MS actively destroyed 1 decent thing I liked about them, their OS. First they tried to make it better and actually succeeded over the years (anybody who went from Windows 95/98 into 2000/XP and realized MS can actually make stable usable modern OS would probably agree, 7 was their best OS for me). And then th…

NSLs and FISAs are insidious and powerful tools that the US Federal government utilizes against the populace.

Once the government sets about forcing requirements, those two tools ensure that the companies, organizations, or individuals, cannot speak to the requirements or that there was a discussion at all.

Never attribute to malice which can be easily attributed to stupidity. Secret courts, and secret squirrel government activities against its own populace are definitely stupid.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#30

Post by johnklos »

In my opinion, Microsoft is big and dumb, and they're evil in overt and obvious ways. Google, though, has lots of smart people, so they're cunning and evil in calculated and somewhat hidden ways.

I mentally make these distinctions with other large companies. For instance, I consider AT&T big and dumb, whereas Verizon is super evil and likely has a Department of Evil (and I wouldn't be surprised if this were actually true).

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