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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?

#51

Post by adventured »

dale_glass wrote: post #24
candiddevmike wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A lot of tech companies would pay for that vast trove of user data. There are possibly no better sources on usage for mass consumer software than what Microsoft has from the past few decades (Office and Windows in particular; the next best would be browsers and or various Apple software).

Why would anybody pay for customer traffic/browsing/shopping data for inside of a Walmart store? Nearly every retailer would pay for access to that, assuming the cost is reasonable. Vendors desperately want access to it.

Microsoft would be crazy to sell it openly. Its part of their competitive advantage, helping to protect $83 billion in operating income. They'd get tiny particles of revenue in comparison to the gigantic golden egg they're sitting on.

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

#52

Post by warkdarrior »

jareklupinski wrote: post #39
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…

> pay the very small fee for YouTube Premium and do away with all the ads because it doesn't do away with _all_ the ads: every video still has the video maker themselves talking about their 'sponsor' for at least a minute, reminding us to 'like and subscribe' for at least ten seconds, and a patreon scroll of users that have paid extra for another three minutes

And how would that behavior change on a non-Youtube/non-Google video website? Do you think content creators will no longer ask for sponsorship??

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

#54

Post by vkreso »

Retric wrote: post #35
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…

What could do with your data to make more money that they aren’t? Sure in theory they could be selling access to anyone’s Gmail account to the highest bidder, but that’s going to lose them money by actively driving their customers away. Google may be actively harmful/evil, but they aren’t stupid.

Well, all bad practice will lose money only if such practices get public.

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

#56

Post by jncfhnb »

Retric wrote: post #35
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…

What could do with your data to make more money that they aren’t? Sure in theory they could be selling access to anyone’s Gmail account to the highest bidder, but that’s going to lose them money by actively driving their customers away. Google may be actively harmful/evil, but they aren’t stupid.

Ad targeting based on vector queries of your inbox.

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

#58

Post by drstewart »

jareklupinski wrote: post #39
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…

> pay the very small fee for YouTube Premium and do away with all the ads because it doesn't do away with _all_ the ads: every video still has the video maker themselves talking about their 'sponsor' for at least a minute, reminding us to 'like and subscribe' for at least ten seconds, and a patreon scroll of users that have paid extra for another three minutes

This is like complaining electric trucks aren't really electric because the lawnmower you transport in it still takes gas

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

#59

Post by _nalply »

bastardoperator wrote: post #17
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.

Ehh, I think this is also a bad take. Turn off telemetry, delete ChatGPT conversations, and I like having an LLM for GitHub versus Give us all your personal data and we're sharing it with ad partners, your personal data is our number one product and secondary products are only made to support the first endeavor.

It's fine semantics.

Google and Microsoft are different. The same: I am reluctantly using products from both. The different: Their history and their products.

However I don't think that you should differentiate your trust between them.

We should think about why Corporate does enshittification and how to prevent it.

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

#60

Post by convolvatron »

imchillyb wrote: post #29
saiya-jin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gover…

occams razor points to grift

sure there is some dodgy govt stuff going on, but tracking peoples activities and selling it on the open market is pure sleeze

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