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Google was founded 25 years ago today

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Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#21

Post by wkat4242 »

drt5b7j wrote: post #4

Google is a great example of "it's difficult to get someone to understand something if their paycheck depends on not understanding it". Even before google was founded and the founders discussed how they could monetize their search, they understood that paid ads create a conflict of interest: the point of search which is to to return the most relevant results, but the incentive in paid ads is to return the best paying…

Google may not be the worst but it's the biggest offender that reaches consumers.

Their BS motto "Don't be evil", it makes me sick thinking of it now. They really made the world a much worse place.

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#22

Post by wkat4242 »

oldnet wrote: post #15
frouge wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was dead the moment they let investors in

same with boeing ... it was succeful company full of engineering masterpeace until it merged with mcdonnell douglas for money

"Masterpeace" lol :) But I understand what you mean.

I didn't know McDonnell Douglas was such a bad company but I heard the same sentiment from Boeing people in that documentary about the 737 MAX, that after the merger they were being forced to cut corners by the new management.

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#23

Post by shapefrog »

drt5b7j wrote: post #4

Google is a great example of "it's difficult to get someone to understand something if their paycheck depends on not understanding it". Even before google was founded and the founders discussed how they could monetize their search, they understood that paid ads create a conflict of interest: the point of search which is to to return the most relevant results, but the incentive in paid ads is to return the best paying…

> part of their induction is to train their employees how to combat these ideas

You dont need to indoctrinate people; the selection process takes care of most of the heavy lifting and the rest is taken care of by the fat paycheque and stock options.

imo there is absolutely nothing wrong with the conflict of interest, pretending it doesnt exist however suggests either dishonesty or a special kind of stupidity.

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#24

Post by dmarchand90 »

msoad wrote: post #11
drt5b7j wrote: post #4

Google is a great example of "it's difficult to get someone to understand something if their paycheck depends on not understanding it". Even before google was founded and the founders discussed how they could monetize their search, they understood that paid ads create a conflict of interest: the point of search which is to to return the most relevant results, but the incentive in paid ads is to return the best paying…

Now think of ChatGPT with this framework. Because it is paid to do, it will slowly try to convince you to buy something or even worse think of some politician or party differently. Scary stuff!

The nice thing with ChatGPT is they've established a viable funding model through paid subscriptions from day 1.

On the other hand I predict that we will see the next ten years as a 'golden age' of steadily improving performance from ChatGPT, which will then plateau and 'enshittify'.

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#25

Post by ahofmann »

wkat4242 wrote: post #21
drt5b7j wrote: post #4

Google is a great example of "it's difficult to get someone to understand something if their paycheck depends on not understanding it". Even before google was founded and the founders discussed how they could monetize their search, they understood that paid ads create a conflict of interest: the point of search which is to to return the most relevant results, but the incentive in paid ads is to return the best paying…

Google may not be the worst but it's the biggest offender that reaches consumers. Their BS motto "Don't be evil", it makes me sick thinking of it now. They really made the world a much worse place.

While I understand what you mean, you should state at least one reason of why you think they are deeply evil people.

To me, it's the story of how they systematically convince small firms that they want to do business, only to screw them over. Like Google Earth and Terra Vision, for example. Also, from the beginning, the proximity to the U.S. government was very noticeable, such as Keyhole or leasing military land.

Edit: To make it very clear, I think Google is evil and was evil all the time. It is at least one step further to a brave new world dystopia.

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#26

Post by robertlagrant »

wkat4242 wrote: post #21
drt5b7j wrote: post #4

Google is a great example of "it's difficult to get someone to understand something if their paycheck depends on not understanding it". Even before google was founded and the founders discussed how they could monetize their search, they understood that paid ads create a conflict of interest: the point of search which is to to return the most relevant results, but the incentive in paid ads is to return the best paying…

Google may not be the worst but it's the biggest offender that reaches consumers. Their BS motto "Don't be evil", it makes me sick thinking of it now. They really made the world a much worse place.

I don't think they made the world a worse place. Can you show your working? Pros/cons for the existence of Google?

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#27

Post by Fluorescence »

wkat4242 wrote: post #21
drt5b7j wrote: post #4

Google is a great example of "it's difficult to get someone to understand something if their paycheck depends on not understanding it". Even before google was founded and the founders discussed how they could monetize their search, they understood that paid ads create a conflict of interest: the point of search which is to to return the most relevant results, but the incentive in paid ads is to return the best paying…

Google may not be the worst but it's the biggest offender that reaches consumers. Their BS motto "Don't be evil", it makes me sick thinking of it now. They really made the world a much worse place.

I see it as a guilty conscience in anticipation of the inevitable.

Even the naive do not take long to realise that capitalism will fill the immoral corners of an opportunity like water. If you wanted a real commitment, you don't talk to yourself about sobriety as you walk into a bar, you have to tie yourself to the mast Odysseus-like. It needed a different form of governance, a non-profit that could have created sustainable non-evil. An IPO sells your soul not just your company.

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#28

Post by jansan »

Anyone else remember how much better Google was at the beginning than anything else?

I had always tried the latest search engines like Ask Jeeves, Altavista, Hotbot, Webcrawler, etc. Once Google came around they all looked like total crap, it was simply a revolution. The clean interface, the performance, the much better results, it was beautiful.

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#29

Post by wschfdkbrmcdf »

msoad wrote: post #11
drt5b7j wrote: post #4

Google is a great example of "it's difficult to get someone to understand something if their paycheck depends on not understanding it". Even before google was founded and the founders discussed how they could monetize their search, they understood that paid ads create a conflict of interest: the point of search which is to to return the most relevant results, but the incentive in paid ads is to return the best paying…

Now think of ChatGPT with this framework. Because it is paid to do, it will slowly try to convince you to buy something or even worse think of some politician or party differently. Scary stuff!

It doesn’t matter in the slightest which Party you prefer

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#30

Post by sneak »

ahofmann wrote: post #25
wkat4242 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google may not be the worst but it's the biggest offender that reaches consumers. Their BS motto "Don't be evil", it makes me sick thinking of it now. They really made the world a much worse place.

While I understand what you mean, you should state at least one reason of why you think they are deeply evil people. To me, it's the story of how they systematically convince small firms that they want to do business, only to screw them over. Like Google Earth and Terra Vision, for example. Also, from the beginning, the proximity to the U.S. government was very noticeable, such as Keyhole or leasing military land. Ed…

https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/upd...

One can make a strong argument that actively seeking collaboration with an organization that runs a global network of extralegal and extrajudicial torture centers qualifies as evil.

AWS, for example, operates a special airgapped "region" at Langley for the CIA to store and process their data, which presumably includes operational information related to the global network of assassination and torture personnel they develop, own, and operate.

Many people give the military and military-adjacent a moral pass on things like mass murder (or mass murder adjacent things like extrajudicial assassination, kidnapping, or torture), but not all of us do. You may or may not personally disagree, but it is still a reasonable and cogent argument that seeking active collaboration with DoD qualifies for the title of "evil" on the grounds that it will more effectively enable mass murder, assassination, torture, and other deprivations of human rights.

Google also rebooted their censored search project, known as Dragonfly, to re-enter the Chinese market, which included the specific feature that would display government-provided AQI indicators/values instead of the real ones. Eventually word got out and they stopped again.

This shows that they are willing and able to collaborate with any government, no matter how repugnant their stance on human rights, if it will result in increased revenue or market access for Google. That's evil, in my book.

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