[dead]
Google was founded 25 years ago today
71–80 of 232 posts
Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today
#72[dead]
Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today
#73I'm curious if there's another company in history that became so pervasive so quickly? Not just in terms of size, but in impact/reach? I realise this question somewhat requires defining what Google is and it's current size and scale, which is quite the challenge. To me Google seems uniquely impactful, uniquely quickly, but I'd love to learn of other comparable companies from history.
To name a few (US centric ones) from guesses.... Ford, the British East India Company, Bethlehem Steel, Standard Oil, Bell, Apple, Boeing, and probably Amazon.
^^ any GOOG founders on HackerNews?
Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today
#74The Google that was created 25 years died some time around 2010.
It was dead the moment they let investors in
> It was dead the moment they let investors in
They had investors before they even incorporated:
> Bechtolsheim and Cheriton were two of the first investors in Google, investing US$100,000 each in September 1998. When he gave the check to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google's founders, the company had not yet been legally incorporated.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Bechtolsheim#Investments
Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
So how do you have “free” without ads?
The same way libraries are free: they're actually paid for by taxpayers. If the internet was invented in America's earlier days, a lot of these information tools would be a public service, similar to libraries, and we'd all be better for it.
You have seen how governments have censored and banned books that went against their political or religious leanings?
You don’t think that they would do the same thing for search engines?
Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Paid ads used to be displayed to the side of the results. Being displayed instead of the results isn't so much of a "compromise".
"instead" suggests that the actual results aren't there, which isn't true. You just need to scroll a bit. Google needs to tread the balance to stay usable, otherwise people stop using it.
If the results are there, but not displayed, then whatever is displayed is being displayed instead of the results.
Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
the presence of the preference matters far more than the preference itself, at least to those that profit from polarizing people.
Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
> 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.
Google actually left China and didn't go back. That's rather different to other large tech companies. Consider Apple, which not only never left China but become totally dependent on it for manufacturing the phones they sell elsewhere, and direct revenue from iPhones and the App Store. For example Apple is regularly giving user data to the Chinese authorities -- they get thousands of requests per year and handing over the data in the vast majority of cases [0]. Google has accepted one request in a decade [1].
So it's pretty odd to use China as an example of why they're evil. How can their leaving and aborting a later attempt to re-enter be worse than Tim Cook being held over the barrel by the CCP and doing little to get out?
[0] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/cn.html
[1] https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview?hl=...
Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today
#79Google 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…
> 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 ads. One of their papers contains this point _in writing_. It's not just their papers. Their philosophy - which was a big part of eve…
I had forgotten about that, but now that you remind me I used to make that point when I recommended Google to friends. Now I feel like a sucker all over again.
Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
It doesn’t matter which party you as an individual prefer, but there is big money in trying to change or entrench the preferences of groups of people.