81–90 of 232 posts
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> I've never worked at Google, but I would bet that part of their induction is to train their employees how to combat these ideas. You'd lose the bet. Rather I think the entire topic of monetization is glossed over.
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"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.
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…
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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 manu…
In a certain sense, the iPhone is a wholly Chinese product. Without China, there is no iPhone, and there is no Apple-as-we-know-it-in-2023.
I am of the belief that Apple is doing everything in their power to change that, as even a cold war with China would put a rapid end to that.
Apple is investing huge amounts of money in India to create a parallel supply chain for iPhones. I imagine that people in the USG are acutely aware that the CCP has, at present, ultimate control over the revenue stream of one of their largest and most profitable companies, and have coordinated a response plan to address this (ultimately untenable) state of affairs.
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> 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 manu…
At present, China is the only place on all of Earth that can manufacture 50,000 iPhones per hour, which is on the close order of how many they sell. There's literally no other way for Apple to come up with the 250 million units a year that they sell. In a certain sense, the iPhone is a wholly Chinese product. Without China, there is no iPhone, and there is no Apple-as-we-know-it-in-2023. I am of the belief that Apple…
But I fail to see how that makes any of this more acceptable. They had 15 years to diversify. They didn't, but chose to instead spent that time just becoming more involved with a brutal autocracy, gambling their whole company on it.
It was stupid (one of the rare strategic missteps by Apple), it was amoral, and somehow still this is seen as being totally fine while Google toying around with launching a single product in China but not doing it was quoted as evidence of them being evil in this very thread. And I kind of feel like your reply reinforces that point.
I'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.
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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'.
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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?
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If the results are there, but not displayed, then whatever is displayed is being displayed instead of the results.
The results are displayed on the page, just a little bit below the ads.