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Google's 25th Birthday

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Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#51

Post by SteveNuts »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #43
inasio wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Positive impact: Google maps The amount of people that were empowered to explore and discover (or time saved from getting lost) is incredible by any measure

It's not as if Google invented the idea of a website the plots directions. Sure their product was better than all the rest, especially once they started purchasing satellite imagery, but Bing and Nokia Here were not that far behind, not to mention the traditional GPS players. I'm not trying to be negative, just don't see where the praise is coming from, it's a crowded market.

They took a chance on mapping and photographing damn near every road on the planet. They had a huge number of business/restaurant locations marked on the map which you could search for. They were the first to have great turn by turn directions that rerouted if you make a wrong turn (this existed but the user experience sucked and they had to be manually updated when roads changed).

They created Google Earth which was _mindblowing_ at the time.

They didn't invent it but they advanced it so much farther and faster that they might as well have.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#52

Post by thisgoesnowhere »

paxys wrote: post #45
jazzyjackson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as if Google invented the idea of a website the plots directions. Sure their product was better than all the rest, especially once they started purchasing satellite imagery, but Bing and Nokia Here were not that far behind, not to mention the traditional GPS players. I'm not trying to be negative, just don't see where the praise is coming from, it's a crowded market.

People used to pay hundreds of dollars for GPS units and hundreds more for annual maps updates before Google entered the picture. There may be alternatives now, but Google Maps absolutely revolutionized the space when it showed up and brought online maps/GPS to regular consumers for the first time.

People used to have an avenue to pay for their usage and not get turned into a product. Killing that off is the opposite of progress.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#53

Post by skinkestek »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #33
hotnfresh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The google that deserved much praise has been dead since not long after the DoubleClick acquisition. They’ve been DoubleClick/Google since. Ordering intentional. That means they’ve been evil or rushing as fast as they can toward evil since… 2008. Google died at about 10 years old.

I think I’ve seen someone here comment something similar before but I don’t know the back story. Did DS management infiltrate Google after the acquisition or something? I have never heard of anything like that. Would you mind filling me in?

Incentives and opportunities I guess?

What is the good of owning the leading ad and tracking network if you don't use it?

And besides think of all the good things one can do for the world with so much money... Only, like Mozilla they sold out the one thing they could do that no one else could (providing a free, independent browser in Mozillas case, having access to everyones thoughts without abusing it in Googles case).

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#54

Post by gundmc »

jerrygoyal wrote: post #29

I just got an email that they killed Google Podcasts app. Birthday surprise for us!

Well, back to Podcast Addict I go, I suppose. I liked the clean, minimal interface of Google Podcasts and have no interest in a bloated music service app like YTM.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#55

Post by elcritch »

I hope someone makes a spoof animation / video that shows a timeline of the descent from “do no evil” to “evil” and showing how search used to be great up just an SEO optimized wall of ads.

I still have fond memories of being in high school and a librarian showing me this “Google page”. Back when it seemed like SV tech would be an enlightened realm for the betterment of humanity.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#56

Post by nonrandomstring »

Arainach wrote: post #44
nonrandomstring wrote: post #26

I honestly think the world is a poorer place for having had a single US company dominate so many areas of digital technology for so long. I hope that in another 25 years giants like Google, Microsoft, Apple and so on are just small players in a globally inter-operable, open and diverse technological world.

There has never been such a world, in any industry. Capitalism abhors competition. Absent strong government regulation monopolies are inevitable. I would argue that a strong unified platform (Windows, the web, whatever) is good for user and developer experience.

> There has never been such a world,

Book publishing. Fine art. Music. Poetry. Travel and tourism. Food.... need I go on?

> Capitalism abhors competition

"One of the foundational blocks of capitalism is competition." [0]

> I would argue that a strong unified platform ... the web, whatever) is good for user and developer

"The Web" was [1] a standard, not a company or "platform".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

[1] I say "was", because companies like Google practically destroyed it, leading the creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee to tragically denounce the Web as having "failed humanity". (I disagree the Web did not fail humanity, greedy companies did.)

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#57

Post by 1970-01-01 »

How many more years before search, the undisputed King of the Web, is dethroned? You can sense the end coming. Verbatim search stopped working years ago. AI returns false info in big bold font. Billions and trillions of results are only 9 or 10 pages deep, and then the links abruptly stop. Ads everywhere, but nothing has ever been remotely worth my click. I hope their downfall comes soon. Watching it slowly descend into an abyss of garbage is saddening.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#58

Post by pcurve »

hotnfresh wrote: post #30
noduerme wrote: post #22

They destroyed the internet, with blessings for simplifying it, and then they cannibalized their own services for short term profit. To paraphrase what the DOJ just said in their opening statement, the Google you're talking about is long gone.

The google that deserved much praise has been dead since not long after the DoubleClick acquisition. They’ve been DoubleClick/Google since. Ordering intentional. That means they’ve been evil or rushing as fast as they can toward evil since… 2008. Google died at about 10 years old.

Certainly sounds like the Boeing McDonnell Douglas acquisition.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#59

Post by pcurve »

inasio wrote: post #18
sidcool wrote: post #5

Love them or hate them, their impact on the internet and the world is unparalleled - Both positive and negative impact, but mostly positive.

Positive impact: Google maps The amount of people that were empowered to explore and discover (or time saved from getting lost) is incredible by any measure

Gmail with 1gb of storage was breath of fresh air. It wasn't that long prior to that Yahoo mail only gave a few mega bytes of storage.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#60

Post by Arainach »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #56
Arainach wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has never been such a world, in any industry. Capitalism abhors competition. Absent strong government regulation monopolies are inevitable. I would argue that a strong unified platform (Windows, the web, whatever) is good for user and developer experience.

> There has never been such a world, Book publishing. Fine art. Music. Poetry. Travel and tourism. Food.... need I go on? > Capitalism abhors competition "One of the foundational blocks of capitalism is competition." [0] > I would argue that a strong unified platform ... the web, whatever) is good for user and developer "The Web" was [1] a standard , not a company or "platform". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capi…

>Book publishing.

Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan combine for 77-91% of the market: https://www.statista.com/topics/9280/book-publishing/#topicO...

>Fine art.

This isn't an industry, just a tax evasion scheme for rich people

>Music.

3 players control 70% of recording: https://musically.com/2023/04/26/music-copyright-publishes-i...

>Poetry.

Not an industry, never has been

>Travel and tourism.

Airlines consolidate and consolidate, rail is nationalized, taxis have been cannibalized by Lyft/Uber - what's your argument here?

>Food....

https://www.good.is/Business/food-brands-owners-rp

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