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Google's 25th Birthday

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Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#81

Post by jonnycomputer »

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…

> Capitalism abhors competition

>>"One of the foundational blocks of capitalism is competition."

This is just unserious.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#82

Post by qp11 »

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.

They are dominated by the mindless calculus of Wall St, injected deep into their programming. If they deviate from what Wall St wants they loose. So they dont dominate. They are dominated.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#84

Post by usr1106 »

justgaurav wrote: post #16

Google has been a constant part of my life from early 2000's and I'm grateful to them for providing so many useful products. Most of them were awesome and worked fully without annoying ads or subscriptions. They will come with something new (usually unannounced) and I will be so excited to try it. Technically, they would almost work from day one. Needless to say, I was a Google fanboi during the first decade of the c…

I have used Gmail since the invite-only beta, although I have never given out my gmail address. I only use it as the forwarding target for my hundreds of one-time addresses in use. Now I am ashamed that I still have not completed my migration away from it.

I have some 30 Google accounts, each for one service I used either once or sometimes for a couple of years. Although most of them are unusable now because I cannot proceed beyond the login without supplying a phone number. Well, they have recently sent out mails that they will delete them soon if they remain unused.

I did use Google search from when nobody knew it in the 1990s until 3-4 years ago when I switched to Duckduckgo.

20 years ago I would have applied to Google if they had only had a tech job in my country.

I have only one Android account. I keep that phone constantly in flight mode, except when I absolutely need to use a single app for work.

Today I am convinced that Google is a harmful company that the US government should split as they did with AT&T. And as a European we should not send any data to the US because of what Snowden have taught us and the US government does not grant data of foreigners any protection.

Advertising is 95% an unethical business. Using the computation power that Google wastes for it in the cloud and at the edge is just evil. Overconsumption is a fact for large parts of the planet. Trying to sell more is wrong, we need to live with less. Myself by my own choices I took a 30% salary cut twice in my career. And I am still on the overconsumption side, even if the phone I type this on is 9 years old and my main phone more than 5.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#87

Post by usr1106 »

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

Navigating without a map or with a paper map is a basic skill somewhat smart and civilized people should have. Also a passive map on a screen would be intellectually OK, but the usability sucks in many cases, especially on phones.

GPS has made people dumber and lazier. I don't remember when I turned on GPS last time.

For maps I find Openstreetmap superiour to Google maps in many cases.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#88

Post by usr1106 »

Google has taken away parts of our freedom.

Today you have to make a choice: Do I want to pay a premium to lock myself into the Apple walled garden or do I want to prostitute all of my privacy to Google.

Choosing a 3rd way comes with severe limitations in your daily life.

Re: Google's 25th Birthday

#89

Post by noduerme »

skinkestek wrote: post #53
pfannkuchen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cas…

I think there was a paradigm that prevailed for about 10 years, let's say 2008-2018 - and this by no means applies only to Google - under which the mass violation of user privacy and personal data collection was not just passed off as, but actual believed to be, something that would benefit the product and the user (even if there was also money to be made on the side by selling that data on). It wasn't yet fully weaponized to the point where every service got shittier unless and even if they extracted more money every year. Somewhere along the line, the game went from cataloging the internet to providing email for everyone to blackmailing anyone who didn't want to partake of their offerings or follow their rules.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. There's never been a case of a player with Google's degree of market leverage that hasn't become corrupted (or any government in a similar position, for that matter). It's not about handing out money. It's about having democratic checks in place to behead and dismember entities that do what Google has done. The vestiges of the US Govt and EU parliament are probably the last thing standing between info sector monstrosities and the end of free thought and speech in the world.

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