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The Voice of Google

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Re: The Voice of Google

#51

Post by panarky »

godelski wrote: post #40
WarmWash wrote: post #16

Google figured out how to create a classless suite of internet services for anyone on Earth with an internet connection to use. I struggle to see how this didn't meet their original goals, what people celebrated about Google, and what made Google such an attractive place for people like the author to work. What's fascinating is that Google gets virtually zero recognition for this (Google services are largely taken fo…

> What's fascinating is that Google gets virtually zero recognition for this, and beyond that, Google is one of the most hated corporations for it. The hate it's about what they did with the power they gained. You can both love and hate something at the same time. Humans have complexity and nuance, don't dismiss that. It's also worth noting that complaints are more vocal than complements. If things are working well t…

Let's say you could calculate a good-evil score for every large corporation by netting the good they do against the evil they do.

I don't know if Google would be net-good or net-evil, but I'm pretty sure they would be far less evil than most of the other large corporations on that list.

Certainly less evil than Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, UnitedHealth, Coca-Cola, Oracle, Palantir, Goldman Sachs, LVMH, McDonalds, etc.

But it's a paradox that on HN, Google gets far more hate than any of these.

Maybe HN is a weird combination of fatalistic and idealistic, where we assume any for-profit corporation with a do-gooder mission is lying about its mission to hide its essential evilness, while secretly hoping that maybe it really is possible to do good and do well at the same time.

For a while it seemed like Google's do-gooder mission was genuine. Unlike their less principled competition, Google refused to take money to influence search rankings. Google withdrew from mainland China rather than continue censoring search results there.

We secretly started to believe. But all the other compromises along the way felt like betrayals.

Google really is less evil, even today, but we hate them more because we dared to believe, and Google let us down.

Re: The Voice of Google

#53

Post by haunter »

panarky wrote: post #51
godelski wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's fascinating is that Google gets virtually zero recognition for this, and beyond that, Google is one of the most hated corporations for it. The hate it's about what they did with the power they gained. You can both love and hate something at the same time. Humans have complexity and nuance, don't dismiss that. It's also worth noting that complaints are more vocal than complements. If things are working well t…

Let's say you could calculate a good-evil score for every large corporation by netting the good they do against the evil they do. I don't know if Google would be net-good or net-evil, but I'm pretty sure they would be far less evil than most of the other large corporations on that list. Certainly less evil than Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, UnitedHealth, Coca-Cola, Oracle, Palantir, Gold…

> Certainly less evil than Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, UnitedHealth, Coca-Cola, Oracle, Palantir, Goldman Sachs, LVMH, McDonalds, etc.

Certainly… according to who? I think some of these companies are, certainly, less evil than Google

Re: The Voice of Google

#54

Post by cyberax »

vineyardmike wrote: post #18
mannanj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which product(s) are equal to the products richest people on earth use?

Billionaires use Gmail alongside impoverished people across the world.

"Here at the phone company we serve everyone from presidents and kings to the scum of the earth"

https://vimeo.com/355556831

Re: The Voice of Google

#55

Post by godwinson__4-8 »

dismalaf wrote: post #50
godelski wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's fascinating is that Google gets virtually zero recognition for this, and beyond that, Google is one of the most hated corporations for it. The hate it's about what they did with the power they gained. You can both love and hate something at the same time. Humans have complexity and nuance, don't dismiss that. It's also worth noting that complaints are more vocal than complements. If things are working well t…

> The hate it's about what they did with the power they gained. Which is??? Serve ads without selling data? I'm not sure if y'all are aware, but CC companies sell your data. Your telecom provider sells your data. Banks sell your data. Google figured out a system to sell access while keeping your privacy. And somehow they're more hated than people who just straight up give your data away. If most people hate Google al…

I share your sentiments re google exactly. But the credit card and banks point is also understated.

Google innovates. CCs are basically a monopoly/duopoly, a private tax on an economy where increasingly everyone uses credit for everything. They make money on these transaction costs and banks issuing them make money charging insane interest when your neighbors fall behind, trapping them in a debt cycle. And yes, your purchases get aggregated into data sales.

Have credit cards innovated? Has your bank innovated? At least with Google their services are largely good and they actually innovate at shocking scale. Especially if you are paying for their products it is hard to argue Drive or YouTube haven't gotten better. You're complaining about ads but you want YouTube to be free? Who is going to pay for it?

Meanwhile has your credit card gotten better? Why is the CEO of MasterCard making millions of dollars? If you had to pick the thing in your pocket that is preying on you and you pick your phone, you're not thinking clearly. The answer is your credit card.

Re: The Voice of Google

#56

Post by guelo »

James Damore won, we're living in his world. Or the Gamergate world. It makes me wonder why though, it's not as if half the country and many of the engineers don't still have the same progressive values. Honestly I think it's just the power of the rich men with all the money. SWE's labor power has been slipping away ever since Elon's "let that sink in" and this will only continue to accelerate.

Re: The Voice of Google

#57

Post by echelon »

panarky wrote: post #51
godelski wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's fascinating is that Google gets virtually zero recognition for this, and beyond that, Google is one of the most hated corporations for it. The hate it's about what they did with the power they gained. You can both love and hate something at the same time. Humans have complexity and nuance, don't dismiss that. It's also worth noting that complaints are more vocal than complements. If things are working well t…

Let's say you could calculate a good-evil score for every large corporation by netting the good they do against the evil they do. I don't know if Google would be net-good or net-evil, but I'm pretty sure they would be far less evil than most of the other large corporations on that list. Certainly less evil than Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, UnitedHealth, Coca-Cola, Oracle, Palantir, Gold…

Google can do and has done a lot more harm than McDonalds or Coca-Cola.

They destroyed the open web (over and over - AMP, Manifest v2, etc. etc.), helped turned mobile computing into a rental / second-class citizen model, are ushering in identity tracking and attestation.

They pilfer the commons, unfairly monopolize, expand vertically and horizontally without bounds, make it impossible to compete, tax distribution every single way since they're the only set of rails, profit off of other people's copyrights and trademarks.

They even tried to hoard AI innovation, and it took employees leaving to set it free.

Re: The Voice of Google

#58

Post by brcmthrowaway »

Google, Apple, Amazon, MS etc don't seem to be the default place for top EECS grads anymore. Maybe middling candidates and H1b prisoners but 4.0 GPA grads with personal projects end up at NVIDIA, OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. And Meta, because they still pay insane.

Re: The Voice of Google

#59

Post by allturtles »

panarky wrote: post #51
godelski wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's fascinating is that Google gets virtually zero recognition for this, and beyond that, Google is one of the most hated corporations for it. The hate it's about what they did with the power they gained. You can both love and hate something at the same time. Humans have complexity and nuance, don't dismiss that. It's also worth noting that complaints are more vocal than complements. If things are working well t…

Let's say you could calculate a good-evil score for every large corporation by netting the good they do against the evil they do. I don't know if Google would be net-good or net-evil, but I'm pretty sure they would be far less evil than most of the other large corporations on that list. Certainly less evil than Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, UnitedHealth, Coca-Cola, Oracle, Palantir, Gold…

> But it's a paradox that on HN, Google gets far more hate than any of these.

There is no paradox. This is Hacker News. It's a site of by and for people in the tech industry. Of course Google's activities (good and bad) get far more attention than those of Chase, or Coca-Cola.

I certainly wouldn't agree that Google "gets far more hate" on HN than Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, or Palantir.

Re: The Voice of Google

#60

Post by nphardon »

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #58

Google, Apple, Amazon, MS etc don't seem to be the default place for top EECS grads anymore. Maybe middling candidates and H1b prisoners but 4.0 GPA grads with personal projects end up at NVIDIA, OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. And Meta, because they still pay insane.

I think a lot are also opting for startups. I think the number of million dollar value start ups is up quite a bit right now.

That h1b prisoner comment is starrrrrk (and true to my experience as well).

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