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Welcome to Google Island

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Re: Welcome to Google Island

#71

Post by cmars »

Lately I have been feeling we as builders had this responsibility to build the Internet that the world needed, and we failed. We were distracted, we got rich, we ignored or misread the needs of our fellow humans.

The walled gardens that we now find so insidious and creepy are due to our own failure to empower the users. We made HTTP, SMTP, XMPP protocols. Large companies brought these to the masses, in ways the masses can understand and interact with in their limited capacity... for a price.

Can we reclaim humanity's birthright? Can we build a vision of the world we wish to live in, that is accessible to and understandable by many? Or is our entire collective fate to become a monetized click stream of suckers?

This article names Google, but to me that is beside the point. Google is a large system set in motion by shareholders and market forces that has equilibrium. It consumes click streams and subscriptions, and excretes money, like others of its kind. Can such an organism ever serve the best interests of humanity all the time?

If you find yourself hating Google, better to look within yourself. Do you have the courage to walk away from these kinds of services and build an alternative, however humble it might be, that empowers and liberates your fellow humans?

I am still working on this in myself. My email is still gmail, I would miss some personalities in my G+ circles, but I am uncomfortable, and I find current trends unsettling.

(edited for grammar)

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#72

Post by farinasa »

The biggest blunder of this article is how they convey Google. Do they know a little more about me than I like? Sure. But so does Facebook, Microsoft, and OkCupid!. The difference here is that if I want out of Google, I simply go to the dashboard and erase my history. I don't know how deep their erasure goes, but it is certainly more comforting than what any other company offers.

Facebook holds your info for a week and if you sign back in, the week restarts. During that week they goad you to come back. Not exactly cooperative.

And lets vilify Google first and foremost (/s). I run Ghostery. I am much more scared by the number of unique tracking companies. I don't know anything about them. How could I even begin to tell nearly 1500 known tracking companies to leave me alone? Simply telling them to leave me alone gives them data about me, which they certainly must keep if I am to be left alone.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#73

Post by r00fus »

stevenbedrick wrote: post #43
ender7 wrote: post #20

(disclaimer: I work for Google. My words are not theirs) At first I thought "oh. Google fan fiction. This is what we have come to." After a moment, though, I realized that this article isn't really any different from the other hyperventilating blog posts that have appeared all over HN recently. I'm not saying that these aren't important topics to discuss, but everything I've read recently has come off as a prurient p…

> Keyword search isn't good enough anymore Citation needed. I'd actually be quite satisfied if the current state of the art for general-purpose web IR stayed about where it is now- it's pretty dang good! I can't remember the last time I needed to find something using text search and was unable to. And when Google folks talk about making search "better", what they seem to generally be talking about these days is makin…

I find that when companies say "better" usually they mean "more profitable for us".

Sometimes it involves end-consumer benefits, but often not. Google used to be one of the companies where this rule didn't apply as much. In their shift to becoming Microsoft2, this rule seems to apply more and more.

This isn't a critique of Google insomuch as it's a critique of any sufficiently powerful corporation.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#74

Post by enraged_camel »

declan wrote: post #45
stevenbedrick wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keyword search isn't good enough anymore Citation needed. I'd actually be quite satisfied if the current state of the art for general-purpose web IR stayed about where it is now- it's pretty dang good! I can't remember the last time I needed to find something using text search and was unable to. And when Google folks talk about making search "better", what they seem to generally be talking about these days is makin…

Sometimes it's the technologists who are the most resistant to technological change. I sometimes get annoyed when Google displays results other than the 10 blue links, and tries to correct my searches when I'm searching for info on APIs, but I recognize that I'm in a minority and most people would benefit from more hand-holding. Put another way, you may be comfortable enough with computers to remember what directory…

>>Sometimes it's the technologists who are the most resistant to technological change.

Because it's the technologists that truly understand the pros and cons of a proposed technological development. Everyone else tends to be starry-eyed daydreamers who are living in an alternate reality.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#75

Post by cpeterso »

arethuza wrote: post #3
incision wrote: post #2

I see it now, Google is an embryonic stage of The Culture [0]. 0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture

"in practice social convention among the Minds prohibits them from watching, or interfering in, citizens' lives unless requested, or unless they perceive severe risk" One of the cute things about the Culture is how damned nice the Minds are - even when they are effectively gods to their meat friends/pets/therapists.

> One of the cute things about the Culture is how damned nice the Minds are

Were the Minds (originally) designed to be "nice"? Or have they evolved to be nice because that is an effective way to influence humans? (I've only read one Culture book.)

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#76

Post by nr0mx »

gaius wrote: post #46
tonfa wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google could definitly still sell ads (it doesn't need to give private data to third party to do that).

Sure. But if it did, it could sell more ads. Everything Google does is about ad sales. Self driving cars? What are you going to do when your car does the driving for you? Consume media of course, with ads all over it! Etc, etc. Which is not a good or a bad thing in and of itself, it's what they do, like McDonald's sell hamburgers. The question you must ask yourself is do you want Big Mac and Fries for every meal?

> Everything Google does is about ad sales. Self driving cars? What are you going to do when your car does the driving for you? Consume media of course, with ads all over it!

Of course, you make perfect sense. I guess we know why if Google gets into private spaceflight.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#77

Post by alanh »

moultano wrote: post #70
tonfa wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google could definitly still sell ads (it doesn't need to give private data to third party to do that).

And in fact, it doesn't. http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ "We don’t sell users’ personal information."

So, there’s a semantic trick here.

Technically, when an AdSense client targets their ads only to North American users who expressed an interest in , Google didn’t “sell that user’s personal information,” but… whomever is on the other side of that ad, once clicked — and their partners — have just paid Google to find a user who likely has .

Isn’t that selling personal information? Actually, if not legally?

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#78

Post by gojomo »

ender7 wrote: post #20

(disclaimer: I work for Google. My words are not theirs) At first I thought "oh. Google fan fiction. This is what we have come to." After a moment, though, I realized that this article isn't really any different from the other hyperventilating blog posts that have appeared all over HN recently. I'm not saying that these aren't important topics to discuss, but everything I've read recently has come off as a prurient p…

Thank you for disclosing your Google affiliation.

Occasionally on HN, there are comments on Google-related topics that I suspect come from Google employees/affiliates, or waves of votes that may be coming from those with a financial attachment to Google. But often on social news/discussion sites, you don't know how closely the comments/votes are entangled with the issues being discussed.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#79

Post by stevenbedrick »

proexploit wrote: post #67
stevenbedrick wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keyword search isn't good enough anymore Citation needed. I'd actually be quite satisfied if the current state of the art for general-purpose web IR stayed about where it is now- it's pretty dang good! I can't remember the last time I needed to find something using text search and was unable to. And when Google folks talk about making search "better", what they seem to generally be talking about these days is makin…

As a programmer, you're probably a lot better at understanding what a search is/does and how to pick good keywords or which keywords you can swap and refine to get better results. Most of the general population isn't there in my opinion (just based on what I've seen around other people trying to search thing). The general population doesn't use site: to restrict results, - to remove a word or even " to search for an…

That's definitely a fair point- "experts" have very different search behavior from "novices", and could potentially get more benefit from personalized search support.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#80

Post by stevenbedrick »

r00fus wrote: post #73
stevenbedrick wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keyword search isn't good enough anymore Citation needed. I'd actually be quite satisfied if the current state of the art for general-purpose web IR stayed about where it is now- it's pretty dang good! I can't remember the last time I needed to find something using text search and was unable to. And when Google folks talk about making search "better", what they seem to generally be talking about these days is makin…

I find that when companies say "better" usually they mean "more profitable for us". Sometimes it involves end-consumer benefits, but often not. Google used to be one of the companies where this rule didn't apply as much. In their shift to becoming Microsoft2, this rule seems to apply more and more. This isn't a critique of Google insomuch as it's a critique of any sufficiently powerful corporation.

Yes, I've noticed that corporate PR statements that begin with "To serve you better..." rarely end particularly pleasantly for me as a customer.

It makes more sense, of course, if we interpret such statements through the lens of the Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man." :-D

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