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Google Blindness

marco.org

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Re: Google Blindness

#21

Post by jmduke »

So I think there are two points that Paul makes: hardware and services.

On the hardware front: I don't really buy the notion that Android hardware is up to par with Apple. I realize this is an inherently subjective argument: I've played with my friends' Android phones and I just don't like the way they look or feel compared to the iPhone.

On the services front: I think the argument that "Google is an advertising company and that makes them an inherently worse ecosystem" is weak, but I absolutely agree that we're past the point of "this is the best solution for everyone."

Personally -- I don't use any Apple services besides, well, the App Store, despite relying on them 100% for the hardware side (iPad + MBA + iPhone). And I don't use Google to the extent Paul does: I use GMail, Search, and Chrome.

This has the advantage of portability: I don't have to tie myself to a given ecosystem because I'm stuck there. I tie myself to whatever makes my life the easiest.

Re: Google Blindness

#22

Post by donniezazen » 

    The better question the Android community should be asking itself is why it hasn't attracted or developed great writers and evangelists as well as Apple has.
Android has much more global impact than iPhone will ever have [1]. A huge chunk of people in developing countries earn less-per-month than the cost of an iPhone. So who cares if some yeppie evangelist is not using it.

    People are going to be coming online for the first time. There’s this vibrant community of young app developers growing in Kenya and Nigeria. - Jimmy Wales.
Macro goes on at length on privacy without realizing that there is no way to tell if iPhone is not sending each bit of data back to government or any other organization for that matter. Open Source nature of Android, AOSP, makes it the most viable option in today's surveillance state.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/10/50-android-smartphones-are-...

Re: Google Blindness

#23

Post by [deleted] »

DannoHung wrote: post #3

Considering the shitfits people were going into over Reader being eliminated, you'd think people would be a little more cautious about giving Google the keys to the kingdom on things as crucial as calendaring, contacts, and mail. Which is why the original article was a pretty good summation for me of why I'm not going to go Android any time soon, personally.

[deleted]

Re: Google Blindness

#24

Post by seiji »

jfb wrote: post #17
seiji wrote: post #12

A lot of people are Children of The Church of Google. They're happy with a 100% data tithing to Google. That's Google's entire business: get data from users then make money from it for the furtherment of Google itself, not the users. A lot of people are Children of The Church of Apple. They're happy with letting Apple carry buckets of data across devices, but the buckets of data remain in the person's control. That's…

I don't like Google, and don't use their services, but it's in no way that straightforward. Pretty much the entirety of the marginal utility of Google's technology relies on the data their users share with them. It's a symbiotic relationship, not a purely parasitic one.

You give them data, they get billions of dollars. But hey, you can get your voicemails transcribed for free from their neglected voip service and, like, email for free. email for free with circles. So, it's a wash?

Re: Google Blindness

#25

Post by ajross »

bdcravens wrote: post #8

Keep in mind that many iOS users are as tied to the Google ecosystem. My email, calendar, and contacts are all Google-synced. Most decent calendar apps tend to use Google as well; ditto for mail apps like Mailbox. Many of the Google apps (like Maps) make it too easy to login, which the features it adds.

Exactly. I think there's a good article to be written about cloud-lock-in and its effect on mobile OS choice. But this isn't it. This is just Marco "whining respectfully" about why his opinion is different because he objects "to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data". Paul's original article, frankly, was just clear advocacy of the form "I tried this and liked it and you should too!", and I can't see how Marco adds anything that wasn't clear from the original.

Really, yawn. I'm personally very much in the Android camp (though not a big cloud user -- I like the photo backups and bookmark synching, but don't use gmail or Google Now much at all), and found Paul's "Android is better" to be a refreshing confirmation that as the market matures and stabilizes iOS users are finally looking at alternatives. But clearly not all of them agree; I don't think I needed to read Marco's blog post to know that.

Re: Google Blindness

#26

Post by jmduke »

acqq wrote: post #20

One point I'd like to see discussed is written by Bruce Schneier, it made me look at the subject a bit differently than before: If the National Security Agency required us to notify it whenever we made a new friend, the nation would rebel. Yet we notify Facebook. If the Federal Bureau of Investigation demanded copies of all our conversations and correspondence, it would be laughed at. Yet we provide copies of our e-m…

I get clear utility out of letting Facebook know who my friends are.

I see no clear utility out of letting the NSA know who my friends are.

Re: Google Blindness

#27

Post by patrix99 »

donniezazen wrote: post #22

The better question the Android community should be asking itself is why it hasn't attracted or developed great writers and evangelists as well as Apple has. Android has much more global impact than iPhone will ever have [1]. A huge chunk of people in developing countries earn less-per-month than the cost of an iPhone. So who cares if some yeppie evangelist is not using it. People are going to be coming online for th…

Think Marco was talking about privacy in terms of using your data to sell to advertisers. In today's surveillance state, if it exists to the extent we think it does, whatever you do that remains constant so can't be used in comparison.

Re: Google Blindness

#29

Post by yevy »

I would wager that the reason Marco (and many other mobile entrepreneurs) gravitate to iOS boils down to one line in his post that he doesn't feel the need to defend:

"We can make a living developing for it."

Android has (roughly) 4X market share but just 1/3 of the revenue compared to iOS. When the per user revenue gap closes, Marco's preference may change.

Re: Google Blindness

#30

Post by danso »

I don't get the point or impetus for the OP. Is it supposed to be a warning that one should never put all of their information-eggs in one basket? Or that Google is going to be the worser basket of the two?

The latter question of course is just a fanboy debate, and the former question elicits a "no-duh". But to boil it down to just Google vs. Apple misses the bigger picture: to spread our eggs across different baskets raises new issues of security and convenience, which are always going to be tradeoffs.

For example, if you're paranoid that either Apple or Google is going to shut off access to your contacts and calendar, is the solution to spread your information across both?

If so, how do you keep the two in sync (let's assume that at some point in the future, there was no first party support of syncing services)? Or let's say you want to use another calendar/contacts app completely. Then you rely on a third-party service, which raises the issue of 1. How long will that service stay in business? 2. Can you trust it with your data? 3. Do you have to learn another interface?

With the adoption of either iOS/Android, I think customers have shown that they do not want to live a splintered digital life. They want a future posited by sci-fi shows, where "things just work." It's not Apple vs Google, it's convenience vs. personal responsibility/maintenance.

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