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Google Blindness

marco.org

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Re: Google Blindness

#71

Post by oscargrouch »

after reading both perspectives you learn that:

* you are locked in, no matter if you prefer android or ios * choose you poison?

come on, it took years and a lot of effort to take us all out of the nightmare of the windows ecosystem lock in.. so we can fall out in the same trap all over again?

and while this is a natural behavior of apple that we should be all expecting, i expected more from google.. because nowadays google is looking like a schizophrenic, working for the web and open ecosystems, creating a lot of awesome opensource projects with one hand, and creating more and more closed ecosystem that try to lock people and developers in.. google looks like dr jekyll and mr hyde..

i hope the open google, the google with the hacker culture, that the "Dr Jekyll" google wins in the end..

but nowadays it looks that google is more in a love affair with its mr hyde side.. i hope it gets cured preety soon and come back to its hacker spirit roots.. with no traps in their products..

apple will just loose more and more market share, because its acting like if it was the 90´s.. and we see now with microsoft that this way of doing things its a thing of the past.. so it will fall by its own steps..

but google with a candy in one hand, and a knife in the other hidden on the back.. thats a behaviour that should be feared..

Re: Google Blindness

#72

Post by dictum »

bane wrote: post #66
runjake wrote: post #43

Marco's article is so poorly-written, so poorly thought-out, I don't know where to begin. It's really more an article about hating Google as a whole. Google blindness? Or blind hatred for Apple's competitors? Some gems, though: I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into proprieta…

Marco is not quite the shill for Apple the Gruber is, but he's pretty close to it. I've noticed a significant decrease in Daring Fireball posts hitting the front page in recent months, is Gruber now the new Apple shill^H^H^H^H^Hevangelist we have to deal with on HN now? The only interesting point he makes here is that users shouldn't monoculture their services -- which I think is a good point. Then he proceeds to und…

Apple propagandists have a way of acknowledging the wrongs of Apple while telling readers to not use Google's products and services:

Google says they like open things. Google had "Don't be evil" as a motto. However, Google does things that aren't open and things that are evil. That is why you shouldn't use Google's stuff.

My strawman isn't perfect, but it gets the gist of what Gruber, Marco et al say: Google tries to present itself as a better company, but they're not, so don't do business with them.

It's a noble point, but it completely glosses over Apple's equally bad behavior under the excuse that Apple, unlike Google, never pretended to be nice.

Re: Google Blindness

#73

Post by bane »

dictum wrote: post #72
bane wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marco is not quite the shill for Apple the Gruber is, but he's pretty close to it. I've noticed a significant decrease in Daring Fireball posts hitting the front page in recent months, is Gruber now the new Apple shill^H^H^H^H^Hevangelist we have to deal with on HN now? The only interesting point he makes here is that users shouldn't monoculture their services -- which I think is a good point. Then he proceeds to und…

Apple propagandists have a way of acknowledging the wrongs of Apple while telling readers to not use Google's products and services: Google says they like open things. Google had "Don't be evil" as a motto. However, Google does things that aren't open and things that are evil. That is why you shouldn't use Google's stuff. My strawman isn't perfect, but it gets the gist of what Gruber, Marco et al say: Google tries to…

And it tries to force the conversation into a binary discussion: Apple vs. Google, iOS vs. Android which it isn't. The OP is basically the same as most of these kinds of things ", google is bad for this issue, Apple is free from this critique" which is trite and tiresome.

Re: Google Blindness

#74

Post by clarky07 »

bane wrote: post #49
johnward wrote: post #33

Can someone explain to me why Marco Arment's opinion is so important? I mean it even seems like he doesn't understand why. What makes him so popular?

He consistently writes positively about and supports Apple and consistently poo poos Android. It doesn't hurt that many sites that favor Android in such a consistent and highly biased way are instakilled when submitted here. He's not quite the shill that Gruber is, but it all adds up that he's popular on HN.

Speaking of instakilled, this went from #1 to #41 in a matter of minutes.

Re: Google Blindness

#75

Post by Symmetry »

runjake wrote: post #43

Marco's article is so poorly-written, so poorly thought-out, I don't know where to begin. It's really more an article about hating Google as a whole. Google blindness? Or blind hatred for Apple's competitors? Some gems, though: I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into proprieta…

A long time ago back in the 3GS days I was a happy iPhone user, who happened to like podcasts. There were several very nice podcast apps which I liked since they would download everything I wanted to listen to over the night and I could listen to them on my walk to work without having to boot up Windows and sync via iTunes. Then one day after an update all the podcast apps were gone from the Appstore and my phone since Apple claimed that they "Duplicated iTunes functionality". A few months later the mobile version of iTunes finally got the ability to do over-the-air synchs. And when an iTunes security update ended up installing Safari on my desktop that was the final straw.

I haven't had any experiences that bad with Google. Losing Google Reader was bad, but also made me appreciate the existence of the Data Liberation Front[1]. And I know I can install non-Google android or Ubuntu on my phone if it comes to that.

[1]http://www.dataliberation.org/

Re: Google Blindness

#76

Post by npsimons »

clarky07 wrote: post #74
bane wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He consistently writes positively about and supports Apple and consistently poo poos Android. It doesn't hurt that many sites that favor Android in such a consistent and highly biased way are instakilled when submitted here. He's not quite the shill that Gruber is, but it all adds up that he's popular on HN.

Speaking of instakilled, this went from #1 to #41 in a matter of minutes.

Get back to me when you can explain why the "Android is Better" link was on the page for practically a split second the other day, despite people commenting on it after it disappeared off the front page. There's far too much fanboyism going on here, on both sides.

Re: Google Blindness

#77

Post by Spearchucker »

acqq wrote: post #42
casca wrote: post #11

We're currently in the stage of the Internet where we can choose our feudal masters[1]. Want Google? Fine. Prefer Apple. No problem. Microsoft? Why not. For me, the issue is that people are becoming more entrenched as time progresses. The cost of preparing to switch can be relatively low - pay $8/year for your own domain and it's possible to keep using the same systems you choose today. Yet if the technological elite…

Exactly. Every time I hear some company telling they've just decided that they don't need their own e-mail servers and that they do everything through GMail, I worry a little more. Disclaimer: I use Google's services myself. I can't imagine who doesn't. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I think about it sometimes...

I don't use anything from Google or Apple. I have a Windows Phone, host my own mail in Luxemburg, and don't use any cloud storage. I can't imagine why anyone would use Google.

Re: Google Blindness

#78

Post by npsimons »

Fuzzwah wrote: post #2

So you've got to choose one and he's chosen apple. The previous article chose google. I've chosen google but what would make an interesting article for me is one which explained whether iOS or android was better if / when I want to cut myself off from either apple or google's online services and replace them with self hosted email / calendar / etc.

An answer in one link: http://www.dataliberation.org/

Re: Google Blindness

#79

Post by jljljl »

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.

It was so, so easy to move on from Reader, which is why I think the shutdown was not such a big deal.

Google gave months of advance warning, and made it easy to export your feeds and data in a cross platform, open format. The fact that their API was open for other clients to use meant there was already an (admittedly limited) ecosystem of feed-reader UI apps that could pick up where they left off, such as Feedly and TheOldReader.

You lost a good product when Reader shut down, but you didn't lose the kingdom by any means

Re: Google Blindness

#80

Post by casca »

dictum wrote: post #70
casca wrote: post #11

We're currently in the stage of the Internet where we can choose our feudal masters[1]. Want Google? Fine. Prefer Apple. No problem. Microsoft? Why not. For me, the issue is that people are becoming more entrenched as time progresses. The cost of preparing to switch can be relatively low - pay $8/year for your own domain and it's possible to keep using the same systems you choose today. Yet if the technological elite…

>The cost of preparing to switch can be relatively low - pay $8/year for your own domain and it's possible to keep using the same systems you choose today. Domains are not the only thing you need to take into account. There is hosting, deployment, and keeping things up to date and secure. Take email for example. Google no longer offer free Google Apps accounts, so you have to spend at least $50/year for a single user…

I'm not advocating that people move now. The value of Gmail definitely outweighs current costs for many people so it makes sense to keep using it. But to buy a domain and forward email to a Gmail address does not require a VPS or maintaining it.

Other services may be harder to migrate, but they usually don't have the same cost of notification. If I change where my calendar is hosted, I don't need to inform all my contacts.

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