Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

blackhole12.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 290 posts

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#161

Post by alandarev »

Kequc wrote: post #92
wpietri wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more than a dislike of change. It's not clear to me that Google is moving forward. I might characterize it more as "upward" in the sense that they're solidifying their dominant position. Moving forward is precisely what I fear them losing. Of course, it's easy to move forward when you're new and have nothing to lose. Moving forward is much harder when you're the dominant player, because moving forward pu…

I feel that I've been waiting for them to do something with youtube for a long time. Making it and Google plus the same thing is probably the right move. Youtube in general needs a lot of renovation. The structure of Google plus suits content aggregation really well, it was designed for it. So I think it's a really good fit and I can't really wait for the transition to be finished. My hesitation used to be something…

Indeed, why not enforce people use social network if they want to watch a video?

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#164

Post by curiousdannii »

buyx wrote: post #157

Google has always had a massive weakness: feedback. Feedback on products is atrocious -Google Now on my iPhone shows me a route home that would send me the wrong way up a freeway, and I don't know where to report it. Years ago, I ran into a serious issue with Google Desktop, and the bug was poorly documented. Their maps data in Johannesburg has some annoying data issues, and is rewriting the geography of the city, be…

And their open source projects like Chrome do have public bug trackers, but in my experience I've either been ignored or treated with what I felt was contempt. The first is probably the same feedback problem as everywhere, the second is because the Chrome developers don't want the same kind of internet I do...

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#165

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

philwelch wrote: post #129
timr wrote: post #65

If you ask me, one of Google's biggest strategic successes was their ability to convince an entire generation of engineers that they were something other than a company. The way many (otherwise intelligent) people talk about it, you'd think it was a religion. What you're seeing here is not the shattering of a dream, but of an illusion -- Google hasn't been a scrappy, idealistic startup for many years. It's a fine com…

I was never illusioned about Google in the first place. This is not disillusionment. I just never expected them to turn into Microsoft .

> I just never expected them to turn into Microsoft.

Why not? Google started around 20 years later, that's the main difference. In a different environment, google focused more on internet software and grew faster than MS did a few decades ago, but the path from scrappy startup grabbing an untapped niche, to corporate monopoly is a predictable one.

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#166

Post by bambax »

Turns out adult supervision wasn't all bad.

I remember some time ago, probably 2002-2003 (?) when Bill Gates said something along the lines of "every tech company goes through a period of love at the beginning, and then that love turns to resentment; Google is in the middle of their "love" period and Microsoft is way past it; but that will change".

And, like a newly wed, I remember thinking: nah, that can't change. My love of Google will never fade.

Yet here we are; today no company annoys me more than Google; every decision they make seems bad. Like most people I still use their products, but every time I do I wish I didn't, like when I was driving a Renault.

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#167

Post by [deleted] »

yuhong wrote: post #37
MAGZine wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than stack-ranking thing/general office politics, I don't really have a negative preception of Microsoft. Is this a supposed-perception, or an actual perception? I don't know anything about Yahoo!, but my perceptions of them are still positive. If you have an awful work environment, people will just go elsewhere. especially if you're qualified to work at either company.

I think they were referring to the 1990s when MS was a lot worse than the Google of today. MS did a lot of unethical attacks against competitors during that period (my favorite is the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco).

[deleted]

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#168

Post by ersii »

swombat wrote: post #155
yapcguy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does all this say about Larry Page? He gave a speech recently where he actually pondered why people wouldn't want to have their health care data public, so it could be shared to advance medical research. From that I could tell that he's completely out of touch with ordinary people. He simply has no idea that people might be scared of losing their job or being discriminated against because of an illness. Reminds…

Making the healthcare data public in an anonymised format would not affect people's jobs, unless there is some property of that data that makes it easily identifiable.

I can't speak for the health care industry or medical research - but considering all the other places I've seen people "anonymise" data.. They probably store too much data, that can aid or completely de-anonymise the anonymised data.

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#169

Post by giulivo »

timr wrote: post #65

If you ask me, one of Google's biggest strategic successes was their ability to convince an entire generation of engineers that they were something other than a company. The way many (otherwise intelligent) people talk about it, you'd think it was a religion. What you're seeing here is not the shattering of a dream, but of an illusion -- Google hasn't been a scrappy, idealistic startup for many years. It's a fine com…

I think maximizing profit is what corporations do by definition. I agree with the poster something is changed at Gogle after Larry Page took over though.

Yet in the process of "making my opinion about a corp being evil or not" I enjoy measuring the amount and the quality of free software they release. For software corp, I think this is a good parameter.

By this metric it is easy to understand that putting too much hopes into Google is wrong. They release a lot of code, but that code is usually only "a path" for the user to their core products (which they do not release).

I encourage you rediscover those corps instead where people work hard to keep their "don't be evil" going, despite not marketing it that much.

Let me add something, maybe I'm not good enough for Google, but I'm employed by Red Hat and I enjoy what we do at Red Hat. And I could name a lot of others, in this context, doing great things.

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#170

Post by [deleted] »

raverbashing wrote: post #152
petercooper wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all live in cages, all that varies is how golden they are and how big they are.

Sure. But yeah, I'll take money and a healthier work/life balance than free laundry so I could stay 12h a day making something that people will hate but will drive their agenda.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN