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Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

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Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#251

Post by sirkneeland »

elastoplast wrote: post #191
dredmorbius wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a guy who inspired two top-level stories yesterday, a few speculations. For myself, the company I once turned to to provide me useful things, save me time, respect my privacy (and certainly not pester me for personal information or publicly link my activity across entirely independent activities and sites), and get out of the way of doing things, is now proving me increasingly useless, wasting my time, disrespecti…

I work at Google, have done for about 7 years now. This is my first comment at HN. I think your comment about "not coercive" is insightful. The biggest change I've seen over time here is that at the start, people never talked about what users should or should not do. They were treated as people who would use our products, or not, and that was A-OK. The subtle trend that underlies a lot of this recent outpouring of di…

Wasn't this "fear- driven strategy" of aggressive paranoia (I hate to use the word here because it has a strongly negative connotation when such paranoia may be entirely warranted) a hallmark of the aggressive and tech expansionist culture of... Microsoft?

This is the upshot and downside of companies with ambitions that are essentially limitless:

When you treat EVERYTHING as an opportunity, you inevitably come to see EVERYTHING as a potential threat.

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#252

Post by sirkneeland »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #241
elastoplast wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at Google, have done for about 7 years now. This is my first comment at HN. I think your comment about "not coercive" is insightful. The biggest change I've seen over time here is that at the start, people never talked about what users should or should not do. They were treated as people who would use our products, or not, and that was A-OK. The subtle trend that underlies a lot of this recent outpouring of di…

Strangely, if Facebook decided to do a web search product, they could put a serious dent in the engine that powers Google. However to date it isn't something they are interested in.

I would question whether it is a matter of their not being interested in it vs. Their being interested in it but not having a compelling search product... yet

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#253

Post by pbhjpbhj »

adventured wrote: post #113
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You make more profit when people feel they benefit more from your service. // That's clearly not the only way to make more profit. If for example one has entrenched users and cuts the level of service markedly, or increases the cost, then profit increases. There is no need for anyone to benefit more other than the shareholders. You can also improve a service without charging more. Again profit and benefit will not…

"You can also improve a service without charging more. Again profit and benefit will not be directly correlated." In your example, profit and benefit would in fact be directly correlated. If you improve your service, without charging more, then more customers will want your product accordingly, and you will earn more profit all things being equal. In fact, this is one the most basic of all methods of earning more pro…

In the phrase "profit and benefit" it is implicit that the benefit is per customer. In your addendum it is profit and customer base that is correlated. As you imply, increased benefit (per customer) is also likely to lead to more customers, but not necessarily.

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#254

Post by mcguire »

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.

Healthcare data essentially cannot be anonymised, if you can correlate it with other, non-healthcare, data such as search queries and purchases.

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#255

Post by mcguire »

narag wrote: post #245
elastoplast wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at Google, have done for about 7 years now. This is my first comment at HN. I think your comment about "not coercive" is insightful. The biggest change I've seen over time here is that at the start, people never talked about what users should or should not do. They were treated as people who would use our products, or not, and that was A-OK. The subtle trend that underlies a lot of this recent outpouring of di…

...unless Larry wakes up and realises Facebook isn't going to kill his business Or is it? Actually I agree with you. But I also believed Microsoft was exaggerating his fears of Netscape. Now I don't know what to think. Maybe it's better to err on the side of paranoia after all.

"But I also believed Microsoft was exaggerating his fears of Netscape."

Microsoft is still in the same position as it was pre-Netscape. It still effectively owns the OS and office software markets. It just wasn't entirely able to take over a couple of new markets.

That failure was pretty bad: MS is no longer seen as a "hot new thing", or a producer of hot new things. But in terms of doing damage to Microsoft, nothing from outside MS has done anything, as far as I can see. (Antitrust lawsuits notwithstanding.)

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#256

Post by Amadou »

melindajb wrote: post #231
vdaniuk wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this sarcasm? Do you really consider being in the Army a noble profession? And do you think that the software industry serves humanity in general less than military industry?

My mother's high school class of men were almost entirely killed in Vietnam. She told me this and i'll never forget it: "hate the war, hate the government, but never, ever hate the soldier." Just don't do it. It's disrespectful to the sacrifice so many make, every day. Not to mention in the world we live in the USA, most of the people in the military are from poor families, simply because they have no other choice an…

We will always have an army, would you rather it be through conscription or volunteer?

As an 18 year old man I would have said "volunteer" no question. As someone who had a nephew volunteer, my mind is now completely changed and am 100% for conscription.

Egalitarian conscription means mothers across the country have a major stake in any decision to go to war -- even if their kid has not (yet) been drafted. You can bet your ass they will make it known they don't want their sons and daughters to be killed in some far off land fighting some rich man's war. It also means that congress itself will have children in the line of fire (unlike today where it is on the order of about 10 out of 535) giving them a lot more personal accountability for choosing to send other people's kids to face death.

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#257

Post by tomw1808 »

Someone wrote: post #25
guybrushT wrote: post #14

Reports of Google's decline are greatly exaggerated :) G+ is annoying, but these days no large company can make all their users happy, with all their products/features/changes, all the time. The so-called erosion of 'Don't be evil' has just become more apparent now, but as long as I have known google, they always made money from ads - and ads are fundamentally evil (IMHO). Search, maps, email etc are quite nice and I…

Ads are _fundamentally_ evil? What mechanism do you propose for bringing new products to the attention of customers, then? Or are new products and/or customers also fundamentally evil, IYHO?

I would say HN brought a couple of new products to my mind... and I doubt here are any ads hidden ;). Instead they do, what is incredible powerful with their voting-system. And they don't cheat on their readers. That is great. At least to me.

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#258

Post by yongjik »

Amadou wrote: post #256
melindajb wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother's high school class of men were almost entirely killed in Vietnam. She told me this and i'll never forget it: "hate the war, hate the government, but never, ever hate the soldier." Just don't do it. It's disrespectful to the sacrifice so many make, every day. Not to mention in the world we live in the USA, most of the people in the military are from poor families, simply because they have no other choice an…

We will always have an army, would you rather it be through conscription or volunteer? As an 18 year old man I would have said "volunteer" no question. As someone who had a nephew volunteer, my mind is now completely changed and am 100% for conscription. Egalitarian conscription means mothers across the country have a major stake in any decision to go to war -- even if their kid has not (yet) been drafted. You can be…

No, (US) congress will simply have children signing paperwork in Pentagon, or inspect bolts in a Boeing factory.

I'm from a country with conscription. The major difference it makes is that the military treats soldiers like shit, because a new fresh batch of soldiers will always arrive, no matter what. In the extreme cases, your son will be found dead with three gunshot wounds and the military decides he committed suicide. In the more benign cases, you end up digging ditches with a shovel in winter, because soldiers are cheaper than machines.

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#259

Post by DerpDerpDerp »

nhangen wrote: post #211
vdaniuk wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this sarcasm? Do you really consider being in the Army a noble profession? And do you think that the software industry serves humanity in general less than military industry?

It's sad that the Armed Forces are now looked upon with disdain by hackers mere decades after the West wrested the world from Germany's grasp. Say what you want about the military industrial complex, but lets not forget that should any of our countries be invaded, we will be very grateful that those guns pointing at the invaders.

The Armed Forces (and similar government organizations) spent their good will raping people in Abu Ghraib, mutilating people in Afghanistan, blowing people apart in cafes across the Middle East, illegally spying on Americans for who knows what reason, and generally acting like a bunch of psychopaths with little to no respect for the rule of law.

Why would we trust any institution acting so obviously violent and so completely unaccountable?

Re: Google's Decline Really Bugs Me

#260

Post by Amadou »

yongjik wrote: post #258
Amadou wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will always have an army, would you rather it be through conscription or volunteer? As an 18 year old man I would have said "volunteer" no question. As someone who had a nephew volunteer, my mind is now completely changed and am 100% for conscription. Egalitarian conscription means mothers across the country have a major stake in any decision to go to war -- even if their kid has not (yet) been drafted. You can be…

No, (US) congress will simply have children signing paperwork in Pentagon, or inspect bolts in a Boeing factory. I'm from a country with conscription. The major difference it makes is that the military treats soldiers like shit, because a new fresh batch of soldiers will always arrive, no matter what. In the extreme cases, your son will be found dead with three gunshot wounds and the military decides he committed sui…

South Korea?

The conscription program there definitely has problems both with the treatment of the average Joe (Kim?) and the ways for the privileged to avoid risk. There will never be a perfect system (c.f. Bush essentially going AWOL when he was in the service here). But I think the circumstances are different enough - you guys already have 100% conscription, that's a big cultural difference from spinning up a draft.

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