Google+ broke our trust • Hacker News Board

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#191

Post by aroch » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 6:46 PM UTC

briandh wrote: post #164

pron wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand not wanting the NSA to snoop your correspondence. I can't understand letting Google do that for years, analyze it, profile you and sell that information to just about anyone, but then thinking that the NSA is the final straw.

Among other differences, your relationship with Google is consensual, or at least largely so. The most extensive data collection Google does requires you to explicitly interact with its properties; tracking via ads and embeds often enables the sites you visit to sustain themselves, and, even if you want to quibble about how "consensual" that is, is trivially mitigated via free, brain-dead-simple browser extensions. P…

>Put another way: you can enjoy the internet yet have little or no data go to Google.

I'm not so sure about this. adwords/gAnalytics/some google tracking property is present on something like 40% of sites So they can see you leave one tracked property A, they may not know where B is, and then can pick up tracking you when visit C and then learn about B because of referrer data.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#192

Post by cromwellian » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 6:47 PM UTC

cliveowen wrote: post #17

diminish wrote: post #4

As an intensive user, everywhere on Google products, I feel the Microsoftization. This includes documentation with corporate jargon, the bloated and confusing Hangout fiasco, the frustrating way to connect multiple identities together. Did they hire any corporate UX/UI/branding/marketing/documentation guys from Redmond recently, after Larry Page's CEOship?

It's an inescapable reality: companies grow and grow bloated and complacent. It happened to IBM and Microsoft, it happened to Google and it's happening now for Facebook. Once corporate mentality sets in the company's soul is gone.

Google has also hired a huge number of Microsoft people, that's going to have an effect on company culture. As well as consultant types from places like Mackenzie, Accenture, etc.

That's the problem with growing fast, hiring like crazy, acquiring like crazy, is that you don't have enough time to assimilate people into company culture properly.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#193

Post by sinwave » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 6:54 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #177

IgorPartola wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the underhanded thing that it did? If you put your real name AND sensitive info into a public system, especially one you do not understand, what do you trust will happen? What does Brin's confession of not being the best person to create a social network have to do with it?

It wasn't underhanded. It was overhanded. It was forced on their users to the detriment of pretty much everything associated. Tyranny supplants trust. If "Igor Partola" is your real name, I think statistically there's a good chance that you understand this innately. Now, you can argue that the trust was misplaced, or that the author's use of the word "trust" to describe the basis of their users's relationship with an…

Where on earth did the Gilles Deleuze quote come from?

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#194

Post by jseliger » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 6:54 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #129

> Google+ embodied the Internet's cardinal sin: It broke everything it touched I think this is the most important single line of the piece. G+ was pretty broken from the get go despite some promising ideas. But instead of focusing around what was working, Google simply amplified all the broken garbage -- then spread it around everywhere, making everything toxic, cancerous. It's one of those many weird cases where you…

- Google is composed of such inept socially awkward people that no red flags were raised and they all just proceeded on course doo dee doo doo dee (a scenario I find very hard to believe)

The other possibility is that Facebook evolved from a relatively small idea to a very large one, attending to users along the way (Peter Thiel discusses this issue in one of his lectures; G+ launched as a huge product that had to succeed right away, based on what Google engineers thought users want and based on the need to be something Facebook isn't.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#195

Post by muzz » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 6:59 PM UTC

It sounds like Sergey is saying that his involvement in Google+ was a mistake, not that that the company going down that path was a mistake. I think the author is taking the word "mistake" out of context:

"It was probably a mistake for me to be working on anything tangentially related to social to begin with."

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#196

Post by cromwellian » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 7:01 PM UTC

I think it is pretty refreshing for an executive to be self critical and admit big mistakes. Sergey sounded authentic in that interview.

Scott Forestall was axed for Apple Maps, but seriously, you rewrite a Maps service from the ground up from scratch and race to release it in iOS6, of course it's going to be beta quality for a long time, since these things take time to mature. I highly doubt the decision to include it in that state was solely Scotts.

I like to see companies admit major strategic mistakes as opposed to pretending everything is awesome for all time. (and no, Tim Cook's letter was a kind of non-apology, only a single sentence really admitted any mistake 'We fell short of our commitment')

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#197

Post by MicroBerto » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 7:03 PM UTC

tedks wrote: post #181

bane wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was the G+ was pitched as a social network. It grew, like a cancer, into some weird meta-project that defies description, and along the way fucked over lots of people who worked very hard to maintain different identities and roles in the various on-line milieus they frequented. Sometimes it was as simple as revealing their real name to their model plane group. Other times it involved just shutting down re…

>The problem was the G+ was pitched as a social network. It grew, like a cancer, into some weird meta-project that defies description Really? It was a single sign-on system to Google properties, tied to a social networking thing. accounts.google.com came not far after plus.google.com. Google wanted to avoid becoming MySpace and wanted to mimic Facebook, and miscalculated slightly. Personally, I really like being able…

I agree on the real names. It truly cleaned up the nonsense and brings more peace of mind to those who scyually make YouTube money - the popular channel operators.

We get way less idiocy now.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#198

Post by webmaven » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 7:04 PM UTC

rumbler wrote: post #66

diminish wrote: post #4

As an intensive user, everywhere on Google products, I feel the Microsoftization. This includes documentation with corporate jargon, the bloated and confusing Hangout fiasco, the frustrating way to connect multiple identities together. Did they hire any corporate UX/UI/branding/marketing/documentation guys from Redmond recently, after Larry Page's CEOship?

If you ask old people, they will tell you the same story, but about IBM. Every generation has its great, innovative tech company turned evil mastermind story. It seems to be hard to avoid. I wonder who will be next.

Exactly when do you think IBM 'turned evil mastermind'?

Because for me, that was in 1933: http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#199

Post by saraid216 » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 7:05 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #174

pron wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Still, I find it strange that almost all attacks on personal freedom in America have been done by private businesses (or in the name of private business), and almost all defenses against such attacks have been placed by the US federal government, and yet some Americans still trust private corporations -- that have hurt them again and again -- more than the government that has rescued them from the clutches of…

Might have something to do with incarceration rates in united states and ridiculously high sentences/consequences for essentially small offences. If something qualify as attack on personal freedom, those two things do. Corporation can not lock you to prison for some petty offense, unless it has cooperation from government.

You realize that most prisons are privately owned and actively lobby for excuses to imprison people, right?

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#200

Post by adrianlmm » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 7:15 PM UTC

tlogan wrote: post #139

bane wrote: post #129

> Google+ embodied the Internet's cardinal sin: It broke everything it touched I think this is the most important single line of the piece. G+ was pretty broken from the get go despite some promising ideas. But instead of focusing around what was working, Google simply amplified all the broken garbage -- then spread it around everywhere, making everything toxic, cancerous. It's one of those many weird cases where you…

> Red flags were raised and simply brushed aside. People working at Google are smart (and majority that I know are smarter than me). Smart people are going to point that something is wrong. But they will not bitch too much because that will be "career-limiting move".

Well, yes, people working at Google are smart but also very arrogant, I rarely see them listening to the users, you know, cause there is no way the "product" know better than them.