Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom • Hacker News Board

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#111

Post by moritzwarhier » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:01 AM UTC

retox wrote: post #36

Clewza313 wrote: post #29

> Third, a lot of Pichai's big bets have failed: Google Glass, Google Plus, Google Wave, Project Loon Every single one of these predates Pichai, who only became CEO in 2015: * Google Wave was already turned down in 2012 * Google Plus launched in 2011 and the writing was on the wall by 2015 * Google Glass consumer edition was discontinued in Jan 2015 before Pichai started * Loon is the only arguable exception; it was…

Now you've seen how a "journalist" doesn't have the patience to spend 60 seconds searching for something you're knowledgeable about, will you (not you specifically) take as gospel anything they say about something you're not knowledgeable about? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...

I'm not convinced. The wiki article you linked to is a paragraph in an article about a novelist, not an article about widely-accepted term. And rightfully so.

Google Plus and Google Glass were big bets in my view. That doesn't take away from Google being unscrupulous in ending unsuccessful offerings. That's part of what made them succesful, I assume.

Journalists often use hyperbole or simplify complex facts to deliver an interesting and easily understandable story. That doesn't make every sinplification a gross misrepresentation.

You're free to dive deeper into any topic you want, but it's delusional to expect every reader to be an expert in every field.

Bashing journalism as a whole has become common gospel, but to me it seems that the effect of that thinking is not that people become better informed.

The article sounds Google-friendly and uncritical to me, but it's also very common to cover interviews in a way that represents the views of the interviewed person.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#112

Post by argvargc » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:01 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #28

Sophistifunk wrote: post #2

From where I sit the #1 risk to the free and open internet these days is Google. Edit: two reasons: 1) Because adtech is destroying society. Surveillance is never good. Ads as funding smears absolutely everything with perverse incentives that act consistently against both the explicit wishes and implicit best-interests of the viewers, and (it seems moreso every year) society at large. 2) Google is doing everything it…

Google is literally the only tech giant with an interest in the open internet. Facebook scored the mortal wound on the web — they reinvented a bigger, badder AOL closed garden.

> Google is literally the only tech giant with an interest in the open internet.

This statement is an oxymoron.

"Tech giants" hobble the open principles of the internet by their own existence, persistence and, by-definition, over-bearing influence.

Any entity genuinely concerned with preserving open principles would seek to limit its growth far-prior to where Google is now, and eliminate the pervasiveness of its influence, favouring and encouraging the results of diverse decentralisation over narrow centralisation.

Google and Facebook are the antithesis of everything the concept of an open internet stands for.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#113

Post by moshiv » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:03 AM UTC

ahiknsr wrote: post #109

onion2k wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pinchai joined Google in 2004, and was "Product Chief" prior to becoming CEO. He's been responsible for a lot of Google products.

> Third, a lot of Pichai's big bets have failed: Google Glass, Google Plus, Google Wave, Project Loon > He's been responsible for a lot of Google products. He might have been responsible but i wouldn't call those projects as Pichai's big bets.

Pichai is there to keep the factory lights on and the assembly line running. Nobody is expecting anything more from him.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#114

Post by encryptluks2 » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:03 AM UTC

tomc1985 wrote: post #74

iratewizard wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like how YouTube has become a more open and free platform in their care. Or how search results have become more open and free since they dominated market share.

Your definition of 'open and free' smells a lot like 'built to favor commercial entities over information pages' Most of my searches result in a wall of sales or product pages. Hardly 'open' when they turned it into glorified yellow pages

Much like every other company, but at least I've see Google be mostly reasonable about it with a few exceptions. Much of the "deplatforming" isn't even do to Google per say but people abusing the copyright system on YouTube and many people not having adequate legal knowledge to defend themselves, or honestly just a lot of attention-seeking alt-right personality types constantly saying they are being deplatformed while they continue to use YouTube freely... Likely all one big part of a MCN pushing the same agenda.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#115

Post by detaro » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:05 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #103

Clewza313 wrote: post #29

> Third, a lot of Pichai's big bets have failed: Google Glass, Google Plus, Google Wave, Project Loon Every single one of these predates Pichai, who only became CEO in 2015: * Google Wave was already turned down in 2012 * Google Plus launched in 2011 and the writing was on the wall by 2015 * Google Glass consumer edition was discontinued in Jan 2015 before Pichai started * Loon is the only arguable exception; it was…

Pinchai joined Google in 2004, and was "Product Chief" prior to becoming CEO. He's been responsible for a lot of Google products.

> was "Product Chief" prior to becoming CEO

for about a year, so still after all those dates. I'd guess Wave fell into his previous responsibility though.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#116

Post by encryptluks2 » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:07 AM UTC

bluthund wrote: post #57

iratewizard wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like how YouTube has become a more open and free platform in their care. Or how search results have become more open and free since they dominated market share.

Do you guys factor the deplatforming they do into this or are you not aware that they are heavily involved in censorship on their platforms

Let me guess.. you're a huge fan of Tim Pool and the likes who constantly talked about how they are oppressed WHILE still on YouTube.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#117

Post by allyourhorses » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:10 AM UTC

Clewza313 wrote: post #29

> Third, a lot of Pichai's big bets have failed: Google Glass, Google Plus, Google Wave, Project Loon Every single one of these predates Pichai, who only became CEO in 2015: * Google Wave was already turned down in 2012 * Google Plus launched in 2011 and the writing was on the wall by 2015 * Google Glass consumer edition was discontinued in Jan 2015 before Pichai started * Loon is the only arguable exception; it was…

> However, it was also an experiment from day 1, not "the next big thing"

Not sure I understand that distinction. If I label all my projects as experiments, do I also get to escape culpability for their failure while loading on the self-praise when they succeed?

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#118

Post by encryptluks2 » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:10 AM UTC

istillwritecode wrote: post #80

I fully expect that Google will someday require you to login before you do a search. Disclaimer: I worked at Google for 12 years.

I fully expect Bing to implement it first by requiring you login to Edge to use search, and shortly before there will be some secret order requiring all search providers collect searches from everyone due to national security.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#119

Post by argvargc » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

nirui wrote: post #87

benjaminjosephw wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relying on giants to defend the interests of the rest of us mere humans sounds dangerous.

But if you look around across all the industries, it is not very hard to realize that most big names that you can easily recognize were created by few giants. Giants is the norm. A real hero knows when to resist the fear and borrow the power from the giants.

The "norm" is also... shit.

Just because it's what's "always" happened before, doesn't mean we can't do better.

This being the case is the very driving force of any innovation.

Your statement seems like defeatism wrapped in a pretty bow of faux-insight.

A tendency toward giants is also not necessarily a sustainable state of affairs.

Once technology becomes sufficiently advanced and pervasive, the window of time available for a giant to gestate, before the next giant-level disruption, inevitably shrinks to the point the system reaches an equilibrium of innovational equanimity and balance.

This is ordinary and expected, and parallels can be seen anywhere in nature.

The - relatively-brief - "time of giants" of human progress may soon be coming to a close.

Re: Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

#120

Post by kelnos » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:19 AM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #48

ditonal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is a fluff piece that's comically uncritical of Google. There's obvious hypocrisy for a company that's done all sorts of user-antagonistic things to internet users as Google has, from Google AMP stealing traffic, to PRISM actively violating the 4th amendment, to Dragonfly explicitly enabling censorship. Google's gotten away with the hypocrisy due to a relentless PR engine. Maybe if you don't like predicta…

> There's obvious hypocrisy for a company that's done all sorts of user-antagonistic things to internet user Does this mean any article about Google that does not criticize Google deserves this snark? Fwiw the snark is annoying not because folks disagree with it, but that saying it again and again and doing nothing is a trite form of internet me-too-ing or signalling. That Google depends on an ethically dubious set o…

Not any article, perhaps, but an article essentially praising Google for warning about $THING when Google is a contributor to the badness of $THING, definitely deserves a healthy dose of snark tossed at it.