“Google: it is time to return to not being evil” • Hacker News Board

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#161

Post by studentrob » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 7:27 AM UTC

mentando wrote: post #149

studentrob wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My suggestion is stifles laughter requiring that Chromebooks provide the option to install Firefox. :D Google should take that upon themselves. I was prepared to refute your suggestion until a quick Google search told me Chromebooks have 58% marketshare in K-12. It's probably much lower across home devices and much lower still across the world, but popular enough that, like Android, it should allow installing compe…

Do Chromebooks actively block you from installing another browser? I mean I have a Chromebook and I can install crouton and run Firefox. Or would Google have to provide a "supported" way to install other browsers?

> Do Chromebooks actively block you from installing another browser?

I don't have one. If it's sufficiently harder, like it was in the Microsoft IE antitrust case, there may be an argument there. IANAL but I think an antitrust lawsuit would have to show they have majority marketshare too.

> Or would Google have to provide a "supported" way to install other browsers?

I don't how ChromeOS works. Is Chrome the OS? If so they might have more of an argument than, say, Microsoft, since Windows existed before IE and it was clear IE was not integral to the base system.

Still, now we have pretty easy to install flavors of Linux, which is another difference between now and 2001 when Microsoft settled their case.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#162

Post by folli » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 7:35 AM UTC

"You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain" - Harvey Dent

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#163

Post by colordrops » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 7:35 AM UTC

akerl_ wrote: post #13

tryingagainbro wrote: post #3

Vivaldi CEO – “Google: it is time to return to not being evil” Me: that train has left the station. When you have monopoly power (70%-98% of market share) the governments should return Google and Whatever Corp to not being evil.

It seems like companies are stuck in a losing game. We constantly push small companies to capture more market share. Any companies that fold during that effort, we bring out the pitchforks because the services they ran get shut off. Any companies that succeed , we bring out the pitchforks because they own too much market power. It seems a bit much that we ask for companies to constantly grow and simultaneously ensure…

That all seems orthogonal to the topic of ethics of companies.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#164

Post by unityByFreedom » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 7:45 AM UTC

elihu wrote: post #150

unityByFreedom wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure when exactly the PageRank patent expires (people seem to be saying 2017 or 2018), but it will be soon and that should open up some interesting possibilities. You could use it right now. In fact, many do. Google doesn't sue companies for using PageRank or much of their published research. Much more interesting things have come out since then like BigTable (led to Hadoop + NoSQL databases) and Word2Vec (…

Patents are a pretty big threat to have hanging over your company -- Google might not sue other companies for using it now, but they could in the future. At least, until the patent expires. I realize Google has created more than PageRank, but PageRank is pretty fundamental technology. If you can't use it for legal reasons, that's a big impediment. I don't know how Bing gets around it. I've never tried using Baidu, bu…

> Google might not sue other companies for using it now, but they could in the future. At least, until the patent expires

Google's long term strategy is to not do this. So for this to happen they'd have to end up with a CEO who wants to make a huge pivot.

> I realize Google has created more than PageRank, but PageRank is pretty fundamental technology. If you can't use it for legal reasons, that's a big impediment. I don't know how Bing gets around it.

Maybe because it's not fundamental at all. It's hardly used anymore. Many search engines are built without PageRank. You could build one. I suggest reading about PageRank before claiming it is fundamental to search.

> I've never tried using Baidu, but if my main concern is that I don't want a search engine censoring the Internet, then using Baidu is at least as problematic as using Google.

Then use duck duck go.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#165

Post by dang » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 7:48 AM UTC

unityByFreedom wrote: post #80

MikeGale wrote: post #7

There's a pattern here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-...

So you'll believe any story that critiques Google now? I would take this article with a grain of salt. Vivaldi's version of events is one side of the story. We don't know how Google would respond.

> So you'll believe any story that critiques Google now?

Please don't post personal swipes. Your comment would be much stronger without that bit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#166

Post by mcherm » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 7:53 AM UTC

andosa wrote: post #124

askafriend wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to look at opportunity cost. There is significant dev time that is spent supporting those configuration mixes that relatively few people will use. If that dev time could be spent on other features that will be appreciated by more people, then that is a decision you can make while still adhering to the principle of "users-first".

So a multihundred billion dollar web company doesn't have the dev resources to support Firefox? Even though it already works when you spoof the agent string?

If the company were worth a lot less it would be EASIER to support a different browser that already works.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#167

Post by staticelf » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 7:54 AM UTC

Google has become a really crappy company in my eyes. I run Vivaldi nowadays as my main browser since it is great but it feels like a new UI on Chrome.

Why can't google support all modern browsers for their products? I work as a web dev and have done so for all of my work.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#168

Post by _tulpa » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 8:11 AM UTC

studentrob wrote: post #157

_tulpa wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so you want to opt out of all google services and data harvesting. In addition to replacing chrome, search, and gmail, drive, maps, calendar, youtube, allo, duo, keep, hangouts, etc, etc you must also: - Never send/receive email to/from anyone else with a gmail address. You're still providing your data even if this one won't affect you directly. - Block third-party tracking on websites and advertisements which…

> So through a buttload of effort and some domain specific knowledge you can exercise some percentage (probably less than 100%) of your wallet vote which was worth 3/10ths of nothing to begin with. You have to be a tech-savvy idealist to go through with it, and that demographic is never going to be big enough to force a massive corporation to self regulate against their own best interests. Making sure a consumer's da…

You're missing the point. And saying what exactly? That we should just roll over and let them do whatever they want because empowering the user is hard?

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#169

Post by breakingcups » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 8:13 AM UTC

LarryPage wrote: post #27

Google hasn't been my default search engine for 6+ months. In fact the only Google things I use frequently are Android and Chromium (through Opera). I feel better about my internet usage, and I've been having a much better experience. Obligatory "username checks out"

What search engine have you been using? I've tried others but none seem to come even close, unfortunately.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#170

Post by studentrob » Tue, Sep 05, 2017, 8:24 AM UTC

_tulpa wrote: post #168

studentrob wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So through a buttload of effort and some domain specific knowledge you can exercise some percentage (probably less than 100%) of your wallet vote which was worth 3/10ths of nothing to begin with. You have to be a tech-savvy idealist to go through with it, and that demographic is never going to be big enough to force a massive corporation to self regulate against their own best interests. Making sure a consumer's da…

You're missing the point. And saying what exactly? That we should just roll over and let them do whatever they want because empowering the user is hard?

> we should just roll over and let them do whatever they want because empowering the user is hard?

We're talking past each other. Your "them" is Google. My "them" is every company, many of whom do not announce the extent of their data collection.

If breaking up Google means going after every company that collects too much data, then I suggest we first (a) take a look at how much data companies are collecting and then (b) consider where we draw the line. Doing (b) before (a) would be acting uninformed and rashly.