Google Fights Back • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Fights Back

#21

Post by gambler » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

>It all begins with our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, and today, our mission feels as relevant as ever.

I said this 15 years ago and I will repeat it again. Google is like a man selling boats after a dam brake. They are profiting by managing the problem, not by fixing it. It is to their benefit if the problem actually gets worse. In other words, looking at their long-running effects and initiatives, I see that they aim to change the Internet so that it's completely unusable without their services. (The recent stunts with AMP and Gmail are great, obvious examples, but it didn't start there. It was going on for a very long while.)

This not the kind of thing that I want to spread to my offline life.

Re: Google Fights Back

#22

Post by gcbw2 » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

areoform wrote: post #7

Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…

> what happens when google is Google no more?

Google already have many, many advertising partners to whom they gladly provide your location and other data. But they anonymize it, so you are safe ;)

Re: Google Fights Back

#23

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

bunnycorn wrote: post #8

kmlx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is the feature of calling people automatically on google assistant? already available in 44 states, they’re bringing it to the web. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/goo... > Where is their self driving car too? Never complete, they always promise "it's the next year". there’s zero rush when there’s a chance of killing people. also this: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.theverge.com/p…

It simply doesn't work in any real life situation. Yes, the problem of self driving cars is they can kill people, that's the whole problem, thing is that google is always promising that "they are here for all", "it's the next year", etc. it's all BS. You don't have a google self driving car, and you didn't book your hairdresser via duplex, and you won't be booking your car or anything through any of this. Those are t…

[deleted]

Re: Google Fights Back

#24

Post by hammock » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

areoform wrote: post #7

Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…

Your point is well taken, but 100 years will anyone care that you had the flu on May 7 2019?

>Who the fuck owns MySpace now?

It's all deleted. https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/18/18271023/myspace-music-vi...

Re: Google Fights Back

#25

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

bunnycorn wrote: post #8

kmlx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is the feature of calling people automatically on google assistant? already available in 44 states, they’re bringing it to the web. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/goo... > Where is their self driving car too? Never complete, they always promise "it's the next year". there’s zero rush when there’s a chance of killing people. also this: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.theverge.com/p…

It simply doesn't work in any real life situation. Yes, the problem of self driving cars is they can kill people, that's the whole problem, thing is that google is always promising that "they are here for all", "it's the next year", etc. it's all BS. You don't have a google self driving car, and you didn't book your hairdresser via duplex, and you won't be booking your car or anything through any of this. Those are t…

[deleted]

Re: Google Fights Back

#26

Post by holy_city » Wed, May 08, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

areoform wrote: post #7

Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…

The blatant disregard for privacy is what bothers me the most.

Like when I started getting push notifications from Android for my credit card payment with my exact balance due, which they could only have gathered by parsing my emails from the bank. It's easy to resolve that by changing the contact info/settings with the bank, but just the fact that engineers at Google thought users would appreciate having their private financial information parsed and stored by Google services is absurd.

It should never have crossed anyone's mind to even do that, let alone advertise it as a feature.

Re: Google Fights Back

#27

Post by reaperducer » Wed, May 08, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #24

areoform wrote: post #7

Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…

Your point is well taken, but 100 years will anyone care that you had the flu on May 7 2019? >Who the fuck owns MySpace now? It's all deleted. https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/18/18271023/myspace-music-vi...

100 years will anyone care that you had the flu on May 7 2019?

Epidemiologists? Researchers? Academics? Governments trying to model future disease response based on historical trends?

Just off the top of my head.

Re: Google Fights Back

#28

Post by oblio » Wed, May 08, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

fdchn2019 wrote: post #19

areoform wrote: post #7

Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…

I love Google. I bought an Oppo phone. But all my data goes through their app - even when i switch off their SMS feature that data still goes through their app and i guess they intercept it and send it to a dial home server. And I'd rather my data goes to Google. So when I can afford a Google Pixel - gonna buy one But anyone who thinks he's wrong - Remember into whose hands Java fell.

Sun was a colossal screw up, though. IBM is still around, making billions. As is Microsoft.

Google will probably bury me.

Re: Google Fights Back

#29

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 08, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #24

areoform wrote: post #7

Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…

Your point is well taken, but 100 years will anyone care that you had the flu on May 7 2019? >Who the fuck owns MySpace now? It's all deleted. https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/18/18271023/myspace-music-vi...

[deleted]

Re: Google Fights Back

#30

Post by iforgotpassword » Wed, May 08, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

Apart from the privacy concerns I'm rather hesitant to switch to anything they make, only to see them kill it off again later. But well that also happens all the time when they buy other companies, so you cannot really avoid that from happening to you. Just like the nest news from yesterday.