Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

digiday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 249 posts

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#221

Post by rixed »

keeganpoppen wrote: post #211
ignoramous wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Far from being the greater good, Google is remarkably pig-headed, often downright incompetent outside of selling ads... As is the nature of dualities, the web has benefit immensely from Google's investments even if it would have chartered a different (and in your opinion, a better) course had Google not existed in the first place. Someone pointed out, you couldn't say the same for Amazon. As for incompetence: imho,…

there's no chance that webrtc is a more important innovation than XMLHTTPRequest... the web would be just a bunch of hyperlinked text and images without XHR...

This made me realize how much I would actually love that, somehow.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#222

Post by rixed »

pjerem wrote: post #218
mr_toad wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was great until after they won the second browser war and gradually became used to power. They’re a lot like a revolutionary government that gradually becomes corrupt and as bad as the regime they overthrew.

Like mostly everyone, I was amongst those people who heavily recommended Google (really cool) products to friends & family. Retrospectively, I feel so stupid to have promoted « free products paid by an advertising company » for years. I know Google duped everyone on this so I don’t feel to be stupid alone. But still, in hindsight, there were no possible future where Google could stay on top without doing dirty things…

I certainly hate ads more than the average person, probably even more than the average hell, but it feels strange to hear people sometime speak about Google as if targeted ads were the worse thing that could happen on the internet.

I've seen censorship, identity theft, money laundering, online harassment, online crime, information theft on very large scale to target, arrest and hang political opponents... All of which Google used to oppose more than any other big tech co. But somehow, the pitchforks are out against targeted ads.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#223

Post by ignoramous »

nwallin wrote: post #184
ignoramous wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This all assumes that without Google this would not happen. To be fair, I am not the one that's assuming things here. I am speaking of how Google has indeed contributed when they really didn't have to (as pointed out with the example of Amazon). > Linux happened without single corporation controlling it. A consortium of corporations, sure: linaro.org

What does linaro.org have to do with linux? I've been using linux since a decade before linaro.org was founded, and this is the first I've heard of it. Did you mean the Linux Foundation?

linaro.org contributes ARM-related work that directly impacts largest deployment of Linux (Android). And how long before ARM takes over servers as well?

I meant to highlight that Linux, not in its entirety but parts of it, is indeed driven by orgs (that you haven't even heard of).

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#224

Post by Angostura »

tomComb wrote: post #167
loudtieblahblah wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's investment in the web is just like Microsoft's "Embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy, just far more sophisticated and nuanced. Just like the new Microsoft's so-called new-found embrace of Linux, open standards and interoperability. It's all a sham. Garbage like AMP, or flexing their dominance in the search market to force websites to comply with this or that or risk delisting, is garbage.

You are kinda' making my point in highlighting AMP: one of the most hated Google 'contributions' to the web. Why did they do it? Because news website were heavy, slow, bad experiences compared to Facebook Instant news and Apple News etc. and so they those proprietary options were winning. AMP was designed to allow web sites compete with that. It was reported that Apple News is taking 50% cut. When media companies kee…

> Why did they do it? Because news website were heavy, slow, bad experiences compared to Facebook Instant news

Simply prioritising fast, mobile-friendly sites in search results would have achieved that aim.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#225

Post by csande17 »

Angostura wrote: post #224
tomComb wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are kinda' making my point in highlighting AMP: one of the most hated Google 'contributions' to the web. Why did they do it? Because news website were heavy, slow, bad experiences compared to Facebook Instant news and Apple News etc. and so they those proprietary options were winning. AMP was designed to allow web sites compete with that. It was reported that Apple News is taking 50% cut. When media companies kee…

> Why did they do it? Because news website were heavy, slow, bad experiences compared to Facebook Instant news Simply prioritising fast, mobile-friendly sites in search results would have achieved that aim.

I'm actually not sure it would have.

If there's one thing that's clear from visiting any news publisher's website, it's that news publishers are unable to build sites that are fast and mobile-friendly. But one things news publishers do know how to do is rig up their CMS to also publish to proprietary systems like Facebook Instant Articles.

The magic of AMP was that it tricked publishers into thinking they were publishing to one of those proprietary systems, when in reality they were building a fast mobile website! Because it imposed strict rules rather than just "faster is better", publishers could throw out all of the stupid, awful practices they'd built up around making websites. Can't use that bloated framework of the week, AMP doesn't support it. Can't give the ads department free reign to ship whatever third-party scripts they please, AMP doesn't support it. Don't worry, website team, we're not threatening your jobs -- AMP is just another proprietary reading system, just like Facebook's.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#226

Post by adhesive_wombat »

drdaeman wrote: post #190
bsedlm wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I see it, the real problem was making google into a for-profit corporation. The world would be a better place if google search had been made a not-for-profit (maybe like wikipedia?) By this point I would (maybe) pay a monthly subscription for a really good websearch like google circa 2005-2010

What would be an incentive to innovate past launch? I'm trying to think of any changes to Wikipedia that happened after it launched and can't think of any. It surely does its job, but it doesn't change and there is no drive. Wiki concept was novel at the time, they did and continue to do an amazing job, but there's no evolution there. Or maybe I'm just a blind or unaware or biased - but, honestly, I tried to think of…

Wikidata is a pretty neat thing that the WMF created well after Wikipedia launched. And it's not like the Mediawiki software has stood still since then, it's way more advanced now.

Just because cars still mostly have 4 wheels doesn't mean automotive engineers haven't been innovating the past 100 years.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#227

Post by gtyras2mrs »

ActorNightly wrote: post #195
fastball wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeahhhh, but Amazon makes a ton off their own ad business and is trying to turn everyone's personal devices into a mesh network they own. They don't give af about user privacy.

They very much do. When is the last time you heard about any private data leak from Amazon?

Security != Privacy

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#228

Post by MaxBarraclough »

csande17 wrote: post #225
Angostura wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why did they do it? Because news website were heavy, slow, bad experiences compared to Facebook Instant news Simply prioritising fast, mobile-friendly sites in search results would have achieved that aim.

I'm actually not sure it would have. If there's one thing that's clear from visiting any news publisher's website, it's that news publishers are unable to build sites that are fast and mobile-friendly. But one things news publishers do know how to do is rig up their CMS to also publish to proprietary systems like Facebook Instant Articles. The magic of AMP was that it tricked publishers into thinking they were publis…

> If there's one thing that's clear from visiting any news publisher's website, it's that news publishers are unable to build sites that are fast and mobile-friendly.

No, it shows that they're not motivated to build fast and lightweight sites. If Google search severely penalised bloated websites, bloat would soon improve.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#229

Post by kalleboo »

rixed wrote: post #221
keeganpoppen wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's no chance that webrtc is a more important innovation than XMLHTTPRequest... the web would be just a bunch of hyperlinked text and images without XHR...

This made me realize how much I would actually love that, somehow.

Yeah it would have been an interesting world if Java hadn't sucked so bad (and MS hadn't tried to kill it) and the web had remained a hypertext document platform and all the deep interactivity ended up in applets and Java Web Start apps. Both pros and cons to that.

Re: Amazon is blocking Google’s FLoC

#230

Post by tentacleuno »

mdoms wrote: post #149
gentleman11 wrote: post #9

If Firefox had larger market share, Chrome wouldn’t have been able to make this opt out for websites rather than opt in because it would have given them a bad public image. I don’t think it’s fair that some company gets to force every website maintainer (most aren’t extremely technical and just use Wordpress or something similar) on earth to muddle through documentation for their particular setups to 1) learn it exis…

If Firefox wants a bigger market share they need a significantly better product. That's just how the world works. I don't use Chrome but I sure as heck don't use Firefox.

Perhaps better for privacy too, unlike the telemetry-riddled Firefox of today. LibreWolf sounds a hell of a lot better, though.
Post reply on HN