No longer loving Google • Hacker News Board

Re: No longer loving Google

#71

Post by marshray » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 5:16 AM UTC

agravier wrote: post #63

pamelafox wrote: post #11

When I first started working at Google, I truly loved them as a user-facing company. And for the first few years, I thought I would work there forever and I could imagine no other place for me. But by the time I left, I was bitter and no longer in love. For various reasons, I felt like I had been betrayed by what I thought Google was at the beginning. It is my fault for having such idealistic expectations for what ul…

> idealistic expectations for what ultimately boils down to a money-driven company Are there non-profit-driven companies counting more than 10 people?

Just because a company is for-profit doesn't mean it has to be "money-driven" in the sense that the term is being used here. In fact, for a company like Google for which many of its users have relatively low switching costs it only makes economic sense to do whatever it takes to keep the users happy and enthusiastic, even at the expense of some short-term profit.

Re: No longer loving Google

#72

Post by marshray » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 5:24 AM UTC

waqf wrote: post #25

sek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bullshit. To bring these few examples to discredit Google here. Think of their record: OpenSource, Android, SOPA, Fight against Software Patens and so on. Google is still on our side and we need them against all the Microsoft and MPAAs. To be on so many battlefields and doing so few problematic things is impressive. Did they ever really compromise their core values? Google tries not to compromise them, but th…

What happened to Sun? (Or rather, what are you implying about the causes of its decline?)

It was the beginning of the end for them when they started bundling pay-per install crapware (Yahoo toolbar) with the JRE installer (the first impression and only Sun product for the vast majority of their users).

Re: No longer loving Google

#73

Post by nostromo » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 5:27 AM UTC

waqf wrote: post #67

nostromo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing your search engine is easy. Changing your OS is not.

How about changing your webmail provider, your mobile OS and the cloud services integrated with it?

http://www.dataliberation.org/

I'm not saying Google is perfect, but they seem to take customer choice seriously. That's the exact opposite of Microsoft 10 years ago.

Re: No longer loving Google

#74

Post by marshray » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 5:29 AM UTC

thebrokencube wrote: post #48

jrockway wrote: post #27

Google's problem is that their public communications only communicate a tiny fraction of the information they have available. For example, people are worried about privacy, so they say "you can choose what to share with these cool buttons" rather than discuss their internal procedures for employee access to user data. The other day, someone on HN wrote, "I trust Google, but what about a laptop with malware?" Google c…

> Search Plus Your World and Google+ are, like every Google product, works in progress. I don't understand why so many people don't get this, and especially here on HN of all places (maybe I'm missing something, I dunno). Isn't that how startup products work? Release early, release often? Maybe Google isn't specifically saying this, but it seriously seems like that's the road they take for the majority of their produ…

Google Search isn't a startup product. You can't just tack on big sections of stuff smack in the middle of the top results and claim that it's just a WiP.

Re: No longer loving Google

#75

Post by ajross » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 5:39 AM UTC

stock_toaster wrote: post #69

ajross wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, it's also a barometer of Google's increasing status as the primary corporate enemy of Apple Computer, Inc. My gut tells me that if someone actually did the survey they'd find that "Google is Evil" posts and upvotes correlate less with Civil Libertarian politics than they do with the manufacturer of the poster's phone and laptop.

That seems to be an odd 'gut reaction'. Is it not possible for someone to be an Apple/iOS or $Manufacturer/Android user and have their own opinions about _anything_ without it somehow being either labeled as fanboyism or anti-fanboyism? I am tired of this false dilemma.

From my 19 years of experience on the internet watching platform flame after platform flame (yes, OS/2 was clearly superior to NT 3.1!): No. No it is not.

Clear principled opinions are wonderful things. Some people have them. Most, sadly, do not. Virtually everyone, however, cheers for some team or another. Lacking other arguments, these people will cleave to whatever argument of principle they find in front of them. Thus: Google is Evil.

Re: No longer loving Google

#76

Post by dmoy » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 5:50 AM UTC

spazcat wrote: post #59

kprobst wrote: post #12

I don't understand why people thought that somehow a publicly traded corporation was going to behave forever in the same way as a garage startup. Once Google reached a certain size, a certain revenue level, and became beholden to institutional shareholders plus (in this case) found itself in a position of largely uncontested market control, I think it was inevitable that it would turn into the all too familiar carica…

Read the IPO letter to investors. They have two classes of voting shares, like Berkshire Hathaway, which enables them to make longer term bets than the market's attention span can handle.

True, it's a similar deal.

A bit less drastic, as a 'second-class' Google stock is just 1/10th of the vote, whereas a 'second-class' berk is 1/20th (25th?, dunno) of the vote, but more importantly doesn't cost 100k/share. I don't know what berk b's price is at, but there's a much smaller set of people who can actually buy berk a shares. 100k is a lot for the average joe to invest in a single share :(

Re: No longer loving Google

#77

Post by k-mcgrady » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 6:13 AM UTC

marshray wrote: post #68

ajross wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, it's also a barometer of Google's increasing status as the primary corporate enemy of Apple Computer, Inc. My gut tells me that if someone actually did the survey they'd find that "Google is Evil" posts and upvotes correlate less with Civil Libertarian politics than they do with the manufacturer of the poster's phone and laptop.

Well, I haven't noticed that but I'm not out there in CA or an iPhone or a Mac user. The alleged Google/Apple hiring blacklist conspiracy seemed to cast them both in a pretty awful light. But the plural of "gut feeling" is not "data", it's...hmmm.

The no poaching agreements also included Adobe, Intuit and Intel.

Re: No longer loving Google

#78

Post by danmaz74 » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 6:19 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #49

pg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that's the most worrying sign. In the past Google won by making what people needed. But it seems clear that was not their primary motivation for SPYW. Their primary motivation was clearly fear of Facebook. That hasn't made Google evil yet. It's just the first step down the road to mediocrity. Which may lead to evil in the long term, because to make lots of money despite being mediocre, you generally have to d…

I think the last year has been fairly tough on Google (ever since Page took over). It's been the first real time that Google has put a concerted effort into a)making money outside of pure search ads b)cutting expenses It's this sudden turn into becoming a real company that has shocked and angered lots of people and burned up most of the good will capital they accrued till then. As painful as it is for us freeloaders,…

It's this sudden turn into becoming a real company that has shocked and angered lots of people and burned up most of the good will capital they accrued till then.

If being a "real" company means only thinking about profits, well, then it is only fair that you lose the goodwill capital that you accrued by not only thinking about profits if you stop doing that. Is this the case with Google? For me the jury is still out, but it is undeniable that my OnyProfitsCountRank(tm) algorithm is getting a lot of signals that Google might be trailing the lots of Microsoft, Apple and Facebook.

Re: No longer loving Google

#79

Post by abruzzi » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 6:20 AM UTC

Aloisius wrote: post #18

kprobst wrote: post #12

I don't understand why people thought that somehow a publicly traded corporation was going to behave forever in the same way as a garage startup. Once Google reached a certain size, a certain revenue level, and became beholden to institutional shareholders plus (in this case) found itself in a position of largely uncontested market control, I think it was inevitable that it would turn into the all too familiar carica…

Don't Sergey and Brin have 10x voting rights? I was under the impression that common shareholders couldn't do a darn thing to them.

The problem is its not just who has the most votes, but in the US, companies have a legal obligation to do what is in the best interest of the shareholders (even minority shareholders) over all other claimants.

California just created a new corporation type that allows 'public benefit' to take precedence over shareholder interest:

http://www.alston.com/environmentalandlandblog/?entry=4488

Re: No longer loving Google

#80

Post by kenjackson » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 6:30 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #23

Like any anti-Google post lately, this one has been reflexively upvoted, but if you look at his reasons for not loving Google, they're pretty thin. The Kenyan episode was obviously one rogue branch with insufficient oversight; as soon as the guys in Mountain View found out what was going on, they stopped it, and with a minimum of the sort of corporate doublespeak you'd expect from most big companies. The changes to p…

Well I think a lot of where Google crosses the line is becoming clearer now. For example, personalized ads in gmail. Try to opt-out of personalized ads in gmail, seriously go and try it.

You can click the button, but they won't actually opt you out. At least not how you'd expect. You'll still get personalized ads, but they just use a different heuristic for how to personalize (based on the current email).

How hard is it to not personalize my ads at all? It would be easy. But Google has opted to add value to advertisers over their users.

This alone is one reason why I'm thinking of leaving gmail. Haven't made the switch yet, but I'm seriously considering it.