No longer loving Google • Hacker News Board

Re: No longer loving Google

#91

Post by danmaz74 » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 9:08 AM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #78

bane wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm genuinely curious: Why the downvotes? Possible reasons:

A) Because I wrote that 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

B) Because I wrote that 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.

C) Both

Re: No longer loving Google

#92

Post by bambax » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 9:09 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #31

NelsonMinar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buried this in the post, but of all the things Google's done this month the promotion of Google Search Plus Your World (aka Search+) is what concerns me the most. The other negative stories are less significant, I only mentioned them because they're part of the trend I'm feeling. I think it's interesting that anti-Google posts are reflexively upvoted. Ten years ago that would have been Microsoft.

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…

> whenever

Why doesn't it happen to Apple, then? Apple is much much more successful than Google, and, arguably, more "evil".

What I think people react badly to, is hypocrisy (real or perceived). Apple does what it says and doesn't apologize. Google has this whole blurry theory of "not being evil" which many of its own actions prove false, hence the backlash.

Re: No longer loving Google

#93

Post by dagw » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 9:22 AM UTC

peto123 wrote: post #89

mahmud wrote: post #7

Is there a check-list for Google products & alternatives? I was just thinking of going through this exercise last night. Don't feel comfortable with them anymore.

I am currently going through this exercise, and here's what I done: 1) Chrome -> Firefox (Firefox 9 is surprisingly snappy, seems to me like a perfectly sensible alternative) 2) Search -> https://duckduckgo.com/lite - doesn't even show your query string in the URL. BUT: Works only in general search terms, not for specific (long) queries. There, Google is still unavoidable, it seems. But for 90% of my searches, DDG is…

4) GMail:

For a highly symbolic $5/year (with options to buy more space and features if and when you need them) fastmail.fm has an excellent mail service.

Re: No longer loving Google

#94

Post by Jgrubb » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 9:34 AM UTC

rickmb wrote: post #83

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…

It's a personal story of when someone stopped believing Google, not a deep analyses of why Google is "evil". For me Google stopped being credible when it did a 180 on net neutrality. There were good reasons before that, and there were certainly good reasons after that, but when someone or some company loses the benefit of the doubt is a personal thing. What currently pisses me off most about Google is their blatant d…

In my humble opinion, and I apologize to any Facebook engineers who read this, but Facebook has touched off an ethical race to the bottom with regards to users, their privacy, and their information that can be sold to advertisers.

It seems obvious in hindsight, but it's too bad nonetheless.

Re: No longer loving Google

#95

Post by j_col » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 9:52 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #92

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…

> whenever Why doesn't it happen to Apple, then? Apple is much much more successful than Google, and, arguably, more "evil". What I think people react badly to, is hypocrisy (real or perceived). Apple does what it says and doesn't apologize. Google has this whole blurry theory of "not being evil" which many of its own actions prove false, hence the backlash.

Apple is not responsible for large chunks of Internet infrastructure, such as search, advertisements, email, maps, analytics, and many other services that are automatic "go-to" solutions for hundreds of millions of users of Google services. They just want to sell you an overpriced phone/table/laptop (God I can't believe I just defended Apple!).

They do increasingly dominate the online music business with iTunes, much in the same way that Amazon does with digital books, but that is nothing compared to the global Internet reach of Google and hence a higher level of responsibility and scrutiny.

Re: No longer loving Google

#96

Post by paganel » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 9:58 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…

One reason for which I don't like Google anymore is that they broke their primary promise, which they were emphasizing more and more around 2004-2005 (if I remember correctly): to make most of the world's information easily accessible and shareable, and, why not?, trying to make a difference in this world.

In my ideal world the Wikileaks info would have lived in a Google sub-domain, climate change discussions would have been based on open charts and data which would have been also hosted by Google (with available info going back since the first meteorological observations were made), mashups about Iraq and Afghanistan wars with geo-located user-uploaded photos could have lived at maps.google.com/war and so on and so on.

I know that what I was dreaming about doesn't add any stock-market value or anything (and in the worst case scenario it gets you straight into jail), but that's at least what I call "changing the world, trying to make it a better place", like guys such as Diderot or d'Alembert did three centuries ago.

Re: No longer loving Google

#97

Post by Peaker » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 9:59 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #31

NelsonMinar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buried this in the post, but of all the things Google's done this month the promotion of Google Search Plus Your World (aka Search+) is what concerns me the most. The other negative stories are less significant, I only mentioned them because they're part of the trend I'm feeling. I think it's interesting that anti-Google posts are reflexively upvoted. Ten years ago that would have been Microsoft.

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…

Google has been very successful for years. They've only been losing their high esteem in the last year or less. At least in my social circle.

Re: No longer loving Google

#98

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 10:01 AM UTC

NelsonMinar wrote: post #28

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…

I buried this in the post, but of all the things Google's done this month the promotion of Google Search Plus Your World (aka Search+) is what concerns me the most. The other negative stories are less significant, I only mentioned them because they're part of the trend I'm feeling. I think it's interesting that anti-Google posts are reflexively upvoted. Ten years ago that would have been Microsoft.

Regarding your last line: reading some of the anti-Google stories going around (e.g. anything John Gruber or MG Siegler produce) actually made me stop and think whether I needed to go back and re-evaluate Microsoft as I may have just been swept along by the Apple cult attacking its strongest perceived competitors.

Re: No longer loving Google

#99

Post by rahoulb » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 10:07 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #92

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…

> whenever Why doesn't it happen to Apple, then? Apple is much much more successful than Google, and, arguably, more "evil". What I think people react badly to, is hypocrisy (real or perceived). Apple does what it says and doesn't apologize. Google has this whole blurry theory of "not being evil" which many of its own actions prove false, hence the backlash.

Also, at least at the moment, Apple's profit model is easy to understand - you pay money, receive something in return and they pocket the profit. Google's model is based upon understanding who you are so they can place the best adverts in front of you. When you're an upstart, that "who you are" bit doesn't seem to matter too much, when you're a behemoth, it becomes pretty scary.

Re: No longer loving Google

#100

Post by alexyoung » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 10:25 AM UTC

I'd like to print out the following quote from this article in a huge font and read it before I'm tempted to write anything pro/anti Google/Apple/Microsoft in the future:

"I'd rather devote my emotional energy to the upstarts and startups. They deserve our passion."