5 ms·

It seems that 2010 is the year of the cloud on the desktop. With revolutionary products such as Youtube, who can argue? On a more serious note, I really don't

by blub 16y ago

It seems that 2010 is the year of the cloud on the desktop. With revolutionary products such as Youtube, who can argue? On a more serious note, I really don't see why everyone is getting so excited about their devices becoming dumb terminals and giving away their power to corporations that own the cloud. I shudder at the thought of powering on a ChromeOs device and having to log in to Google to be able to do anything. Not sure about the Windows era being over, but we're certainly entering a Google era and it's getting really difficult to ignore Google. Both of the Opera browsers on my phone are locked into Google search (previous versions had mulltiple providers, Amazon, Wiki, etc). Firefox comes with Google. Chrome comes with Google. Android is tightly integrated with Google. A lot of people use Gmail and Gdocs due to lack of alternatives. A lot of websites use a Google powered search. I'll never buy an Android device because I'm getting weary of Google: they're becoming too powerful and control too much information. Furthermore, they are competing unfairly: they use their ads profits to dump products on the market at very low prices or for free, killing the (possible) competition. For now this has been good for the consumer, with two observations: you're not getting something for free, you're paying with your privacy; once google gets big enough it may get to be the only player in some markets and that always ends badly.

loewenskind 16y ago
I wish more people thought about this. Google isn't a charity, and even if their leaders really were benevolent they wont be there forever.
- bad_user 16y ago
  No, Google is a company subject to the forces of a free market ... competition, choice, advancements in technology, natural selection. An economy where everybody gets their products / utilities from charities ... is called communism ;)
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    True but the only part they are actually subject to "the forces of a free market" is advertising, where they exhibit monopolistic behaviors (e.g. phone browsers being locked into google search). Every where else can be a "loss leader" for them which is extremely dangerous.
    - jokermatt999 16y ago
      They really don't seem all that monopolistic to me. A company that has a "Data Liberation Front (http://www.dataliberation.org/ http://www.dataliberation.org/) allowing you to switch out of their services at any time is hard to argue as a monopoly. Furthermore, I can search Yahoo or Bing from my Droid just fine, the only thing that's "locked in" is the phone wide search, which I'd say is somewhat reasonable. You aren't forced to use that feature even if you're using Android. I agree that people should be wary of them, but calling their behavior monopolistic is stretching it.
bad_user 16y ago
> Furthermore, they are competing unfairly: they use their ads profits to dump products on the market at very low prices or for free, killing the (possible) competition How's that unfair? I don't fear Google because the cost of switching is low and I only stay with them as long as their products kick ass. Not only that, but they do make it easy to import and export your data using standards on all their products that I use ... GMail has POP3 out of the box, Gdocs can export your docs in whatever format (HTML/OO/PDF/Word/Excel), GReader can export your feeds in OPML. As far as search engines go, replacing them is ~5 clicks away in both Chrome and Firefox. And from a dev POV, I only care about white-hat seo stuff, like having good articles with semantically correct tagging that all other search engines care about. I care more about the availability of my data and about my privacy. There's no point in fear mongering about what might be as long as they are playing nice ... trust and reputation have been the foundation of any society for thousands of years, I can't see why that wouldn't continue to work. E.g. both Apple and Microsoft have betrayed my trust, and now I don't use their products or recommend them anymore. And I don't really miss them that much ;)
- greyman 16y ago
  I also think it is somewhat unfair. They have lot of money from their ads, so they can create product in another category (for example GPS), and offer it for free, while other companies who don't have those advertising dollars can't offer their product for free. Basically they can easily kill competition in certain niches, since they can support their product by money gained by another product (Adsense/Adwords). Maybe it is not unlawful, but fair is it not.
  - fretje 16y ago
    How's that unfair? It's not that they're stopping anybody from doing the same.
  - bad_user 16y ago
    > so they can create product in another category (for example GPS), and offer it for free That specific case I view as a good thing, since turn-by-turn GPS data was provided by an oligopoly for high fees, which is a lot more "unfair" to everybody.
ElbertF 16y ago
Jaiku and Buzz didn't exactly kill Twitter. Orkut didn't kill Facebook. Latitude didn't kill Foursquare. Google Code didn't kill GitHub. Knol didn't kill Wikipedia. Smaller companies still manage to get ahead of Google by innovating, it's not just a matter of big money.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  How many of the things you mentioned are free themselves or also bankrolled by ads? Meaningless comparison as far as I can tell.
  - zppx 16y ago
    I don't follow, why is it meaningless? Just to answer your question Github is mainly supported by a paid model, Twitter was free of ads until some days ago, Wikipedia is supported by donations, not sure about foursquare, facebook is supported by ads and revenues from its platfoorm.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      Because what we're talking about here is Google dumping into other markets and ruining businesses. Of course their tactic wont beat free products on price alone, but that doesn't have anything to do with the discussion.
Charuru 16y ago
> On a more serious note, I really don't see why everyone is getting so excited about their devices becoming dumb terminals and giving away their power to corporations that own the cloud. Because it is enormously more efficient from a societal point of view. The important thing is to have choice, many providers, many platforms, and prevent lock-in. > Furthermore, they are competing unfairly: they use their ads profits to dump products on the market at very low prices or for free, killing the (possible) competition. For now this has been good for the consumer, with two observations: you're not getting something for free, you're paying with your privacy; once google gets big enough it may get to be the only player in some markets and that always ends badly. Rather than resist the coming of the cloud, instead support competitors to adsense/words. I can't be the only one who thinks that a free OS, free Docs, free [insert here] in return for letting Google know what kind of products I like is not just a good trade, for a fabulously excellent one. I only worry that if Google might stop innovating if they get too big, which is why it's essential that Bing is around, and Yahoo, and DDG, and so on, and competitors like iAds that can make a dent in their ad business.

by blub 16y ago

loewenskind 16y ago

I wish more people thought about this. Google isn't a charity, and even if their leaders really were benevolent they wont be there forever.

bad_user 16y ago
No, Google is a company subject to the forces of a free market ... competition, choice, advancements in technology, natural selection. An economy where everybody gets their products / utilities from charities ... is called communism ;)
- loewenskind 16y ago
  True but the only part they are actually subject to "the forces of a free market" is advertising, where they exhibit monopolistic behaviors (e.g. phone browsers being locked into google search). Every where else can be a "loss leader" for them which is extremely dangerous.
  - jokermatt999 16y ago
    They really don't seem all that monopolistic to me. A company that has a "Data Liberation Front (http://www.dataliberation.org/ http://www.dataliberation.org/) allowing you to switch out of their services at any time is hard to argue as a monopoly. Furthermore, I can search Yahoo or Bing from my Droid just fine, the only thing that's "locked in" is the phone wide search, which I'd say is somewhat reasonable. You aren't forced to use that feature even if you're using Android. I agree that people should be wary of them, but calling their behavior monopolistic is stretching it.

bad_user 16y ago

> Furthermore, they are competing unfairly: they use their ads profits to dump products on the market at very low prices or for free, killing the (possible) competition How's that unfair? I don't fear Google because the cost of switching is low and I only stay with them as long as their products kick ass. Not only that, but they do make it easy to import and export your data using standards on all their products that I use ... GMail has POP3 out of the box, Gdocs can export your docs in whatever format (HTML/OO/PDF/Word/Excel), GReader can export your feeds in OPML. As far as search engines go, replacing them is ~5 clicks away in both Chrome and Firefox. And from a dev POV, I only care about white-hat seo stuff, like having good articles with semantically correct tagging that all other search engines care about. I care more about the availability of my data and about my privacy. There's no point in fear mongering about what might be as long as they are playing nice ... trust and reputation have been the foundation of any society for thousands of years, I can't see why that wouldn't continue to work. E.g. both Apple and Microsoft have betrayed my trust, and now I don't use their products or recommend them anymore. And I don't really miss them that much ;)

greyman 16y ago
I also think it is somewhat unfair. They have lot of money from their ads, so they can create product in another category (for example GPS), and offer it for free, while other companies who don't have those advertising dollars can't offer their product for free. Basically they can easily kill competition in certain niches, since they can support their product by money gained by another product (Adsense/Adwords). Maybe it is not unlawful, but fair is it not.
- fretje 16y ago
  How's that unfair? It's not that they're stopping anybody from doing the same.
- bad_user 16y ago
  > so they can create product in another category (for example GPS), and offer it for free That specific case I view as a good thing, since turn-by-turn GPS data was provided by an oligopoly for high fees, which is a lot more "unfair" to everybody.

ElbertF 16y ago

Jaiku and Buzz didn't exactly kill Twitter. Orkut didn't kill Facebook. Latitude didn't kill Foursquare. Google Code didn't kill GitHub. Knol didn't kill Wikipedia. Smaller companies still manage to get ahead of Google by innovating, it's not just a matter of big money.

loewenskind 16y ago
How many of the things you mentioned are free themselves or also bankrolled by ads? Meaningless comparison as far as I can tell.
- zppx 16y ago
  I don't follow, why is it meaningless? Just to answer your question Github is mainly supported by a paid model, Twitter was free of ads until some days ago, Wikipedia is supported by donations, not sure about foursquare, facebook is supported by ads and revenues from its platfoorm.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Because what we're talking about here is Google dumping into other markets and ruining businesses. Of course their tactic wont beat free products on price alone, but that doesn't have anything to do with the discussion.

Charuru 16y ago

> On a more serious note, I really don't see why everyone is getting so excited about their devices becoming dumb terminals and giving away their power to corporations that own the cloud. Because it is enormously more efficient from a societal point of view. The important thing is to have choice, many providers, many platforms, and prevent lock-in. > Furthermore, they are competing unfairly: they use their ads profits to dump products on the market at very low prices or for free, killing the (possible) competition. For now this has been good for the consumer, with two observations: you're not getting something for free, you're paying with your privacy; once google gets big enough it may get to be the only player in some markets and that always ends badly. Rather than resist the coming of the cloud, instead support competitors to adsense/words. I can't be the only one who thinks that a free OS, free Docs, free [insert here] in return for letting Google know what kind of products I like is not just a good trade, for a fabulously excellent one. I only worry that if Google might stop innovating if they get too big, which is why it's essential that Bing is around, and Yahoo, and DDG, and so on, and competitors like iAds that can make a dent in their ad business.