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I think that Google has a very well thought long term strategy. The sole aim of Google is AI, strong AI. I would like to say like Terminator, Person of Interest

I think that Google has a very well thought long term strategy. The sole aim of Google is AI, strong AI. I would like to say like Terminator, Person of Interest or transhumanism, but each time I lose many karma points. One of their main scope was analyzing web pages. By "accident", this has created a lucrative business (search engine). Google's aim is to keep the money flowing to pay their AI research. For research, Google needs data. That is the aim of gmail or android. The main peril for Google may not be the lack of money, but politicians and reglementations. Google fear to be broken like Microsoft was broken in two because of their monopolistic behavior. Google spends a lot of money to avoid being a monopoly. I think they could make hangout or google+ far better, but this involves the risk of killing the concurrence and disrupting the market. The progress of AI are impressive: in 2016 AlphaGo has reached the level of the best player, at the end of 2017, with alphagozero they compute the time needed (in hours) by a computer to surpass millennia of human knowledge (centuries in chess). Now, computer games are giving handicap stones to world champions at a game that was thought too hard for computers (AI drosophilia). I think Google's strategy is far deeper than short term profit.

jacksmith21006 9y ago
Totally agree. It can be summed up with something Larry Page said very early with Google. He was asked about using AI to make search better and he responded that they are using search to make AI better. It is the ultimate long game with many steps on getting there that might not make sense in issolation but all go together.
syshum 9y ago
The problem with your theory is there are a TON of evidence it is not in any way reality. For example, if their primary motivations were Preventing Monopoly status, and feeding their AI Research they would be embracing open standards, Federation of services, and a whole host of other things they have rejected the last decade or so. They would have never Killed Reader, they would have never taken Hangouts off XMPP, they would have never killed alot of their API's and services web sites were using, they would have never killed the Search Appliance... I could go on and on and one Google does not have a Grand Master plan playing 5D chess to get to the Singularity.... They are just another Top Heavy Corporation focused on Quarterly earning statements and marred in Internal and External Politics.
- reacweb 9y ago
  A social network is better when almost everyone are on the same network like it was with facebook. Google avoids having a too good social network to avoid becoming dominant. If Google provided a good stable API, people may never consider going to concurrence. By pissing off some users, Google stimulates competition and avoids becoming a "public service". I think this reasoning explains well Reader, XMPP, their dropped API and explains also why they do not embrace open standards. I disagree with you on their focus on earnings, but I fully agree with "marred in internal and external politics".
  - fauigerzigerk 9y ago
    I don't get your reasoning at all. You're saying that Google wants to feed its AI as much data as possible while at the same time not appearing too dominant. Launching a bunch of terrible and failing copycat projects and closing down actually useful "niche" projects sure helps with not appearing too dominant, but it does nothing to help feed Google's AI. It also does nothing to prevent Google's competitors from becoming dominant and getting locked out of important data sources like social interactions (Facebook) or product search (Amazon). I agree with syshum. Supporting federated, open protocols would make much more sense. It would make Google appear benign while at the same time granting them access to a lot of data and help keep competitors at bay.
  - syshum 9y ago
    >>A social network is better when almost everyone are on the same network like it was with facebook. Disagree completely. A Social Network is better when everyone can communicate seamlessly with each other, that does not require a hierarchy model controlled by a single entity, it is much much harder to do in a decentralized way, and it much less profitable but it is far from impossible or even better as a social network to be centralized. It is better for profitability to be centralized, it is better for censorship, control, etc to be centralized, but for the actual users it can be decentralized, seamless and far better >Google avoids having a too good social network to avoid becoming dominant. Google does not have good social network for a variety of reasons, none of which is because they have purposely chosen not to have one. >If Google provided a good stable API, people may never consider going to concurrence. By pissing off some users, Google stimulates competition and avoids becoming a "public service". I think this reasoning explains well Reader, XMPP, their dropped API and explains also why they do not embrace open standards. When talking Anti-Trust this is the exact wrong approach. MS got into Anti-Trust trouble because of their non-standard dominance over the web. It was a combination of IE Integration into windows along with other technology like ActiveX that was not open to competitors. Forcing users to use the IE Web Browser. Had there been a stronger Standard like HTML5 is today, and has MS been a full partner and compliant with it I likely would have avoided all Anti-Trust actions (especially in the US) even with the integration of IE into windows. Adopting Free and Open Standards can be a defense against Anti-Trust.

jacksmith21006 9y ago

Totally agree. It can be summed up with something Larry Page said very early with Google. He was asked about using AI to make search better and he responded that they are using search to make AI better. It is the ultimate long game with many steps on getting there that might not make sense in issolation but all go together.

syshum 9y ago

The problem with your theory is there are a TON of evidence it is not in any way reality. For example, if their primary motivations were Preventing Monopoly status, and feeding their AI Research they would be embracing open standards, Federation of services, and a whole host of other things they have rejected the last decade or so. They would have never Killed Reader, they would have never taken Hangouts off XMPP, they would have never killed alot of their API's and services web sites were using, they would have never killed the Search Appliance... I could go on and on and one Google does not have a Grand Master plan playing 5D chess to get to the Singularity.... They are just another Top Heavy Corporation focused on Quarterly earning statements and marred in Internal and External Politics.

reacweb 9y ago
A social network is better when almost everyone are on the same network like it was with facebook. Google avoids having a too good social network to avoid becoming dominant. If Google provided a good stable API, people may never consider going to concurrence. By pissing off some users, Google stimulates competition and avoids becoming a "public service". I think this reasoning explains well Reader, XMPP, their dropped API and explains also why they do not embrace open standards. I disagree with you on their focus on earnings, but I fully agree with "marred in internal and external politics".
- fauigerzigerk 9y ago
  I don't get your reasoning at all. You're saying that Google wants to feed its AI as much data as possible while at the same time not appearing too dominant. Launching a bunch of terrible and failing copycat projects and closing down actually useful "niche" projects sure helps with not appearing too dominant, but it does nothing to help feed Google's AI. It also does nothing to prevent Google's competitors from becoming dominant and getting locked out of important data sources like social interactions (Facebook) or product search (Amazon). I agree with syshum. Supporting federated, open protocols would make much more sense. It would make Google appear benign while at the same time granting them access to a lot of data and help keep competitors at bay.
- syshum 9y ago
  >>A social network is better when almost everyone are on the same network like it was with facebook. Disagree completely. A Social Network is better when everyone can communicate seamlessly with each other, that does not require a hierarchy model controlled by a single entity, it is much much harder to do in a decentralized way, and it much less profitable but it is far from impossible or even better as a social network to be centralized. It is better for profitability to be centralized, it is better for censorship, control, etc to be centralized, but for the actual users it can be decentralized, seamless and far better >Google avoids having a too good social network to avoid becoming dominant. Google does not have good social network for a variety of reasons, none of which is because they have purposely chosen not to have one. >If Google provided a good stable API, people may never consider going to concurrence. By pissing off some users, Google stimulates competition and avoids becoming a "public service". I think this reasoning explains well Reader, XMPP, their dropped API and explains also why they do not embrace open standards. When talking Anti-Trust this is the exact wrong approach. MS got into Anti-Trust trouble because of their non-standard dominance over the web. It was a combination of IE Integration into windows along with other technology like ActiveX that was not open to competitors. Forcing users to use the IE Web Browser. Had there been a stronger Standard like HTML5 is today, and has MS been a full partner and compliant with it I likely would have avoided all Anti-Trust actions (especially in the US) even with the integration of IE into windows. Adopting Free and Open Standards can be a defense against Anti-Trust.