4 ms·

Ultimately the problem is that their incentives aren't really aligned with yours. They're only incentivized to do the absolute minimum it takes to keep you arou

Ultimately the problem is that their incentives aren't really aligned with yours. They're only incentivized to do the absolute minimum it takes to keep you around. As they control more and more of your world, they've increased your cost to leave and they can do even less to benefit you explcitly. I like google's services. What I want is the ability to pay for them and not be a part of the product they sell in ads. Basically a freemium model. I don't know how much money in ad revenue I earn google, but I'd probably happily pay it for a more transparent, less sketchy, and more commonly-aligned product. (This would also give me recourse for all the times the google services I rely on go down....)

jankeymeulen 9y ago
2016 had $90B revenues and 1.5B 30d active users (for YouTube) so $60 per year would be a good guess. (Disclaimer: I'm a Googler but I just got these numbers from public statements. No way I'm well paid enough to be able to see more detailed numbers. :-D )
- ucaetano 9y ago
  gSuite is exactly that: $5/month/user for the basic package, and does exactly what the grandparent wants.
  - mr_spothawk 9y ago
    sure, it's nice to be outside of adverts... but using gSuite always feels like pretending I'm not being farmed out to the gov't
- ryanianian 9y ago
  Personally I'd happily pay $5/mo for all of my google services if it meant I was entirely removed from the whole advertising/"customer-is-a-product" offering and I could have confidence that I wasn't being sold as a product in other regards.
ucaetano 9y ago
"Ultimately the problem is that their incentives aren't really aligned with yours. They're only incentivized to do the absolute minimum it takes to keep you around. As they control more and more of your world, they've increased your cost to leave and they can do even less to benefit you explcitly." Are you criticizing Google or companies in general? Because your criticism applies to any company in the world. > I like google's services. What I want is the ability to pay for them and not be a part of the product they sell in ads. Basically a freemium model. Get a corporate gSuite account, they have been around for quite a while.
- addicted 9y ago
  It doesn't apply to all companies. Apple, for example, has very strong incentives to maintain your privacy, to the point that they have made it a selling point for their devices and are also suffering in the realms of machine learning because they are not leveraging your data the way Google or FB would.
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    > has very strong incentives to maintain your privacy > their incentives aren't really aligned with yours No, they have a very strong incentive to appear to maintain your privacy. And that's only temporary. Don't fall for any company saying that they're doing something in the user's interests. They aren't. Companies exist to make profits, if for a brief period of time that means helping users in some way, it's only a coincidence, and you're being fooled by it. Take a look at China, Apple didn't even blink before deciding to hand over all data to the Chinese government. I trust companies, because I know exactly what matters for them: profits. I trust them to follow profits and act on their best interest.
    - atc 9y ago
      But if profit is the incentive and privacy is proven to increase profit then the two go hand in hand.
- ryanianian 9y ago
Slansitartop 9y ago
> I like google's services. What I want is the ability to pay for them and not be a part of the product they sell in ads. Basically a freemium model. You do have the ability to pay for some of them (G Suite aka Google Apps for Business), but even then you might not get what you want, since 99% of their users like you are still products. I'm reminded of this quote from Josh Marshall: > One thing I’ve observed with Google over the years is that it is institutionally so used to its ‘customers’ actually being its products that when it gets into businesses where it actually has customers it really has little sense of how to deal with them. (https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm)
- ryanianian 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure this doesn't let you opt-out of ad targeting for search nor does it prevent them from using your maps and other data in their b2b offerings.
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    Exactly my point, actually.

jankeymeulen 9y ago

2016 had $90B revenues and 1.5B 30d active users (for YouTube) so $60 per year would be a good guess. (Disclaimer: I'm a Googler but I just got these numbers from public statements. No way I'm well paid enough to be able to see more detailed numbers. :-D )

ucaetano 9y ago
gSuite is exactly that: $5/month/user for the basic package, and does exactly what the grandparent wants.
- mr_spothawk 9y ago
  sure, it's nice to be outside of adverts... but using gSuite always feels like pretending I'm not being farmed out to the gov't
ryanianian 9y ago
Personally I'd happily pay $5/mo for all of my google services if it meant I was entirely removed from the whole advertising/"customer-is-a-product" offering and I could have confidence that I wasn't being sold as a product in other regards.

ucaetano 9y ago

"Ultimately the problem is that their incentives aren't really aligned with yours. They're only incentivized to do the absolute minimum it takes to keep you around. As they control more and more of your world, they've increased your cost to leave and they can do even less to benefit you explcitly." Are you criticizing Google or companies in general? Because your criticism applies to any company in the world. > I like google's services. What I want is the ability to pay for them and not be a part of the product they sell in ads. Basically a freemium model. Get a corporate gSuite account, they have been around for quite a while.

addicted 9y ago
It doesn't apply to all companies. Apple, for example, has very strong incentives to maintain your privacy, to the point that they have made it a selling point for their devices and are also suffering in the realms of machine learning because they are not leveraging your data the way Google or FB would.
- ucaetano 9y ago
  > has very strong incentives to maintain your privacy > their incentives aren't really aligned with yours No, they have a very strong incentive to appear to maintain your privacy. And that's only temporary. Don't fall for any company saying that they're doing something in the user's interests. They aren't. Companies exist to make profits, if for a brief period of time that means helping users in some way, it's only a coincidence, and you're being fooled by it. Take a look at China, Apple didn't even blink before deciding to hand over all data to the Chinese government. I trust companies, because I know exactly what matters for them: profits. I trust them to follow profits and act on their best interest.
  - atc 9y ago
    But if profit is the incentive and privacy is proven to increase profit then the two go hand in hand.
ryanianian 9y ago

Slansitartop 9y ago

> I like google's services. What I want is the ability to pay for them and not be a part of the product they sell in ads. Basically a freemium model. You do have the ability to pay for some of them (G Suite aka Google Apps for Business), but even then you might not get what you want, since 99% of their users like you are still products. I'm reminded of this quote from Josh Marshall: > One thing I’ve observed with Google over the years is that it is institutionally so used to its ‘customers’ actually being its products that when it gets into businesses where it actually has customers it really has little sense of how to deal with them. (https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm)

ryanianian 9y ago
I'm pretty sure this doesn't let you opt-out of ad targeting for search nor does it prevent them from using your maps and other data in their b2b offerings.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  Exactly my point, actually.