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> My cynical read of this is that it's an attack on Facebook Yah, and hooray. Google may be more powerful and invasive even, but there's tons of reasons they h

> My cynical read of this is that it's an attack on Facebook Yah, and hooray. Google may be more powerful and invasive even, but there's tons of reasons they have a less-manipulative, less-awful business model overall. Any successful attack on Facebook is a good thing. All these companies are bad, but Facebook is the worst of them. I'd say Facebook < Google = Amazon < Microsoft < Apple < FLO (free/libre/open). All these companies are shitty in certain ways, but some are shittier than others. Apple's walled-garden censorship of copyleft software on iOS is what led me to embrace GNU in the first place, but the level of dark-patterns they do is nothing like Facebook.

aylmao 8y ago
Yikes. So much to say. > Google may be more powerful and invasive even, but there's tons of reasons they have a less-manipulative, less-awful business model overall. They sell ads too. Sure, they don't have THE newsfeed, but they're still trying. Google Now is a feed with personal and non-personal content they're trying to sneak into your life. They're still trying to make their way into your feelings and social network with Google photos, their Clips camera, etc. Google invented the "shadow profile": they were there, checking which website's you visited before Facebook was even a thing. They're even doing it without cookies now [1]. Google is the company Facebook has been trying to become. They're very colorful, they have those cute doodles, Android is "open"; they're an older company that's been smarter at PR. Part of that has been not making huge waves, keeping all data closed (as opposed to Facebook, which has an open platform), and keeping quiet. > Any successful attack on Facebook is a good thing. Facebook isn't going anywhere, and if it does, who will step in to cover the social networking space? I can assure you Google will be the first in line. You'll have a single company with full information about you. Then what? > I'd say Facebook < Google = Amazon < Microsoft < Apple < FLO (free/libre/open). I know it's perhaps a bit much to ask, but would you care to elaborate with why your raking is as it is? These rankings are so often just personal hunches based on what has been on the headlines lately and it leads to sentiments like this. I'm not trying to defend Facebook, but rankings without factual evidence make little sense. Of course Facebook will be at the bottom, cause the media and Facebook have always been at odds [2]. Media is a big business with interests too, and Facebook is one of, if not its biggest threats. Apple and Google collect more location and app-usage data than Facebook. Apple had big controversies about suicides in its manufacturing plants: latest was this year [3]. Amazon workers are treated like cattle [5] and even have to pee on bottles to save time [4]. Why is Microsoft not on top of your list? Is it because the "innovation" Apple brought last decade offsets those lives lost at Chinese factories? Why is Google collecting data about which apps you use and which websites you visit on your phone not worse than Facebook doing it through a VPN [6]? This is not meant to address your comment specifically or personally push you in any way shape or form, I just want to address all comments of people claiming "Facebook is worse than Google" and putting Google in some sort of moral high-ground. There's no good company vs bad company here. These are all companies, and companies have morals when it makes business sense. Our job is to not fall for PR games and make them accountable on all fronts, and if you look past the PR, I personally think, you realize that vouching for a company to beat another just hurts everyone. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/how-google-will-track-you-without-cookies/310931/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/how-g... [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-threatened-mark-zuckerberg-in-2016-with-a-war.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-thre... [3]: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/07/suicide-chinese-iphone-factory-reignites-concern-working-conditions/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/07/suicide-chinese-... [4]: https://nypost.com/2018/04/16/amazon-warehouse-workers-pee-into-bottles-to-avoid-wasting-time-undercover-investigator/ https://nypost.com/2018/04/16/amazon-warehouse-workers-pee-i... [5]: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/7-examples-how-amazon-treats-their-90000-warehouse.html https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/7-examples-ho... [6]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/12/facebook-starts-pushing-its-data-tracking-onavo-vpn-within-its-main-mobile-app/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/12/facebook-starts-pushing-it...
- remir 8y ago
  About the suicide at the factory: everybody points finger at Apple, but the factory is owned and operated by Foxconn. I'm not saying that to defend Apple, but it's an important thing to keep in mind.
- quadrangle 8y ago
  I'm not an expert, but I'm not a trend-follower either. I've been anti-Facebook from early days. It was obvious from the beginning that they were far more of an attack on the open internet than Google. It was Google Plus that pushed Facebook to even acknowledge and support at all the idea that people had different personas in different contexts and wanted to relate to and share with different people in different ways. Google has long offered far more actual control and transparency than Facebook. Google offers products that should exist at least, such as web searching to state the obvious. Facebook-style social media shouldn't exist — they want to be an AOL-type walled-garden. My opinions have nothing to do with the media, and I'm not apologizing for Google or Amazon's real problems. I don't want to get into defending Apple (their direction with iOS years ago was the final straw that drove me to move to GNU/Linux full time). I could go on about why I now still feel MS is worse though. Overall, you speculate a lot about how my judgments are probably superficial. What I'll admit is that they ARE general impressions, not a detailed analysis. But my concerns are not johnny-come-lately scapegoating or unthoughtful. > some sort of moral high-ground GNU has the moral high ground here, not even Linux has that. To be clear, I'm not even saying Facebook is useless. It has some value and has captured a ton of value (which is why it makes sense for people to use it to get the value they've captured). On that note, consider that Facebook does far more to destroy the long-term archival value of the internet than Google. There aren't comparable complaints like this: https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/fuck_facebook https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/fuck_facebook for Google or the other companies, even though they have their own serious issues. I'm highly critical of them all.
  - aylmao 8y ago
    Thanks for the thoughtful answer, I agree with you, and am glad you don't consider yourself a trend-follower. Stay critical, HN.
lghh 8y ago
Why Google over MS? 5-10 years ago I'd agree, but not as much now. They are trying to be a cloud service company funded by enterprise and there's nothing inherently wrong with that as far as I can see. I'd also put Amazon below MS due to labor abuses that are not as prevalent at MS.
- omg_ketchup 8y ago
  MS charges for their product, which means the users are not the product. Agreed.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    It's often repeated, but this is a silly slogan. It's not either-or. Subscription magazines have ads. There is nothing preventing a business from making money from users and ads, and if anything, a subscription makes it easier to know who your users are, so the ads are more valuable to advertisers. Some business models require this; most newspapers wouldn't be in business without both subscription and ad sales. Windows 10 is apparently a case in point: it's not free and it has ads.
  - evrydayhustling 8y ago
    Or, they sell both the license and the users by having an install base that has trouble switching. Remember windows 10 ads? https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/3/17/14956540/microsoft-windows-10-ads-taskbar-file-explorer https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/3/17/14956540/mic...
- quadrangle 8y ago
  Okay, I think you're right. I'll edit my post. But it's super complex. MS has done extremely bad perverse dark-patterns with Windows 10 and has extended the level of ads-built-in beyond what was happening before. They seem to be trying to be as bad as Google and are just worse at it. And they don't seem to do as much redeeming things.
  - lghh 8y ago

aylmao 8y ago

Yikes. So much to say. > Google may be more powerful and invasive even, but there's tons of reasons they have a less-manipulative, less-awful business model overall. They sell ads too. Sure, they don't have THE newsfeed, but they're still trying. Google Now is a feed with personal and non-personal content they're trying to sneak into your life. They're still trying to make their way into your feelings and social network with Google photos, their Clips camera, etc. Google invented the "shadow profile": they were there, checking which website's you visited before Facebook was even a thing. They're even doing it without cookies now [1]. Google is the company Facebook has been trying to become. They're very colorful, they have those cute doodles, Android is "open"; they're an older company that's been smarter at PR. Part of that has been not making huge waves, keeping all data closed (as opposed to Facebook, which has an open platform), and keeping quiet. > Any successful attack on Facebook is a good thing. Facebook isn't going anywhere, and if it does, who will step in to cover the social networking space? I can assure you Google will be the first in line. You'll have a single company with full information about you. Then what? > I'd say Facebook < Google = Amazon < Microsoft < Apple < FLO (free/libre/open). I know it's perhaps a bit much to ask, but would you care to elaborate with why your raking is as it is? These rankings are so often just personal hunches based on what has been on the headlines lately and it leads to sentiments like this. I'm not trying to defend Facebook, but rankings without factual evidence make little sense. Of course Facebook will be at the bottom, cause the media and Facebook have always been at odds [2]. Media is a big business with interests too, and Facebook is one of, if not its biggest threats. Apple and Google collect more location and app-usage data than Facebook. Apple had big controversies about suicides in its manufacturing plants: latest was this year [3]. Amazon workers are treated like cattle [5] and even have to pee on bottles to save time [4]. Why is Microsoft not on top of your list? Is it because the "innovation" Apple brought last decade offsets those lives lost at Chinese factories? Why is Google collecting data about which apps you use and which websites you visit on your phone not worse than Facebook doing it through a VPN [6]? This is not meant to address your comment specifically or personally push you in any way shape or form, I just want to address all comments of people claiming "Facebook is worse than Google" and putting Google in some sort of moral high-ground. There's no good company vs bad company here. These are all companies, and companies have morals when it makes business sense. Our job is to not fall for PR games and make them accountable on all fronts, and if you look past the PR, I personally think, you realize that vouching for a company to beat another just hurts everyone. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/how-google-will-track-you-without-cookies/310931/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/how-g... [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-threatened-mark-zuckerberg-in-2016-with-a-war.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-thre... [3]: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/07/suicide-chinese-iphone-factory-reignites-concern-working-conditions/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/07/suicide-chinese-... [4]: https://nypost.com/2018/04/16/amazon-warehouse-workers-pee-into-bottles-to-avoid-wasting-time-undercover-investigator/ https://nypost.com/2018/04/16/amazon-warehouse-workers-pee-i... [5]: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/7-examples-how-amazon-treats-their-90000-warehouse.html https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/7-examples-ho... [6]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/12/facebook-starts-pushing-its-data-tracking-onavo-vpn-within-its-main-mobile-app/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/12/facebook-starts-pushing-it...

remir 8y ago
About the suicide at the factory: everybody points finger at Apple, but the factory is owned and operated by Foxconn. I'm not saying that to defend Apple, but it's an important thing to keep in mind.
quadrangle 8y ago
I'm not an expert, but I'm not a trend-follower either. I've been anti-Facebook from early days. It was obvious from the beginning that they were far more of an attack on the open internet than Google. It was Google Plus that pushed Facebook to even acknowledge and support at all the idea that people had different personas in different contexts and wanted to relate to and share with different people in different ways. Google has long offered far more actual control and transparency than Facebook. Google offers products that should exist at least, such as web searching to state the obvious. Facebook-style social media shouldn't exist — they want to be an AOL-type walled-garden. My opinions have nothing to do with the media, and I'm not apologizing for Google or Amazon's real problems. I don't want to get into defending Apple (their direction with iOS years ago was the final straw that drove me to move to GNU/Linux full time). I could go on about why I now still feel MS is worse though. Overall, you speculate a lot about how my judgments are probably superficial. What I'll admit is that they ARE general impressions, not a detailed analysis. But my concerns are not johnny-come-lately scapegoating or unthoughtful. > some sort of moral high-ground GNU has the moral high ground here, not even Linux has that. To be clear, I'm not even saying Facebook is useless. It has some value and has captured a ton of value (which is why it makes sense for people to use it to get the value they've captured). On that note, consider that Facebook does far more to destroy the long-term archival value of the internet than Google. There aren't comparable complaints like this: https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/fuck_facebook https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/fuck_facebook for Google or the other companies, even though they have their own serious issues. I'm highly critical of them all.
- aylmao 8y ago
  Thanks for the thoughtful answer, I agree with you, and am glad you don't consider yourself a trend-follower. Stay critical, HN.

lghh 8y ago

Why Google over MS? 5-10 years ago I'd agree, but not as much now. They are trying to be a cloud service company funded by enterprise and there's nothing inherently wrong with that as far as I can see. I'd also put Amazon below MS due to labor abuses that are not as prevalent at MS.

omg_ketchup 8y ago
MS charges for their product, which means the users are not the product. Agreed.
- skybrian 8y ago
  It's often repeated, but this is a silly slogan. It's not either-or. Subscription magazines have ads. There is nothing preventing a business from making money from users and ads, and if anything, a subscription makes it easier to know who your users are, so the ads are more valuable to advertisers. Some business models require this; most newspapers wouldn't be in business without both subscription and ad sales. Windows 10 is apparently a case in point: it's not free and it has ads.
- evrydayhustling 8y ago
  Or, they sell both the license and the users by having an install base that has trouble switching. Remember windows 10 ads? https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/3/17/14956540/microsoft-windows-10-ads-taskbar-file-explorer https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/3/17/14956540/mic...
quadrangle 8y ago
Okay, I think you're right. I'll edit my post. But it's super complex. MS has done extremely bad perverse dark-patterns with Windows 10 and has extended the level of ads-built-in beyond what was happening before. They seem to be trying to be as bad as Google and are just worse at it. And they don't seem to do as much redeeming things.
- lghh 8y ago