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I vouched for this story when it was flagged dead and I wanted to note why I did. I think it's more likely than not that the "innocent" explanation is correct

I vouched for this story when it was flagged dead and I wanted to note why I did. I think it's more likely than not that the "innocent" explanation is correct here. But even if that's the case it still says something important about how google works and those things are being discussed in the comments. Further even if the article is wrong, I don't see how it violates any of the guidelines. I think there's a tendency at HN to be very protective of google. I'm not sure if that's external fans or employees or what. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but I think it should be primarily expressed in comments rather than flagging or downvotes.

DTND 8y ago
>I think there's a tendency at HN to be very protective of google There's a tendency to be very protective of a wretched business model more than there is of google in itself. It may seem people come to google's defense a little too much on HN but that's only because google is the largest, most important corporation at the front of the business model that matters most to hners: advertisement and abusing user data. How else could any of the funded startups that provide free online services survive if they didn't get their money back through some other means? There is a vested interest on HN and other similar places on the web to show solidarity toward any individual or corporation whose livelihood depends on this because the second you start questioning companies like Google and Facebook, you start questioning the very livelihood of everyone involved here.
- extralego 8y ago
  One of the first lessons activists (should) learn is the shortsightedness of judging the content of an individual according to what they do for a living; the means of survival they have trained and adjusted for. In an action, strategy will often overrule this but as a conscious exercised and ideally organized process. This along with overlooking petty symbolic straw mans like using cell phones to organize against cell phone companies is like learning to potty train; critical first steps toward maturity. In other words, evaluate components in proper and sufficient contexts. Software engineers might benefit from a similar conversation, to open more room for discussion around actual problem solving.
orbital-decay 8y ago
>I think there's a tendency at HN to be very protective of google. Honestly, that's not my experience at all, at least in 2010s. There's a lot of vocal pro-decentralisation folks here, and HN crowd in general seems to be very aware of Google {ab|mis}using its dominating search share. Prior to 2011 or so, that might have been true.

DTND 8y ago

>I think there's a tendency at HN to be very protective of google There's a tendency to be very protective of a wretched business model more than there is of google in itself. It may seem people come to google's defense a little too much on HN but that's only because google is the largest, most important corporation at the front of the business model that matters most to hners: advertisement and abusing user data. How else could any of the funded startups that provide free online services survive if they didn't get their money back through some other means? There is a vested interest on HN and other similar places on the web to show solidarity toward any individual or corporation whose livelihood depends on this because the second you start questioning companies like Google and Facebook, you start questioning the very livelihood of everyone involved here.

extralego 8y ago
One of the first lessons activists (should) learn is the shortsightedness of judging the content of an individual according to what they do for a living; the means of survival they have trained and adjusted for. In an action, strategy will often overrule this but as a conscious exercised and ideally organized process. This along with overlooking petty symbolic straw mans like using cell phones to organize against cell phone companies is like learning to potty train; critical first steps toward maturity. In other words, evaluate components in proper and sufficient contexts. Software engineers might benefit from a similar conversation, to open more room for discussion around actual problem solving.

orbital-decay 8y ago

>I think there's a tendency at HN to be very protective of google. Honestly, that's not my experience at all, at least in 2010s. There's a lot of vocal pro-decentralisation folks here, and HN crowd in general seems to be very aware of Google {ab|mis}using its dominating search share. Prior to 2011 or so, that might have been true.