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Google has been uhm celebrated for about a week on the first HN page for one reason or another.
by snaky 8y ago
Google has been uhm celebrated for about a week on the first HN page for one reason or another.
- derefr 8y agoThe paranoiac in me is pondering that Google would probably have wanted to do something fun and goodwill-promoting toward their brand on their 20th birthday... and, if I was a rival to Google, I would do everything I could (e.g. astroturfing) to generate as much temporary resentment toward Google as I could, to make running that PR campaign look like a bad idea.
- reitanqild 8y ago> ... do something fun and goodwill-promoting toward their brand on their 20th birthday... And I know what they decided on: free hidden advertising for every competitor! Look how mant people went to Firefox and Vivaldi this week and how many went to Bing, Duckduckgo or Qwant.
- dredmorbius 8y agoAny numbers on this?
- MrEldritch 8y agoFewer people than switched off of those services to Chrome and Google, leading to a net loss but a slower-than-usual one?
- cecja 8y agoI bet they lost more users for natural causes (death) than users to Firefox/Vivaldi or bing/ddg this week.
- jmmcd 8y agoOk but the present article is by Allen Downey, a well-known figure here and an academic. I don't think we could suggest he is part of astro-turfing.
- a3n 8y agoI was actually wondering if the ease of regaining access to his account was because he was Allen Downey. I wonder if Google maintains a do not f* with list.
- ObsoleteNerd 8y agoI think it's more a matter of "if you're famous enough to kick up a stink, they'll hear it and fix things". I've had to rebuild my entire online presence due to Google banning my initial account for seemingly no reason at all, and I had no way to get in contact with them and not enough followers to kick up a stink. I now basically don't use any Google services other than a Gmail account for signing up to spammy sites, and won't trust them again no matter how convincing they are.
- rcthompson 8y agoGoogle's competition didn't force them to implement cross-service banning.
- daveFNbuck 8y agoThis week doesn't really stand out to me. It seems like Google has been getting nothing but negative news on HN for months.
- vezycash 8y ago>seems like Google has been getting nothing but NEGATIVE news on HN for months. Go, flutter, their new speech api have had very positive vibes on HN. The less positive comments have been worries about Google's long term commitment. These worries are legitimate concerns.
- daveFNbuck 8y agoThis is probably due to a difference in what we click on and find memorable. My view of Google from HN the past few months is all about privacy concerns, arbitrary punishments against innocent users, and poor customer service.