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I think it's highly naive to suggest that Google's leadership is operating in complete ignorance of their own product. This is the company of analytics - whatev

I think it's highly naive to suggest that Google's leadership is operating in complete ignorance of their own product. This is the company of analytics - whatever approach is being taken is probably backed by a gargantuan amount of data. That doesn't mean it's good for the web, but "what (the most) users want" is Google's strong point. And this is par for the "the internet is now 4 websites" course, so I don't think it's possible to claim that this isn't "how the internet works" anymore.

marcosdumay 7y ago
If they are operating on top of a mountain of data, then they have a problem (what honestly would be good, even too good to believe). People are not the memoryless automata that statistics handles best. People react positively to a bad change up to a point where they don't anymore, you don't even need to keep changing to trigger this.
- mercer 7y ago
  I really hope you're right, but who's to say Google might not be one of the few that manages to correctly figure out how far they can go based on their historically unprecedented amount of data? I wouldn't rely on it, either way.
astazangasta 7y ago
>This is the company of analytics - whatever approach is being taken is probably backed by a gargantuan amount of data. Take a look outside your window. Have you understood quantum physics yet? No? I guess all of the available data doesn't help you, because it still requires effort and careful observation to glean insights from it. The same goes for Google. Data by itself does not guarantee anything. You can look at a piece of data and not reach any conclusion, or reach the wrong conclusion. More data does not mean more insight. In my field (biology) we are suddenly drowning in data - we are producing new datasets much faster than we can analyze them. Our understanding is not increasing at a commensurate pace because we lack the ability to turn these data into useful knowledge.
CamperBob2 7y ago
The thing about data is it only tells you about the past.
JoshMnem 7y ago
I don't think it's "what users want" as much as it's "what makes the most money out of the things that we can convince users to want". And "what can we manipulate our engineers into believing about what they are building so that they won't protest".

marcosdumay 7y ago

If they are operating on top of a mountain of data, then they have a problem (what honestly would be good, even too good to believe). People are not the memoryless automata that statistics handles best. People react positively to a bad change up to a point where they don't anymore, you don't even need to keep changing to trigger this.

mercer 7y ago
I really hope you're right, but who's to say Google might not be one of the few that manages to correctly figure out how far they can go based on their historically unprecedented amount of data? I wouldn't rely on it, either way.

astazangasta 7y ago

>This is the company of analytics - whatever approach is being taken is probably backed by a gargantuan amount of data. Take a look outside your window. Have you understood quantum physics yet? No? I guess all of the available data doesn't help you, because it still requires effort and careful observation to glean insights from it. The same goes for Google. Data by itself does not guarantee anything. You can look at a piece of data and not reach any conclusion, or reach the wrong conclusion. More data does not mean more insight. In my field (biology) we are suddenly drowning in data - we are producing new datasets much faster than we can analyze them. Our understanding is not increasing at a commensurate pace because we lack the ability to turn these data into useful knowledge.

CamperBob2 7y ago

The thing about data is it only tells you about the past.

JoshMnem 7y ago

I don't think it's "what users want" as much as it's "what makes the most money out of the things that we can convince users to want". And "what can we manipulate our engineers into believing about what they are building so that they won't protest".