10 ms·

I haven't read this carefully enough to decide exactly how bad it is, but one thing seems clear to me: From what I see many techies are now aware and upset, a

I haven't read this carefully enough to decide exactly how bad it is, but one thing seems clear to me: From what I see many techies are now aware and upset, and hardly anyone seems to want to defend Google anymore. I consider it more likely than not that Google will take some real beatings in the years to come. Kind of like Microsoft was fined by the US and EU, forced to advertise for competing browsers and ridiculed by Apple ads. On a case by case basis I think some of this will be well deserved, some less so, but few outside of employees and shareholders will cry. I also guess a lot of people, including certain owners and many in management hasn't deciphered the writing on the wall yet, and in that case it whatever comes next will be surprising.

throwawa66 7y ago
More and more people are blocking ads. Google’s business model is under threat. They will turn into hyenas in order to survive.
- eitland 7y ago
  Good point. Although I feel their hyena nature has been visible for a while now and what we are now seeing is hungry hyena :-)
  - throwawa66 7y ago
    Oh it will get worse. Youtube will be riddled with ads every 5 minutes or so. Will take the cable tv path soon. The good news is that their greed will eventually crash themselves. Hey, i dont mind a little ad here and there even though I give 0 fucks about any product being advertised. But the quantity is becoming hard to process without adblockers. Had they not taken the full evil mode path I’d have considered paying for youtube. I think im better of weaning myself off almost completely. Or alternatives...
- kmlx 7y ago
  i think their business model is just fine: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/9to5google.com/2020/02/03/alphabet-q4-2019-earnings/amp/ https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/9to5google.com/2020/02/03/alp...
  - falcolas 7y ago
    There's a certain irony of linking to an amp site on Google's domain as part of a larger discussion about their business ethics.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - lern_too_spel 7y ago
      Is this better? https://search.yahoo.co.jp/amp/s/9to5google.com/2020/02/03/alphabet-q4-2019-earnings/amp/%3Fusqp%3Dmq331AQNKAGYAYXm5PK-1cabUQ%253D%253D https://search.yahoo.co.jp/amp/s/9to5google.com/2020/02/03/a...
      - falcolas 7y ago
        How about just https://9to5google.com/2020/02/03/alphabet-q4-2019-earnings/ https://9to5google.com/2020/02/03/alphabet-q4-2019-earnings/ ? No amp required, under 1 second to display content. I will say that it's a bit beefy at 5mb total, though the AMP site loads the same amount.
        lern_too_spel 7y ago
        You complained that it was hosted on Google specifically. I tested that Chrome specifically copies the canonical URL and not the location bar URL when I share that AMP page, which doesn't fit your narrative. Also, the reason the AMP page is faster is that it prerenders above the fold from a SERP, not due to total page weight.
        falcolas 7y ago
        AMP is, hosting aside, a problematic project when it comes to Google's business ethics. And the differences in rendering speed were negligible, to my eyes. IIRC from the dev tools, it was about 1/10th of a second difference to get readable content.
glyxbaer 7y ago
When I moved into IT almost 10-15 years ago, Google was one of the companies that I adored (in a kind of naive way, but nevertheless..). Working at that company has always been a dream of mine. They had the reputation for hiring the best of the best engineers, with great benefits and work culture. Meanwhile I'd hate to apply for them. Everything they do in terms of tracking, etc. has become so vile and almost evil that even Microsoft has a better standing among my peers.. Would love to hear some insight from ex employees on what changed on the inside of that company, but from the outside it doesn't even seem to be the same any more. Maybe they're just worse at hiding it..
- dleslie 7y ago
  We thought Microsoft was evil because of how they treated their partners and competitors. We didn't consider that a greater evil would arise, and all it would take was a disregard of the sanctity of personal privacy.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    To my knowledge Google still hasn't done anything comparable to the worst offenses of Microsoft in its prime. These "tests" don't really help though.
    - dleslie 7y ago
      > > and all it would take was a disregard of the sanctity of personal privacy ;) I would have been aghast if you had told me 30 years ago that by now our movements, purchases, letters, phone calls, photos, rolodex, walkman, television, and more would all be connected to a central database and used to produce models to coerce us into changing our behaviour.
    - eitland 7y ago
      Eh. One of the things Microsoft was actually punished for was bundling IE, and it didn't help that they were actually hostile to other browsers as proven by the fact that their documentation pages would work if Opera faked the IE headers. Googles pushing of Chrome and disregard for other browsers across their web properties comes dangerously close in my opinion.
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
There's been more than a few departures at Google recently. You have the profile departures of C-level execs; You've had prominent open source folks leaving projects like Angular. While some attrition is personal circumstance, you have to wonder how much is attributable to the changing identity of Google itself.
clarry 7y ago
> From what I see many techies are now aware and upset, and hardly anyone seems to want to defend Google anymore. From what I've seen is it's like it's always been: people are upset for a day or two and then continue to not care, and continue to (directly or indirectly) support the evil they were upset about. It's incredibly difficult to get even geeks to support a cause if it requires more than pressing a like button or posting a comment. Also, it's not like Google's wrongdoing are recent news. Anyone remember Google Watch (the site)? People have been warning and predicting things since very long ago, yet the geek crowd never seems to hesitate to embrace the next soon-to-be evil company and their proprietary offering.
morley 7y ago
> From what I see many techies are now aware and upset, and hardly anyone seems to want to defend Google anymore. To me, the explanation is simpler: people don't want to defend Google on HN because they'll get downvoted or shouted down because of it.
skybrian 7y ago
There is little point trying to correct misinformation about Google on Hacker News anymore, because people will just make up more tomorrow, and it will get hundreds of upvotes if it looks vaguely plausible. So, people who want to dislike Google will find everything they need to confirm their biases here.
- eitland 7y ago
  IIRC it's not that long ago that trying to criticize Google here on HN was an exercise in futility. I won't say that the current situation is perfect but I can see why. In my view Google had earned the current criticism by hard work: - mismanagement of services people loved to the point were Google always running 3 different more or less incompatible message services, while closing services east and west has become a meme, - shoving other ideas down people's throats (hi identity and real name part of Google+) - etc
simias 7y ago
>From what I see many techies are now aware and upset, and hardly anyone seems to want to defend Google anymore. Be careful, most of us on HN are part of a very small echo chamber. "What you see" is a small, non-representative portion of "techies". If it wasn't Firefox wouldn't be at sub-5% in general usage surveys and AMP would've died years ago.

throwawa66 7y ago

More and more people are blocking ads. Google’s business model is under threat. They will turn into hyenas in order to survive.

eitland 7y ago
Good point. Although I feel their hyena nature has been visible for a while now and what we are now seeing is hungry hyena :-)
- throwawa66 7y ago
  Oh it will get worse. Youtube will be riddled with ads every 5 minutes or so. Will take the cable tv path soon. The good news is that their greed will eventually crash themselves. Hey, i dont mind a little ad here and there even though I give 0 fucks about any product being advertised. But the quantity is becoming hard to process without adblockers. Had they not taken the full evil mode path I’d have considered paying for youtube. I think im better of weaning myself off almost completely. Or alternatives...
kmlx 7y ago
i think their business model is just fine: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/9to5google.com/2020/02/03/alphabet-q4-2019-earnings/amp/ https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/9to5google.com/2020/02/03/alp...
- falcolas 7y ago
  There's a certain irony of linking to an amp site on Google's domain as part of a larger discussion about their business ethics.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lern_too_spel 7y ago
    Is this better? https://search.yahoo.co.jp/amp/s/9to5google.com/2020/02/03/alphabet-q4-2019-earnings/amp/%3Fusqp%3Dmq331AQNKAGYAYXm5PK-1cabUQ%253D%253D https://search.yahoo.co.jp/amp/s/9to5google.com/2020/02/03/a...
    - falcolas 7y ago
      How about just https://9to5google.com/2020/02/03/alphabet-q4-2019-earnings/ https://9to5google.com/2020/02/03/alphabet-q4-2019-earnings/ ? No amp required, under 1 second to display content. I will say that it's a bit beefy at 5mb total, though the AMP site loads the same amount.
      - lern_too_spel 7y ago
        You complained that it was hosted on Google specifically. I tested that Chrome specifically copies the canonical URL and not the location bar URL when I share that AMP page, which doesn't fit your narrative. Also, the reason the AMP page is faster is that it prerenders above the fold from a SERP, not due to total page weight.
        falcolas 7y ago
        AMP is, hosting aside, a problematic project when it comes to Google's business ethics. And the differences in rendering speed were negligible, to my eyes. IIRC from the dev tools, it was about 1/10th of a second difference to get readable content.

glyxbaer 7y ago

When I moved into IT almost 10-15 years ago, Google was one of the companies that I adored (in a kind of naive way, but nevertheless..). Working at that company has always been a dream of mine. They had the reputation for hiring the best of the best engineers, with great benefits and work culture. Meanwhile I'd hate to apply for them. Everything they do in terms of tracking, etc. has become so vile and almost evil that even Microsoft has a better standing among my peers.. Would love to hear some insight from ex employees on what changed on the inside of that company, but from the outside it doesn't even seem to be the same any more. Maybe they're just worse at hiding it..

dleslie 7y ago
We thought Microsoft was evil because of how they treated their partners and competitors. We didn't consider that a greater evil would arise, and all it would take was a disregard of the sanctity of personal privacy.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  To my knowledge Google still hasn't done anything comparable to the worst offenses of Microsoft in its prime. These "tests" don't really help though.
  - dleslie 7y ago
    > > and all it would take was a disregard of the sanctity of personal privacy ;) I would have been aghast if you had told me 30 years ago that by now our movements, purchases, letters, phone calls, photos, rolodex, walkman, television, and more would all be connected to a central database and used to produce models to coerce us into changing our behaviour.
  - eitland 7y ago
    Eh. One of the things Microsoft was actually punished for was bundling IE, and it didn't help that they were actually hostile to other browsers as proven by the fact that their documentation pages would work if Opera faked the IE headers. Googles pushing of Chrome and disregard for other browsers across their web properties comes dangerously close in my opinion.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago

There's been more than a few departures at Google recently. You have the profile departures of C-level execs; You've had prominent open source folks leaving projects like Angular. While some attrition is personal circumstance, you have to wonder how much is attributable to the changing identity of Google itself.

clarry 7y ago

> From what I see many techies are now aware and upset, and hardly anyone seems to want to defend Google anymore. From what I've seen is it's like it's always been: people are upset for a day or two and then continue to not care, and continue to (directly or indirectly) support the evil they were upset about. It's incredibly difficult to get even geeks to support a cause if it requires more than pressing a like button or posting a comment. Also, it's not like Google's wrongdoing are recent news. Anyone remember Google Watch (the site)? People have been warning and predicting things since very long ago, yet the geek crowd never seems to hesitate to embrace the next soon-to-be evil company and their proprietary offering.

morley 7y ago

> From what I see many techies are now aware and upset, and hardly anyone seems to want to defend Google anymore. To me, the explanation is simpler: people don't want to defend Google on HN because they'll get downvoted or shouted down because of it.

skybrian 7y ago

There is little point trying to correct misinformation about Google on Hacker News anymore, because people will just make up more tomorrow, and it will get hundreds of upvotes if it looks vaguely plausible. So, people who want to dislike Google will find everything they need to confirm their biases here.

eitland 7y ago
IIRC it's not that long ago that trying to criticize Google here on HN was an exercise in futility. I won't say that the current situation is perfect but I can see why. In my view Google had earned the current criticism by hard work: - mismanagement of services people loved to the point were Google always running 3 different more or less incompatible message services, while closing services east and west has become a meme, - shoving other ideas down people's throats (hi identity and real name part of Google+) - etc

simias 7y ago

>From what I see many techies are now aware and upset, and hardly anyone seems to want to defend Google anymore. Be careful, most of us on HN are part of a very small echo chamber. "What you see" is a small, non-representative portion of "techies". If it wasn't Firefox wouldn't be at sub-5% in general usage surveys and AMP would've died years ago.