4 ms·

They also lost the trust of their users. They didn't drop the "don't be evil" for nothing..

by aphroz 6y ago

Kiro 6y ago
Is that actually true though? I've seen more and more regular people outside tech circles dismiss Facebook but Google? Not so much. In fact, outside of HN I haven't seen many complaints at all.
- laichzeit0 6y ago
  I've switched to Brave and duckduckgo. They are evil and I try avoid them at all costs. AMP is a good enough reason.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    Why would you switch to brave but not firefox? Genuinely curious given the amount of shenanigans they have pulled out and said oops. Most recent one - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027
    - jjcon 6y ago
      What would you suggest, Firefox? Mozilla has had their own set of black eyes https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robot-arg-plugin-firefox-looking-glass https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robo...
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      Are Firefox still taking Google money? I’ve had a hunt but can’t find anything recent that is clear cut. If they are, a purist might object to that.
    - zackees 6y ago
      Firefox fired their CEO because he donated to a Christian group. So this guy went and forked the Chrome browser into Brave. If you think Chrome is better than Firefox, then you'll think Brave is also better than Firefox.
  - Kiro 6y ago
    I don't doubt that. I think a big share of HN users have done the same thing. I was talking about users outside tech.
    - laichzeit0 6y ago
      Well I'm the "computer expert" in the family. So every mom, dad, aunt, sister brother and family friend gets Brave and Duckduckgo as their default search when I need to help them with anything on their computers. That's exactly how it happened back in the day when Chrome was released and those users "outside tech" were converted from Internet Explorer. Once a tech company loses the goodwill of the geeks, they're as good as done.
  - SahAssar 6y ago
    Brave is not good lifeboat if you're jumping ship.
    - intotheabyss 6y ago
      Brave on Android is pretty damn good imo. Brave on Desktop.. Needs work
      - SahAssar 6y ago
        Whatever platform the company has made some questionable decisions. So has mozilla, but definitely less so.
- Loughla 6y ago
  It's anecdotal at best, but the 'regular people' in middle america that I know who have switched from Google have only done so because the right-wing political commentators on the radio told them to do it. My very disconnected from technology father uses Duck-Duck-Go now because of that. (subsequently, he 'dropped using facebook' because they track you across the web. His solution to beat their tracking is to use DDG to look up facebook.com and log-in through the link it presents. Not sure of the logic there.)
- falcolas 6y ago
  My opinion: Yes, it's true. - Canceling accounts, leaving people with the "Post it to HN and pray" customer support option. - Focusing more on growth than long-term support. See the original article for examples of this. - Taking their originally fast, svelte, and compliant web browser and injecting more and more features that are virtually required by Google domains, memory/CPU bloat, and privacy hostile tracking/telemetry features. - People don't trust in any Google product which didn't exist 10 years ago, for fear that it's going to be canceled. People are noticing. The migration is slow (largely due to the smartphone duopoly), but it's happening.
  - Kiro 6y ago
    You're still talking about users within tech circles, which I'm not doubting has lost trust in Google. However, my mom or my siblings wouldn't understand what any of those points even mean.
    - falcolas 6y ago
      They're hearing about notable accounts being closed in Google. Don't underestimate the exposure provided by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and a dozen other small sites who are also covering many of these "my account was lost/stolen/closed" stories. They know (often better than I) when a service is relegated to Google's graveyard. They wonder why their crappy 5-year old Lenovo laptop struggles with Chrome but not Firefox (which I installed for them too). They notice Google's suite of apps popping and freezing and "just not working" and gripe to me with comparisons to Word and Excel. Not being tech savvy doesn't mean they're idiots - they recognize when something isn't working well, or when something has become stale, just as well as we do.
      - Kiro 6y ago
        It's funny because I usually use the same argument but for the opposite case: people are not idiots and know very well about the implications of giving up their data to Big Tech but they simply don't care and think it's worth it. As a response to the common trope that we all we need to do is inform users and they will stop doing it.
- jlbnjmn 6y ago
  Anecdote: the majority of non-tech business owners I know passionately hate Google. These are guys in their 40s and 50s. The reasons may differ, but the hatred does not. For them, the reasons are more about manipulating search results to control public opinion. For me, it's things like hiding organic search queries from Google analytics and saying they broke it for "privacy reasons". Even though I can still see search queries for paid traffic. And the terrible quality of search results now. Oh, and the completely selective enforcement of rules (looking at you "unfair advantage" policy).
  - Kiro 6y ago
    Business owners and techies are still a minority of users. I'm not taking a stance here, just trying to realistically evaluate the "users have lost trust in Google" statement but it seems that we want to stay oblivious and glutton in Google's presumed downfall instead.
    - jlbnjmn 6y ago
      They are the majority of Google's customers though.
- hedora 6y ago
  People also increasingly care about privacy, which goes after Google’s core revenue stream. Google is also easier to switch away from than Facebook. None of their services have strong network effects. (Except chat...) Most places I’ve worked switch cloud office suites every few years. Quip seems to be the new hotness at the current job. Its documents feature is fine, and the spreadsheet is good enough 99% of the time.
Crash0v3rid3 6y ago
Why does this still get posted? They never dropped 'don't be evil', it's at the end of their code of conduct: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/
- aphroz 6y ago
  Sorry for not checking regularly the code of conduct. It still appears that the importance of this motto has been reduced: https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...

They also lost the trust of their users. They didn't drop the "don't be evil" for nothing..

by aphroz 6y ago

They also lost the trust of their users. They didn't drop the "don't be evil" for nothing..

Kiro 6y ago

Is that actually true though? I've seen more and more regular people outside tech circles dismiss Facebook but Google? Not so much. In fact, outside of HN I haven't seen many complaints at all.

laichzeit0 6y ago
I've switched to Brave and duckduckgo. They are evil and I try avoid them at all costs. AMP is a good enough reason.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  Why would you switch to brave but not firefox? Genuinely curious given the amount of shenanigans they have pulled out and said oops. Most recent one - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027
  - jjcon 6y ago
    What would you suggest, Firefox? Mozilla has had their own set of black eyes https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robot-arg-plugin-firefox-looking-glass https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robo...
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    Are Firefox still taking Google money? I’ve had a hunt but can’t find anything recent that is clear cut. If they are, a purist might object to that.
  - zackees 6y ago
    Firefox fired their CEO because he donated to a Christian group. So this guy went and forked the Chrome browser into Brave. If you think Chrome is better than Firefox, then you'll think Brave is also better than Firefox.
- Kiro 6y ago
  I don't doubt that. I think a big share of HN users have done the same thing. I was talking about users outside tech.
  - laichzeit0 6y ago
    Well I'm the "computer expert" in the family. So every mom, dad, aunt, sister brother and family friend gets Brave and Duckduckgo as their default search when I need to help them with anything on their computers. That's exactly how it happened back in the day when Chrome was released and those users "outside tech" were converted from Internet Explorer. Once a tech company loses the goodwill of the geeks, they're as good as done.
- SahAssar 6y ago
  Brave is not good lifeboat if you're jumping ship.
  - intotheabyss 6y ago
    Brave on Android is pretty damn good imo. Brave on Desktop.. Needs work
    - SahAssar 6y ago
      Whatever platform the company has made some questionable decisions. So has mozilla, but definitely less so.
Loughla 6y ago
It's anecdotal at best, but the 'regular people' in middle america that I know who have switched from Google have only done so because the right-wing political commentators on the radio told them to do it. My very disconnected from technology father uses Duck-Duck-Go now because of that. (subsequently, he 'dropped using facebook' because they track you across the web. His solution to beat their tracking is to use DDG to look up facebook.com and log-in through the link it presents. Not sure of the logic there.)
falcolas 6y ago
My opinion: Yes, it's true. - Canceling accounts, leaving people with the "Post it to HN and pray" customer support option. - Focusing more on growth than long-term support. See the original article for examples of this. - Taking their originally fast, svelte, and compliant web browser and injecting more and more features that are virtually required by Google domains, memory/CPU bloat, and privacy hostile tracking/telemetry features. - People don't trust in any Google product which didn't exist 10 years ago, for fear that it's going to be canceled. People are noticing. The migration is slow (largely due to the smartphone duopoly), but it's happening.
- Kiro 6y ago
  You're still talking about users within tech circles, which I'm not doubting has lost trust in Google. However, my mom or my siblings wouldn't understand what any of those points even mean.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    They're hearing about notable accounts being closed in Google. Don't underestimate the exposure provided by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and a dozen other small sites who are also covering many of these "my account was lost/stolen/closed" stories. They know (often better than I) when a service is relegated to Google's graveyard. They wonder why their crappy 5-year old Lenovo laptop struggles with Chrome but not Firefox (which I installed for them too). They notice Google's suite of apps popping and freezing and "just not working" and gripe to me with comparisons to Word and Excel. Not being tech savvy doesn't mean they're idiots - they recognize when something isn't working well, or when something has become stale, just as well as we do.
    - Kiro 6y ago
      It's funny because I usually use the same argument but for the opposite case: people are not idiots and know very well about the implications of giving up their data to Big Tech but they simply don't care and think it's worth it. As a response to the common trope that we all we need to do is inform users and they will stop doing it.
jlbnjmn 6y ago
Anecdote: the majority of non-tech business owners I know passionately hate Google. These are guys in their 40s and 50s. The reasons may differ, but the hatred does not. For them, the reasons are more about manipulating search results to control public opinion. For me, it's things like hiding organic search queries from Google analytics and saying they broke it for "privacy reasons". Even though I can still see search queries for paid traffic. And the terrible quality of search results now. Oh, and the completely selective enforcement of rules (looking at you "unfair advantage" policy).
- Kiro 6y ago
  Business owners and techies are still a minority of users. I'm not taking a stance here, just trying to realistically evaluate the "users have lost trust in Google" statement but it seems that we want to stay oblivious and glutton in Google's presumed downfall instead.
  - jlbnjmn 6y ago
    They are the majority of Google's customers though.
hedora 6y ago
People also increasingly care about privacy, which goes after Google’s core revenue stream. Google is also easier to switch away from than Facebook. None of their services have strong network effects. (Except chat...) Most places I’ve worked switch cloud office suites every few years. Quip seems to be the new hotness at the current job. Its documents feature is fine, and the spreadsheet is good enough 99% of the time.

Crash0v3rid3 6y ago

Why does this still get posted? They never dropped 'don't be evil', it's at the end of their code of conduct: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/

aphroz 6y ago
Sorry for not checking regularly the code of conduct. It still appears that the importance of this motto has been reduced: https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...