5 ms·

Well first of all it's "Do No Evil", and frankly I don't think you can compare the two. Where Microsoft 10 years ago did everything they could to force you to u

Well first of all it's "Do No Evil", and frankly I don't think you can compare the two. Where Microsoft 10 years ago did everything they could to force you to use their products (bundling the browser, exclusivity with all consumer computer OEMs, etc), Google has made really good products that people want to use. I'm not forced to use Gmail, or Google Talk, or Documents, but I choose to because it's the best out there. I'm not saying Google isn't Evil, there's definitely some questionable things they've done as of late, but to try to compare them now to when MS was at its "evil" peak is disingenuous. Google built things people want to use. Microsoft built things so that you had to use them.

kenjackson 16y ago
Google Talk and Documents aren't very good, but I'll give you GMail. But in any case, the issue with Google is that we're the product and the advertisers are the customer. Google's ad product probably is worse than any comparable MS product I can recall -- at least from the perspective of the customer. And lets be clear, MS never built something you had to use, any more than you have to use Google's ad product. You use them both because they are dominant in their industry. But for both, there was a time when they weren't the most dominant. People made a choice to use their products. The thing that almost makes Microsoft a more sympathetic monopoly is that their monopoly was to the customers that used the product. So if you want to end their monopoloy in Windows, stop using the product and use something else. If enough people do that, the monopoly ceases. Google's monopoly is indirect. As an advertiser, even if I move to another ad platform -- if my product doesn't move (the people searching with Google search), I'm still screwed. An uprising by the customer can't change the monopoly -- they need to get to the product. (Note, there are technically different names for these two different forms of industry domination, but its not uncommon to refer to them under the same name -- anti-competitive behaviors can apply to either).
- nkassis 16y ago
  Wow, I mean, I'm young but I do remember the late 90s where every document had to be in .doc format (last I checked it's still pretty mendatory) or else no one could open it and Microsoft did everything they could to prevent other from reimplementing that format. Or how microsoft took a protocol like netbios and then smb and made it so that no one could interface with their network protocols without some crazy reverse engineering (thank you Tridge). Or how IE took over and slowly started adding incompatible stuff (look at activex and jscript as a good example) to make it impossible to work without, I still find apps that require IE6 to function. What about their attempt to re implement java and make it incompatible. ... the list goes on but show me a similar list from Google.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I do remember the late 90s where every document had to be in .doc format How did this happen? Was Bill Gates president and make that the law? There's no way you could use WordPerfect? That was illegal? Oh, WordPerfect start sucking in the 90s didn't it, so you stopped using it like I did? But that didn't have anything to do with it, did it? Try transfering your ad campaign from Google to Bing? It is incredibly poor fidelity. Support for the .doc format in 1997 was better than the support you get porting your ad campaign. I'd like to have other search providers use my gmail email data. How do I do that? Oh, it's not supported? I thought it was my email? As an advertiser can I decent placement support or clickfraud data? No. OK, I'll just go to another search ad provider -- oh wait, you're the only game in town. I'll play by your rules.
    - invisible 16y ago
      1) He was saying doc was a standard and that Microsoft was ensuring no one else could create doc files. The latter part is the monopoly. 2) This is totally not a one sided problem. You think Microsoft is emailing Google to work with them on the issues? Ha. 3) You can POP/IMAP into your Gmail and download all of your email. 4) You squashed this into the same paragraph as the email thing, but yeah, that sucks. I agree. Alternatively you can use them until you are big enough and then hire someone to get ads directly from people but that doesn't help the small guy. I don't know what a noble solution is to this is - maybe everyone should agree on a format for moving ad campaigns around? But hell, even Chrome asks on first run what search provider you want to use in a SANE way that encourages people to pick, unlike the IE of today that makes you jump through 15 screens just to get to pick a search provider. I'd hardly say they are being monopolistic (which is the actual illegal part of being a monopoly).
    - nerfhammer 16y ago
      > Try transfering your ad campaign from Google to Bing? It is incredibly poor fidelity. Wat? This is the whole principle of an ad exchange.
    - nkassis 16y ago
      You could download all your emails with pop or imap if you wanted. This has always been supported. It would have been nice to use WordPerfect but as you mention people wanted a conversion that retain the layout of the original .doc When I can't even get a simple table from Office to WordPerfect to work properly what's the point (nothing fancy), where not talking excel formulas. If the document specs had been made available, you bet WordPerfect would have that implemented in no time. Word did have good support for WordPerfect files thus it was a one way street.
- spot 16y ago
  1) actually they did force you to use IE, it was called directly by the OS, and some of their online interactions required it. 2) mostly it wasn't forcing you, just making it very hard for you to leave their ecosystem. exporting your email out of outlook for example was intentionally made difficult.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    1) actually they did force you to use IE, it was called directly by the OS, and some of their online interactions required it. So you were required to use Windows? I used an Amiga until it was on its deathbed, so I find it hard to believe that you had to use Windows.
- zem 16y ago
  you're forgetting that microsoft actively leaned on hardware manufacturers so that they were forced into deals where they had to exclusively sell pcs with windows installed, or be penalised with higher licensing costs. that in turn meant that yes, you did have to use microsoft's product, or at the very least pay for it.
tzs 16y ago
Yes, Google has many good products people want to use and aren't forced to use. But the same was true for Microsoft at its "evil" peak. They made business applications, games, development tools, peripherals, and technical books, for instance that people wanted to use, but were not forced to use, and for which good alternatives were available.
- rick888 16y ago
  I'm glad we're on the same page. I'm just sick of the one-sided and biased tech community.
orijing 16y ago
Wasn't there a time when Google bundled the toolbar with all PCs from Dell and maybe other companies? Isn't that almost like "forcing" me to use Google (I mean... I didn't mind, but those toolbars were annoying) as preinstalling IE "forced" me to use IE?
bitskits 16y ago
Actually, it's "Don't be evil". It often gets confused/merged with the hippocratic oath. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dont_be_evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dont_be_evil
- bitskits 16y ago
  I managed to paste the link incorrectly and am unable to edit it, my apologies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil
rick888 16y ago
"(bundling the browser, exclusivity with all consumer computer OEMs, etc)" Right. At the same time (10 years ago), there were many different variants of Desktop Linux available, a few different office type applications, and a ton of other open source technologies. Google is bundled with Firefox as the default search tool. Like bundled IE, you can just choose something you prefer to use. "I'm not forced to use Gmail, or Google Talk, or Documents, but I choose to because it's the best out there." If everyone used gtalk and you were forced to because all your friends are now using it, would you consider it a monopoly? So many geeks did 10 years ago in Microsoft's case. "Google built things people want to use. Microsoft built things so that you had to use them." Not true. I gave examples of valid competition out there to Microsoft's main products. At the time, the alternatives sucked, but that doesn't mean they weren't there.

kenjackson 16y ago

Google Talk and Documents aren't very good, but I'll give you GMail. But in any case, the issue with Google is that we're the product and the advertisers are the customer. Google's ad product probably is worse than any comparable MS product I can recall -- at least from the perspective of the customer. And lets be clear, MS never built something you had to use, any more than you have to use Google's ad product. You use them both because they are dominant in their industry. But for both, there was a time when they weren't the most dominant. People made a choice to use their products. The thing that almost makes Microsoft a more sympathetic monopoly is that their monopoly was to the customers that used the product. So if you want to end their monopoloy in Windows, stop using the product and use something else. If enough people do that, the monopoly ceases. Google's monopoly is indirect. As an advertiser, even if I move to another ad platform -- if my product doesn't move (the people searching with Google search), I'm still screwed. An uprising by the customer can't change the monopoly -- they need to get to the product. (Note, there are technically different names for these two different forms of industry domination, but its not uncommon to refer to them under the same name -- anti-competitive behaviors can apply to either).

nkassis 16y ago
Wow, I mean, I'm young but I do remember the late 90s where every document had to be in .doc format (last I checked it's still pretty mendatory) or else no one could open it and Microsoft did everything they could to prevent other from reimplementing that format. Or how microsoft took a protocol like netbios and then smb and made it so that no one could interface with their network protocols without some crazy reverse engineering (thank you Tridge). Or how IE took over and slowly started adding incompatible stuff (look at activex and jscript as a good example) to make it impossible to work without, I still find apps that require IE6 to function. What about their attempt to re implement java and make it incompatible. ... the list goes on but show me a similar list from Google.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I do remember the late 90s where every document had to be in .doc format How did this happen? Was Bill Gates president and make that the law? There's no way you could use WordPerfect? That was illegal? Oh, WordPerfect start sucking in the 90s didn't it, so you stopped using it like I did? But that didn't have anything to do with it, did it? Try transfering your ad campaign from Google to Bing? It is incredibly poor fidelity. Support for the .doc format in 1997 was better than the support you get porting your ad campaign. I'd like to have other search providers use my gmail email data. How do I do that? Oh, it's not supported? I thought it was my email? As an advertiser can I decent placement support or clickfraud data? No. OK, I'll just go to another search ad provider -- oh wait, you're the only game in town. I'll play by your rules.
  - invisible 16y ago
    1) He was saying doc was a standard and that Microsoft was ensuring no one else could create doc files. The latter part is the monopoly. 2) This is totally not a one sided problem. You think Microsoft is emailing Google to work with them on the issues? Ha. 3) You can POP/IMAP into your Gmail and download all of your email. 4) You squashed this into the same paragraph as the email thing, but yeah, that sucks. I agree. Alternatively you can use them until you are big enough and then hire someone to get ads directly from people but that doesn't help the small guy. I don't know what a noble solution is to this is - maybe everyone should agree on a format for moving ad campaigns around? But hell, even Chrome asks on first run what search provider you want to use in a SANE way that encourages people to pick, unlike the IE of today that makes you jump through 15 screens just to get to pick a search provider. I'd hardly say they are being monopolistic (which is the actual illegal part of being a monopoly).
  - nerfhammer 16y ago
    > Try transfering your ad campaign from Google to Bing? It is incredibly poor fidelity. Wat? This is the whole principle of an ad exchange.
  - nkassis 16y ago
    You could download all your emails with pop or imap if you wanted. This has always been supported. It would have been nice to use WordPerfect but as you mention people wanted a conversion that retain the layout of the original .doc When I can't even get a simple table from Office to WordPerfect to work properly what's the point (nothing fancy), where not talking excel formulas. If the document specs had been made available, you bet WordPerfect would have that implemented in no time. Word did have good support for WordPerfect files thus it was a one way street.
spot 16y ago
1) actually they did force you to use IE, it was called directly by the OS, and some of their online interactions required it. 2) mostly it wasn't forcing you, just making it very hard for you to leave their ecosystem. exporting your email out of outlook for example was intentionally made difficult.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  1) actually they did force you to use IE, it was called directly by the OS, and some of their online interactions required it. So you were required to use Windows? I used an Amiga until it was on its deathbed, so I find it hard to believe that you had to use Windows.
zem 16y ago
you're forgetting that microsoft actively leaned on hardware manufacturers so that they were forced into deals where they had to exclusively sell pcs with windows installed, or be penalised with higher licensing costs. that in turn meant that yes, you did have to use microsoft's product, or at the very least pay for it.

tzs 16y ago

Yes, Google has many good products people want to use and aren't forced to use. But the same was true for Microsoft at its "evil" peak. They made business applications, games, development tools, peripherals, and technical books, for instance that people wanted to use, but were not forced to use, and for which good alternatives were available.

rick888 16y ago
I'm glad we're on the same page. I'm just sick of the one-sided and biased tech community.

orijing 16y ago

Wasn't there a time when Google bundled the toolbar with all PCs from Dell and maybe other companies? Isn't that almost like "forcing" me to use Google (I mean... I didn't mind, but those toolbars were annoying) as preinstalling IE "forced" me to use IE?

bitskits 16y ago

Actually, it's "Don't be evil". It often gets confused/merged with the hippocratic oath. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dont_be_evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dont_be_evil

bitskits 16y ago
I managed to paste the link incorrectly and am unable to edit it, my apologies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil

rick888 16y ago

"(bundling the browser, exclusivity with all consumer computer OEMs, etc)" Right. At the same time (10 years ago), there were many different variants of Desktop Linux available, a few different office type applications, and a ton of other open source technologies. Google is bundled with Firefox as the default search tool. Like bundled IE, you can just choose something you prefer to use. "I'm not forced to use Gmail, or Google Talk, or Documents, but I choose to because it's the best out there." If everyone used gtalk and you were forced to because all your friends are now using it, would you consider it a monopoly? So many geeks did 10 years ago in Microsoft's case. "Google built things people want to use. Microsoft built things so that you had to use them." Not true. I gave examples of valid competition out there to Microsoft's main products. At the time, the alternatives sucked, but that doesn't mean they weren't there.