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But I have multiple choices for email, search, video hosting and browsers. I don’t have any choice for water, electricity, sewer, on any other public utility.

by adrr 5y ago

But I have multiple choices for email, search, video hosting and browsers. I don’t have any choice for water, electricity, sewer, on any other public utility. I am sure there are a bunch of people on here that don’t use any Google products and are using DuckDuckGo, Firefox, ProtonMail, Vimeo. There are many choices.

caslon 5y ago
Google-avoider checking in! It's actually really easy to avoid it. DuckDuckGo's search quality is better, Firefox is deteriorating daily but still looks and feels better than Chrome does, email should really be avoided but there are dozens of really good email services, and their ad service doesn't need a replacement for obvious reasons (just block it).
- neuronflux 5y ago
  I imagine you avoid Google because you don't want to get locked into their centralized closed source ecosystem and don't want them to track your entire online presence. So I'm surprised to see you say email should be avoided, as a completely open decentralized communication protocol. Your stances on these two topics just seem to be in contrast with each other, would you care to elaborate?
  - caslon 5y ago
    I don't care about centralization or their tracking particularly much on their own. I don't like to use bad software. It bothers me, fundamentally. I naturally ended up far away from Google by virtue of not liking things that waste computational resources, which all of their software does, and has for years. This is the same reason I stopped using Windows and OS X. I like to use software that makes me feel good, and megabytes being wasted by tracking scripts and terrible Javascript frameworks does not make me feel good, so I avoid their standalone services and block their parasitic services. However, email isn't really a good decentralized protocol. All federation fails at being meaningfully decentralized given enough time. There are great decentralized protocols; email is not one of them.
    - seanp2k2 5y ago
      It’s insane how fast a barebones linux desktop system feels these days. Even an rPi 4 can be really snappy with the right desktop environment and window manager. It makes one realize how slow and inefficient all these modern web technologies have become in practice. It’s been happening for decades, but while computers get orders of magnitude faster, software gets slower at a faster rate, consuming all of the gains and then some. Edit: here’s an interesting example just looking at input latency: https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/ if you take the browser into account as part of the system as well, I’m sure it’s much, much worse.
- balls187 5y ago
  Have you tried the new chromium based Edge?
  - caslon 5y ago
    Using a proprietary web browser would be like using a blowtorch that claimed to be powered by "magic." While I might use, say, a "magic" recipe, or a toy that claimed to be magic, I certainly wouldn't use a real, combustive tool that claimed to be magic.
- ccity88 5y ago
  Except it's actually not that easy. Most of the web uses google analytics, so its unavoidable when you visit a website. Most of the web's emails are routed through google; I remember reading a post about a guy who set up his own SMTP server and everything, but then realised that everyone he was contacting was using gmail anyway (can't find the post). Every time you see an add that's served by google, that means that there's a google embed in the page your looking at. Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor. If you have an android phone (most of the world does) you're forced to use google play services. In today's world, they're unavoidable. That being said, making them a public utility is a bit forward...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - caslon 5y ago
    "Most of the web uses google analytics, so its unavoidable when you visit a website." I actually mentioned that. Just shim GA connections; this happens with most ad-blocking software, and I believe happens in Firefox's "strict" mode by default. It's really trivial. "Most of the web's emails are routed through google; I remember reading a post about a guy who set up his own SMTP server and everything, but then realised that everyone he was contacting was using gmail anyway (can't find the post)." Only true if the majority of people you converse with over email are boring. "Every time you see an add that's served by google, that means that there's a google embed in the page your looking at." Again, why would you ever look at an ad? That's a ludicrous idea. "Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor." Bittorrent. "If you have an android phone you're forced to use google play services." Completely false. Android works fine without Google Play Services. EDIT: Made words better.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      >""Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor." Bittorrent." I should avoid Google's monopoly by becoming a criminal?
- BMorearty 5y ago
  I’m disappointed to hear Firefox is deteriorating daily. I disagree about DDG’s search quality. I tried it for six months and that was not my experience. Eventually went back to Google.
  - caslon 5y ago
    Yeah, it's certainly unfortunate. It gets just a little worse with every single update. The last one removed compact mode, which was the only thing making the UI somewhat bearable on-screen. It is now terribly large and unappealing. What do you use a search engine for? Depending on your set of interests, turning off or on localization might have helped.
    - dmitrygr 5y ago
      In the current build, there is an about:config setting to re-enable compact mode.
      - caslon 5y ago
        Yes, but they've expressed a desire to get rid of it in an upcoming update.
  - loup-vaillant 5y ago
    I believe it depends on people. For some DuckDuckGo works perfectly, and they rarely go back to Google, if at all. For others it just does not work. This reminds me of the dream of displacing Microsoft Word. Can we make a better product? No we can't. Only Microsoft can, through upgrades. The competition is stuck with making the same thing, and therefore not better, or something different, which is always "worse" because people are used to Word. Also note that DuckDuckGo has a fundamental disadvantage: by not tailoring its searches to your history, it cannot possibly guess what you want to see as well as Google. Sure you're not trapped in your own search bubble, but you don't feel that. You only feel that the damn search engine can't find that website you are searching for for the fifth time already. Pro tip: to get back to a web site, type its URL, or use bookmarks. Somehow I've seen many professional programmers fail to do that. I give them a URL, and they type it on the freaking search bar. (The more modern version is failing to type or auto-complete an actual URL in the omni bar.)
- msbarnett 5y ago
  Now try advertising your business while avoiding Google. Keep in mind that if you don't buy ads under your Company's Name from Google, Google will allow your competitors to buy those placements and make them the top results anyone searching your company on Google will see.
  - caslon 5y ago
    Advertisement is immoral and totally unnecessary to have a profitable business.
    - wernercd 5y ago
      > advertisment is immoral Interesting opinion... have any facts to back up such an opinion? What's immoral about... spreading information about you and your business? There are immoral ways to go about advertising, without doubt. But advertising itself is immoral?
      - caslon 5y ago
        "What's immoral about... spreading information about you and your business?" Non-consensually forcing anyone into anything is wrong. Advertising violates the NAP. "But advertising itself is immoral?" Indeed.
        wernercd 5y ago
        "non-consensually forcing anything into anyone" You have a perverveted view of "forcing" if you think sharing information is, as it sounds like you seem to be saying, the equivalent of rape. If I say something you disagree with... I'm not violating a "Non-Aggression Principle" - unless you think that opinions make you weak (I believe diverse thought makes you stronger - can't get new ideas without communication). And if you think communication REALLY is "aggression"... how do you pair the fact that you "forcing" your opinion on me about my opinion on advertising goes against your own principle? Isn't it kinda... a hypocritical blackhole of an opinion? Sharing info isn't itself immoral... it's LITERALLY the bedrock of civilization, free will, free speech, self defense, etc - all start with communication. The right to say stuff others don't like or even GASP saying stuff that make them uncomfortable - like pointing out your paradoxical opinion. (HOW you share CAN be immoral... but not sharing/communication itself) Advertising, at it's core, is sharing information. Without freedom to communicate? without the ability to share ideas? We'd be afraid of fire. we would be monkeys in caves...
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  What do you do when you have a job interview that is scheduled as a Google Meet meeting? Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures? I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account.
  - jrockway 5y ago
    I think you can just talk to the person at the other end and ask for accomodation. I use Zoom for interviews, but if someone emailed me and was like "can we use Google Meet" I would be happy to change. Similarly, if someone texts me "I can't open that link to the photos you sent", I can just email them the photos. It's not really a big deal, and I don't think that your unwillingness to talk with your friends or business partners makes Google a public utility in a regulatory sense.
    - SilverRed 5y ago
      >just talk to the person at the other end and ask for accomodation. And for almost every job position. They will tell you Meet is what they use and if that doesn't work for you, they are happy to cancel the interview.
    - quadrifoliate 5y ago
      > I don't think that your unwillingness to talk with your friends or business partners makes Google a public utility in a regulatory sense I mean, the tautological definition is that the regulators will decide whether Google is a public utility, or perhaps too big and needs to be broken up (a question separate from this particular lawsuit). All of us are just on the sidelines discussing it, and perhaps trying to influence our elected representatives. The fact that courts and regulators are at least considering it does mean that there is some merit to the argument that it may not be practical to live Google-free these days. It's probably not just me being unwilling to talk to my friends and business partners.
  - caslon 5y ago
    "What do you do when you have a job interview that is scheduled as a Google Meet meeting?" Unlikely scenario; the companies that overlap with my set of skills either have their own offering or use a libre one. I will admit, this might be harder for other people (my skills hover around RTC heavily). "Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures?" My friends range from "Too young to be using a 'boomer' service like Google Photos" to "Too old to be doing anything technical that isn't just texting photos via SMS," and most of them in the 25-30 child-having age either also avoid Google or would just show the pictures in person. I don't live in the Valley, though, so this could be a regional thing. "I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account." No, I don't. It never seemed necessary to me.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Firefiox: I remember the first few versions since the rewrite. It was very fast. Fast forward to today and it's so slow. What is the reason? Are the privacy changes affecting this by using more resources or pages are requesting domains that hang for too long? It gives rust a bad name because this is one of the bigger rust products I know.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    Hardly any of firefox is using rust. Servo was abandoned. I think the only rust part of FF right now is the CSS engine.
    - steveklabnik 5y ago
      > I think the only rust part of FF right now is the CSS engine. That's not correct. Currently, 9.5% is Rust https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/ https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      Servo was abandoned after all of the fanfaire? Was a reason ever given? I thought we were in the servo era.
      - SilverRed 5y ago
        Mozilla cut a bunch of jobs and the servo team was one of the teams cut. The servo project is not officially canceled but there is no clear future for it.
satellite2 5y ago
Try finding a smartphone under 250$, try advertising any small business on the internet, try avoiding meets meeting when you apply for a job
- Matticus_Rex 5y ago
  Yeah, it's really cool that a company has done a good enough job in so many different areas that the other alternatives are often unambiguously worse.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    No, its products are forced down your threat and impossible to avoid.
    - simonh 5y ago
      We’ve got multiple comments right here saying how easy it was for them to avoid Google completely.
    - Matticus_Rex 5y ago
      If they're hard to avoid, it's because lots of people are voluntarily choosing them because (in their estimation) they provide the best value for cost. I personally find it rather annoying that the mumbly trap influence has infiltrated a lot of popular rap, and if I'm going to hang out with other hip hop fans, I end up hearing some stuff I don't personally love. But it's popular because a lot of people like it. It's not impossible to avoid -- there's just a cost to avoiding it because of its popularity. Google's like that.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  These are things that are done locally. You can find a smartphone for under 250 at any phone store. Or by calling a number. I got one by text the other day through my carrier. I can't find an iphone 12 for that online or locally legally and I would have better luck getting a stolen phone cheaper locally. Small business are finding success through facebook and other social platforms. Not sure google is a player here. Remember google+? I can't believe they shut that down with a decent userbase because it didn't reach some scale meanwhile any startup would have called it a big success and built on it.
tintor 5y ago
Bottled water, water tanks, septic tanks, solar/wind power, generators, ...
pcmoney 5y ago
You have multiple choices for water, dig a well, buy it from the local grocery store. Same for sewage because self composting toilets exist. Also electricity isn't a utility just use a stationary bike as a generator or buy solar panels... Just because you have multiple choices doesn't mean something is/isn't a utility. Its pretty arbitrary. They also aren't talking about Google products (most of which are completely irrelevant aside from their ability to help Google sell ads) they are focused solely on search. Not saying they are "right" just that Google's search dominance is a thing and they use it support their own stuff. Eg: You can buy our electricity but it only "recommends" appliances we also sell
- bumby 5y ago
  To a certain extent, utilities differ in that they are regulated monopolies protected by the government. Any competing water company, for example, can’t just start running water mains without government approval. In exchange for that protection, the existing water utility incurs additional regulations, like needing approvals to raise rates and bring required to provide services to areas where it may not be profitable by itself. Regarding your electrical example, that only works in isolation. You cannot just decide to tie your solar or generator to the grid, for example, because that utility is a regulated public good.
  - mfer 5y ago
    With tech (from search to ISPs) there are monopolies. Do they break them up or regulate them like utilities or something else? Our politicians are starting to tackle some real issues and we'll have to see how this shakes out.
  - wait_a_minute 5y ago
    Interesting perspective,thanks for sharing!
  - wait_a_minute 5y ago
    In general by government protection we just mean that they are receiving property protection from police and from local governmental offices for like water quality inspections, park maintenance, general public services like the post office, etc, right? not that the government decides anything of note for the utility/company of people who are doing their best to run things based on merit and performance and team cohesion and actual delivery of objectives? not any political shit? I ask because I'm truly afraid at what people are starting to think when they talk about government's role, at least from my age or younger and I'm probably on the younger side on this forum so I want to know what the more experienced people here think about this kind of thing.
bitcurious 5y ago
1. Planning to avoid Google is a lot easier than being forced to with little/no notice. 2. You’re thinking as an individual, but there’s also how Google treats businesses. It’s a lot harder to replace Google Ads than gmail.
zepto 5y ago
Indeed. I still have a Google account but the I don’t remember the last time I signed in with it.
loup-vaillant 5y ago
> But I have multiple choices for email, search, video hosting and browsers. Not video hosting you don't. If you want to build a significant English speaking audience, your only real choice is YouTube, because that's where people search from. Seriously, who has a "Vimeo" app on their phone? On their set-top box? Same thing if you want to watch interesting videos: most of the content is on YouTube.
- kixiQu 5y ago
  That's not video hosting that's monopolyish, then, that's English-speaking-audience video discovery, which is a quite different proposition.
  - jeffgreco 5y ago
    To be fair, “English-speaking” is pretty relevant in the state/country being discussed.
  - loup-vaillant 5y ago
    Agreed, but that's a technicality. What matters is, if you want to make a living, you have to host on YouTube. (You can host elsewhere, but over 99% of your revenue will come from your notoriety at YouTube, if not YouTube directly.) And if you want videos, they're all on YouTube. You can search for them elsewhere but most of the content is on YouTube, and you won't avoid it even if your search started from a general purpose search engine like DuckDuckGo. One notable exception of course is porn. But that's such a separated segment that it's pretty obvious I meant "non-porn videos" all along in this thread.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      What kind of living are you making just posting videos to youtube? A random example but most stage hypnotists sell their shows via vimeo. If you ever go to a show and want to buy a copy they will send you there. The stuff they post on youtube is mostly highlights or lower quality video. It would take them 100,000 ad views (1,000,000 regular views) to equal one copy sold. Youtube could get you some views but you need to make your money elsewhere. In the case above the additional revenues are from vimeo. Youtube's role is to hopefully get someone to book the event but you would be better off having good word of mouth than hoping someone sees your videos on youtube and lives in the same area and tries to book you for a corporate gig or faire.
pyuser583 5y ago
My elderly parents are unable to make the switch from Yahoo to Google. I’ve walked them through it multiple times. It’s just not possible for them. They don’t have the knowledge and skills. They are smart. Advanced degrees in STEM. Multiple languages. Doesn’t matter. I can’t imagine the transition from Google to DuckDuckGo/Firefox/ProtonMail being easier. Am I wrong about that?
- aroman 5y ago
  What step were they unable to complete in the process of changing their browser's default search from Google to Yahoo? (With your walking them through it, I mean?)
  - pyuser583 5y ago
    They need to be able to get to Yahoo Mail from their home page and the search engine result page. This is a hard requirement.
    - whynaut 5y ago
      No stake in this, just a suggestion and also a little curious. Could a shortcut pinned to the tab or nav bar work? I keep my email in a pinned Safari tab.
    - anders_p 5y ago
      I second whynaut's suggestion. That's precisely what I did for the elders. I set up pinned bookmark shortcuts on the 'tab bar' (had to enable the 'show bookmarks bar' option). Now they have a button for 'mail', one for 'search', one for 'maps', and one for 'facebook' etc. Those buttons are always visible, no matter how far they venture into the internet. Solved the problem for them (or rather, for me, lol)
    - Siira 5y ago
      I imagine you can inject the necessary buttons via userscripts, if this is truly a “hard requirement.” The bookmark bar is, of course, the standard solution to this.
sparrc 5y ago
I don't use google products much anymore, but the transition takes a long time, especially getting off of gmail. I'm also not sure it would even be possible to transition if you don't have access to your google account anymore. You would just be literally completely shut out of many of your online accounts. And for watching online videos there really isn't any viable alternative to youtube.
mdoms 5y ago
Now put yourself on the other side of the equation. As a business you rely on Google Search because it's effectively the only search engine anyone uses. As a video content creator you rely on Youtube because no one is searching Vimeo for your product, nor are they relying on Vimeo recommendations to find it. As a developer you primarily target Chrome-based browsers because that makes up four fifths of your user base.
gentleman11 5y ago
Is there a single internet savvy person besides stallman who is able to 100% avoid google? Even if you don’t use gmail, almost everyone you message does. You lose access to most online videos. Google domains, fonts, and maps entangle a truly massive number of websites, including healthcare sites. In Covid, lots of clients or employers use google video calling. Schools almost but not quite make you use google drive. If you don’t optimize your website for chrome, you worsen the experience of 90% or more of your users. If you don’t play the seo game, nobody will know your site exists. It’s not a realistic choice for 99% of people
ivanstame 5y ago
Only people like us, developers, geeks uses those kind of services. The majority uses google.
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I'm surprised I haven't seen much in the responses to this comment that the issue isn't so much that consumers have other options (though given how high Google's search reach is, how relevant is that if hardly anyone does), it's that for most businesses your option is either have a strong search presence on Google or go out of business. There is just no viable path to avoid Google as a business when they control 80+ percent of search market share. And you not only need to play the SEO game, you have to pray that Google just doesn't decide to get into your business and start returning their own results instead (which is exactly what this lawsuit is about). Especially since Google has had the chance to suck up all the data that you've provided in optimizing your site to provide the most relevant results.
- svachalek 5y ago
  Yes, reading through so many responses it's clear that even on HN in 2021 we need to remind people that you are NOT Google's customer. You are the product!
  - Siira 5y ago
    That cliched sentence is bullshit. Google is an aggregator of supply, and profits off this position. The users are not “the product,” the products get commoditized for the users by Google, and it is this process that makes them money. As a user, I am quite happy with this status quo. The quality of the service is pretty good, and there isn’t much user-facing rent seeking. Compare this to the app stores, which are a true public utility monopoly in Apple’s case, and you’ll immediately see the difference of true monopoly.
- adrr 5y ago
  Do you Google shoes to find shoes,some workout shorts or any consumer product line? Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. What do you Google from a consumer perspective?
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    > Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. I can't believe this is a serious comment. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars would say otherwise. I search for consumer products on Google all the time.
zionic 5y ago
How many of those users have 8.8.8.8 as DNS and have no clue they pipe all their usage to google?
asimjalis 5y ago
DuckDuckGo is 10 characters while Google is 6. That is a 67% overhead. If it was ddg or duck I would be more tempted to use it.
- 29083011397778 5y ago
  How about duck.com? Though it's an extra letter compared to just google). Alternately, setting it as your default search engine sidesteps the issue just as well :)
lobocinza 5y ago
All alternatives for Google search end up being Bing and it sucks when compared to Google.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fomine3 5y ago
Other alternatives are fine, but Vimeo isn't alternative for viewer (or even uploader). YouTube is a platform that hosts many unique contents with many worldwide viewers.
kevingadd 5y ago
There is market competition in some utilities depending on where you live
tremon 5y ago
I am sure there are a bunch of people on here that don’t use any Google products I am pretty sure that number is close to zero. googleapis.com is a Google product, and not using it breaks half the Internet. Trust me, I've tried.

by adrr 5y ago

caslon 5y ago

Google-avoider checking in! It's actually really easy to avoid it. DuckDuckGo's search quality is better, Firefox is deteriorating daily but still looks and feels better than Chrome does, email should really be avoided but there are dozens of really good email services, and their ad service doesn't need a replacement for obvious reasons (just block it).

neuronflux 5y ago
I imagine you avoid Google because you don't want to get locked into their centralized closed source ecosystem and don't want them to track your entire online presence. So I'm surprised to see you say email should be avoided, as a completely open decentralized communication protocol. Your stances on these two topics just seem to be in contrast with each other, would you care to elaborate?
- caslon 5y ago
  I don't care about centralization or their tracking particularly much on their own. I don't like to use bad software. It bothers me, fundamentally. I naturally ended up far away from Google by virtue of not liking things that waste computational resources, which all of their software does, and has for years. This is the same reason I stopped using Windows and OS X. I like to use software that makes me feel good, and megabytes being wasted by tracking scripts and terrible Javascript frameworks does not make me feel good, so I avoid their standalone services and block their parasitic services. However, email isn't really a good decentralized protocol. All federation fails at being meaningfully decentralized given enough time. There are great decentralized protocols; email is not one of them.
  - seanp2k2 5y ago
    It’s insane how fast a barebones linux desktop system feels these days. Even an rPi 4 can be really snappy with the right desktop environment and window manager. It makes one realize how slow and inefficient all these modern web technologies have become in practice. It’s been happening for decades, but while computers get orders of magnitude faster, software gets slower at a faster rate, consuming all of the gains and then some. Edit: here’s an interesting example just looking at input latency: https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/ if you take the browser into account as part of the system as well, I’m sure it’s much, much worse.
balls187 5y ago
Have you tried the new chromium based Edge?
- caslon 5y ago
  Using a proprietary web browser would be like using a blowtorch that claimed to be powered by "magic." While I might use, say, a "magic" recipe, or a toy that claimed to be magic, I certainly wouldn't use a real, combustive tool that claimed to be magic.
ccity88 5y ago
Except it's actually not that easy. Most of the web uses google analytics, so its unavoidable when you visit a website. Most of the web's emails are routed through google; I remember reading a post about a guy who set up his own SMTP server and everything, but then realised that everyone he was contacting was using gmail anyway (can't find the post). Every time you see an add that's served by google, that means that there's a google embed in the page your looking at. Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor. If you have an android phone (most of the world does) you're forced to use google play services. In today's world, they're unavoidable. That being said, making them a public utility is a bit forward...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- caslon 5y ago
  "Most of the web uses google analytics, so its unavoidable when you visit a website." I actually mentioned that. Just shim GA connections; this happens with most ad-blocking software, and I believe happens in Firefox's "strict" mode by default. It's really trivial. "Most of the web's emails are routed through google; I remember reading a post about a guy who set up his own SMTP server and everything, but then realised that everyone he was contacting was using gmail anyway (can't find the post)." Only true if the majority of people you converse with over email are boring. "Every time you see an add that's served by google, that means that there's a google embed in the page your looking at." Again, why would you ever look at an ad? That's a ludicrous idea. "Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor." Bittorrent. "If you have an android phone you're forced to use google play services." Completely false. Android works fine without Google Play Services. EDIT: Made words better.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    >""Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor." Bittorrent." I should avoid Google's monopoly by becoming a criminal?
BMorearty 5y ago
I’m disappointed to hear Firefox is deteriorating daily. I disagree about DDG’s search quality. I tried it for six months and that was not my experience. Eventually went back to Google.
- caslon 5y ago
  Yeah, it's certainly unfortunate. It gets just a little worse with every single update. The last one removed compact mode, which was the only thing making the UI somewhat bearable on-screen. It is now terribly large and unappealing. What do you use a search engine for? Depending on your set of interests, turning off or on localization might have helped.
  - dmitrygr 5y ago
    In the current build, there is an about:config setting to re-enable compact mode.
    - caslon 5y ago
      Yes, but they've expressed a desire to get rid of it in an upcoming update.
- loup-vaillant 5y ago
  I believe it depends on people. For some DuckDuckGo works perfectly, and they rarely go back to Google, if at all. For others it just does not work. This reminds me of the dream of displacing Microsoft Word. Can we make a better product? No we can't. Only Microsoft can, through upgrades. The competition is stuck with making the same thing, and therefore not better, or something different, which is always "worse" because people are used to Word. Also note that DuckDuckGo has a fundamental disadvantage: by not tailoring its searches to your history, it cannot possibly guess what you want to see as well as Google. Sure you're not trapped in your own search bubble, but you don't feel that. You only feel that the damn search engine can't find that website you are searching for for the fifth time already. Pro tip: to get back to a web site, type its URL, or use bookmarks. Somehow I've seen many professional programmers fail to do that. I give them a URL, and they type it on the freaking search bar. (The more modern version is failing to type or auto-complete an actual URL in the omni bar.)
msbarnett 5y ago
Now try advertising your business while avoiding Google. Keep in mind that if you don't buy ads under your Company's Name from Google, Google will allow your competitors to buy those placements and make them the top results anyone searching your company on Google will see.
- caslon 5y ago
  Advertisement is immoral and totally unnecessary to have a profitable business.
  - wernercd 5y ago
    > advertisment is immoral Interesting opinion... have any facts to back up such an opinion? What's immoral about... spreading information about you and your business? There are immoral ways to go about advertising, without doubt. But advertising itself is immoral?
    - caslon 5y ago
      "What's immoral about... spreading information about you and your business?" Non-consensually forcing anyone into anything is wrong. Advertising violates the NAP. "But advertising itself is immoral?" Indeed.
      - wernercd 5y ago
        "non-consensually forcing anything into anyone" You have a perverveted view of "forcing" if you think sharing information is, as it sounds like you seem to be saying, the equivalent of rape. If I say something you disagree with... I'm not violating a "Non-Aggression Principle" - unless you think that opinions make you weak (I believe diverse thought makes you stronger - can't get new ideas without communication). And if you think communication REALLY is "aggression"... how do you pair the fact that you "forcing" your opinion on me about my opinion on advertising goes against your own principle? Isn't it kinda... a hypocritical blackhole of an opinion? Sharing info isn't itself immoral... it's LITERALLY the bedrock of civilization, free will, free speech, self defense, etc - all start with communication. The right to say stuff others don't like or even GASP saying stuff that make them uncomfortable - like pointing out your paradoxical opinion. (HOW you share CAN be immoral... but not sharing/communication itself) Advertising, at it's core, is sharing information. Without freedom to communicate? without the ability to share ideas? We'd be afraid of fire. we would be monkeys in caves...
quadrifoliate 5y ago
What do you do when you have a job interview that is scheduled as a Google Meet meeting? Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures? I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account.
- jrockway 5y ago
  I think you can just talk to the person at the other end and ask for accomodation. I use Zoom for interviews, but if someone emailed me and was like "can we use Google Meet" I would be happy to change. Similarly, if someone texts me "I can't open that link to the photos you sent", I can just email them the photos. It's not really a big deal, and I don't think that your unwillingness to talk with your friends or business partners makes Google a public utility in a regulatory sense.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    >just talk to the person at the other end and ask for accomodation. And for almost every job position. They will tell you Meet is what they use and if that doesn't work for you, they are happy to cancel the interview.
  - quadrifoliate 5y ago
    > I don't think that your unwillingness to talk with your friends or business partners makes Google a public utility in a regulatory sense I mean, the tautological definition is that the regulators will decide whether Google is a public utility, or perhaps too big and needs to be broken up (a question separate from this particular lawsuit). All of us are just on the sidelines discussing it, and perhaps trying to influence our elected representatives. The fact that courts and regulators are at least considering it does mean that there is some merit to the argument that it may not be practical to live Google-free these days. It's probably not just me being unwilling to talk to my friends and business partners.
- caslon 5y ago
  "What do you do when you have a job interview that is scheduled as a Google Meet meeting?" Unlikely scenario; the companies that overlap with my set of skills either have their own offering or use a libre one. I will admit, this might be harder for other people (my skills hover around RTC heavily). "Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures?" My friends range from "Too young to be using a 'boomer' service like Google Photos" to "Too old to be doing anything technical that isn't just texting photos via SMS," and most of them in the 25-30 child-having age either also avoid Google or would just show the pictures in person. I don't live in the Valley, though, so this could be a regional thing. "I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account." No, I don't. It never seemed necessary to me.
ipaddr 5y ago
Firefiox: I remember the first few versions since the rewrite. It was very fast. Fast forward to today and it's so slow. What is the reason? Are the privacy changes affecting this by using more resources or pages are requesting domains that hang for too long? It gives rust a bad name because this is one of the bigger rust products I know.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  Hardly any of firefox is using rust. Servo was abandoned. I think the only rust part of FF right now is the CSS engine.
  - steveklabnik 5y ago
    > I think the only rust part of FF right now is the CSS engine. That's not correct. Currently, 9.5% is Rust https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/ https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Servo was abandoned after all of the fanfaire? Was a reason ever given? I thought we were in the servo era.
    - SilverRed 5y ago
      Mozilla cut a bunch of jobs and the servo team was one of the teams cut. The servo project is not officially canceled but there is no clear future for it.

satellite2 5y ago

Try finding a smartphone under 250$, try advertising any small business on the internet, try avoiding meets meeting when you apply for a job

Matticus_Rex 5y ago
Yeah, it's really cool that a company has done a good enough job in so many different areas that the other alternatives are often unambiguously worse.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  No, its products are forced down your threat and impossible to avoid.
  - simonh 5y ago
    We’ve got multiple comments right here saying how easy it was for them to avoid Google completely.
  - Matticus_Rex 5y ago
    If they're hard to avoid, it's because lots of people are voluntarily choosing them because (in their estimation) they provide the best value for cost. I personally find it rather annoying that the mumbly trap influence has infiltrated a lot of popular rap, and if I'm going to hang out with other hip hop fans, I end up hearing some stuff I don't personally love. But it's popular because a lot of people like it. It's not impossible to avoid -- there's just a cost to avoiding it because of its popularity. Google's like that.
ipaddr 5y ago
These are things that are done locally. You can find a smartphone for under 250 at any phone store. Or by calling a number. I got one by text the other day through my carrier. I can't find an iphone 12 for that online or locally legally and I would have better luck getting a stolen phone cheaper locally. Small business are finding success through facebook and other social platforms. Not sure google is a player here. Remember google+? I can't believe they shut that down with a decent userbase because it didn't reach some scale meanwhile any startup would have called it a big success and built on it.

tintor 5y ago

Bottled water, water tanks, septic tanks, solar/wind power, generators, ...

pcmoney 5y ago

You have multiple choices for water, dig a well, buy it from the local grocery store. Same for sewage because self composting toilets exist. Also electricity isn't a utility just use a stationary bike as a generator or buy solar panels... Just because you have multiple choices doesn't mean something is/isn't a utility. Its pretty arbitrary. They also aren't talking about Google products (most of which are completely irrelevant aside from their ability to help Google sell ads) they are focused solely on search. Not saying they are "right" just that Google's search dominance is a thing and they use it support their own stuff. Eg: You can buy our electricity but it only "recommends" appliances we also sell

bumby 5y ago
To a certain extent, utilities differ in that they are regulated monopolies protected by the government. Any competing water company, for example, can’t just start running water mains without government approval. In exchange for that protection, the existing water utility incurs additional regulations, like needing approvals to raise rates and bring required to provide services to areas where it may not be profitable by itself. Regarding your electrical example, that only works in isolation. You cannot just decide to tie your solar or generator to the grid, for example, because that utility is a regulated public good.
- mfer 5y ago
  With tech (from search to ISPs) there are monopolies. Do they break them up or regulate them like utilities or something else? Our politicians are starting to tackle some real issues and we'll have to see how this shakes out.
- wait_a_minute 5y ago
  Interesting perspective,thanks for sharing!
- wait_a_minute 5y ago
  In general by government protection we just mean that they are receiving property protection from police and from local governmental offices for like water quality inspections, park maintenance, general public services like the post office, etc, right? not that the government decides anything of note for the utility/company of people who are doing their best to run things based on merit and performance and team cohesion and actual delivery of objectives? not any political shit? I ask because I'm truly afraid at what people are starting to think when they talk about government's role, at least from my age or younger and I'm probably on the younger side on this forum so I want to know what the more experienced people here think about this kind of thing.

bitcurious 5y ago

1. Planning to avoid Google is a lot easier than being forced to with little/no notice. 2. You’re thinking as an individual, but there’s also how Google treats businesses. It’s a lot harder to replace Google Ads than gmail.

zepto 5y ago

Indeed. I still have a Google account but the I don’t remember the last time I signed in with it.

loup-vaillant 5y ago

> But I have multiple choices for email, search, video hosting and browsers. Not video hosting you don't. If you want to build a significant English speaking audience, your only real choice is YouTube, because that's where people search from. Seriously, who has a "Vimeo" app on their phone? On their set-top box? Same thing if you want to watch interesting videos: most of the content is on YouTube.

kixiQu 5y ago
That's not video hosting that's monopolyish, then, that's English-speaking-audience video discovery, which is a quite different proposition.
- jeffgreco 5y ago
  To be fair, “English-speaking” is pretty relevant in the state/country being discussed.
- loup-vaillant 5y ago
  Agreed, but that's a technicality. What matters is, if you want to make a living, you have to host on YouTube. (You can host elsewhere, but over 99% of your revenue will come from your notoriety at YouTube, if not YouTube directly.) And if you want videos, they're all on YouTube. You can search for them elsewhere but most of the content is on YouTube, and you won't avoid it even if your search started from a general purpose search engine like DuckDuckGo. One notable exception of course is porn. But that's such a separated segment that it's pretty obvious I meant "non-porn videos" all along in this thread.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    What kind of living are you making just posting videos to youtube? A random example but most stage hypnotists sell their shows via vimeo. If you ever go to a show and want to buy a copy they will send you there. The stuff they post on youtube is mostly highlights or lower quality video. It would take them 100,000 ad views (1,000,000 regular views) to equal one copy sold. Youtube could get you some views but you need to make your money elsewhere. In the case above the additional revenues are from vimeo. Youtube's role is to hopefully get someone to book the event but you would be better off having good word of mouth than hoping someone sees your videos on youtube and lives in the same area and tries to book you for a corporate gig or faire.

pyuser583 5y ago

My elderly parents are unable to make the switch from Yahoo to Google. I’ve walked them through it multiple times. It’s just not possible for them. They don’t have the knowledge and skills. They are smart. Advanced degrees in STEM. Multiple languages. Doesn’t matter. I can’t imagine the transition from Google to DuckDuckGo/Firefox/ProtonMail being easier. Am I wrong about that?

aroman 5y ago
What step were they unable to complete in the process of changing their browser's default search from Google to Yahoo? (With your walking them through it, I mean?)
- pyuser583 5y ago
  They need to be able to get to Yahoo Mail from their home page and the search engine result page. This is a hard requirement.
  - whynaut 5y ago
    No stake in this, just a suggestion and also a little curious. Could a shortcut pinned to the tab or nav bar work? I keep my email in a pinned Safari tab.
  - anders_p 5y ago
    I second whynaut's suggestion. That's precisely what I did for the elders. I set up pinned bookmark shortcuts on the 'tab bar' (had to enable the 'show bookmarks bar' option). Now they have a button for 'mail', one for 'search', one for 'maps', and one for 'facebook' etc. Those buttons are always visible, no matter how far they venture into the internet. Solved the problem for them (or rather, for me, lol)
  - Siira 5y ago
    I imagine you can inject the necessary buttons via userscripts, if this is truly a “hard requirement.” The bookmark bar is, of course, the standard solution to this.

sparrc 5y ago

I don't use google products much anymore, but the transition takes a long time, especially getting off of gmail. I'm also not sure it would even be possible to transition if you don't have access to your google account anymore. You would just be literally completely shut out of many of your online accounts. And for watching online videos there really isn't any viable alternative to youtube.

mdoms 5y ago

Now put yourself on the other side of the equation. As a business you rely on Google Search because it's effectively the only search engine anyone uses. As a video content creator you rely on Youtube because no one is searching Vimeo for your product, nor are they relying on Vimeo recommendations to find it. As a developer you primarily target Chrome-based browsers because that makes up four fifths of your user base.

gentleman11 5y ago

Is there a single internet savvy person besides stallman who is able to 100% avoid google? Even if you don’t use gmail, almost everyone you message does. You lose access to most online videos. Google domains, fonts, and maps entangle a truly massive number of websites, including healthcare sites. In Covid, lots of clients or employers use google video calling. Schools almost but not quite make you use google drive. If you don’t optimize your website for chrome, you worsen the experience of 90% or more of your users. If you don’t play the seo game, nobody will know your site exists. It’s not a realistic choice for 99% of people

ivanstame 5y ago

Only people like us, developers, geeks uses those kind of services. The majority uses google.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

I'm surprised I haven't seen much in the responses to this comment that the issue isn't so much that consumers have other options (though given how high Google's search reach is, how relevant is that if hardly anyone does), it's that for most businesses your option is either have a strong search presence on Google or go out of business. There is just no viable path to avoid Google as a business when they control 80+ percent of search market share. And you not only need to play the SEO game, you have to pray that Google just doesn't decide to get into your business and start returning their own results instead (which is exactly what this lawsuit is about). Especially since Google has had the chance to suck up all the data that you've provided in optimizing your site to provide the most relevant results.

svachalek 5y ago
Yes, reading through so many responses it's clear that even on HN in 2021 we need to remind people that you are NOT Google's customer. You are the product!
- Siira 5y ago
  That cliched sentence is bullshit. Google is an aggregator of supply, and profits off this position. The users are not “the product,” the products get commoditized for the users by Google, and it is this process that makes them money. As a user, I am quite happy with this status quo. The quality of the service is pretty good, and there isn’t much user-facing rent seeking. Compare this to the app stores, which are a true public utility monopoly in Apple’s case, and you’ll immediately see the difference of true monopoly.
adrr 5y ago
Do you Google shoes to find shoes,some workout shorts or any consumer product line? Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. What do you Google from a consumer perspective?
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  > Search is irrelevant for any consumer brand from a discovery standpoint point. I can't believe this is a serious comment. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars would say otherwise. I search for consumer products on Google all the time.

zionic 5y ago

How many of those users have 8.8.8.8 as DNS and have no clue they pipe all their usage to google?

asimjalis 5y ago

DuckDuckGo is 10 characters while Google is 6. That is a 67% overhead. If it was ddg or duck I would be more tempted to use it.

29083011397778 5y ago
How about duck.com? Though it's an extra letter compared to just google). Alternately, setting it as your default search engine sidesteps the issue just as well :)

lobocinza 5y ago

All alternatives for Google search end up being Bing and it sucks when compared to Google.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fomine3 5y ago

Other alternatives are fine, but Vimeo isn't alternative for viewer (or even uploader). YouTube is a platform that hosts many unique contents with many worldwide viewers.

kevingadd 5y ago

There is market competition in some utilities depending on where you live

tremon 5y ago

I am sure there are a bunch of people on here that don’t use any Google products I am pretty sure that number is close to zero. googleapis.com is a Google product, and not using it breaks half the Internet. Trust me, I've tried.