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I used to work for Google. Google generally is full of smart, well-meaning people who believe the work they are doing benefits the internet and humanity in gene
by titzer 5y ago
I used to work for Google. Google generally is full of smart, well-meaning people who believe the work they are doing benefits the internet and humanity in general.
But holy F is the business model, when scaled to $130+ billion yearly revenue, an absolute disaster. Google has taken upon itself to turn the entire internet into an ad-laden funhouse designed to trap you and suck all of your time.
Google is not solely to blame, but they are uniquely delusional and uniquely successful at monetizing other people's contributions, knowledge, talent, and businesses to their own benefit. Google set the standard model for monetization at every stage of the internet's development. Google set up everything to be the central clearing house for information and normalized the expectation that everything you do would come with some kind of advertising interruption.
As far as I am concerned, Facebook and social media and all the other bad things on the internet just followed in the wagon ruts, then paved highways that Google created.
We've accepted the internet and the web as they are because Google wanted to be big.
Now, if Google had wanted to stay small, maybe grow at 5% per year, instead of 23% per year--that's doubling every 4 years btw--, then the internet would not be so full of ads. The internet would not be so much in your face. Datacenters would be smaller, tracking would be less, webpages would be lighter, faster, with more long-form content, etc.
The internet is the way it is because it has been a giant pie-eating contest where the winners have to eat 23% more pie than they did last year. No wonder it's so fucked up.
- civilized 5y agoIs there a good article detailing how this works? Despite all the "dark side of tech" drama I still see Google as basically OK as a company. Some missteps, yes, but from my perspective, all I really know is they make a lot of great stuff that I use constantly because it's great. It's not obvious to me how they're involved in all of this.
- arthurcolle 5y agoreal time bidding, banner ads, ad markets. Anything that comprehensively covers the history of web specific advertising is a good place to start. Even if ads aren't useful (getting leather belt ads after buying a leather belt... even ads for the same product), the incentive is to continue serving them because the company trying to sell shit is still winning to target all "belt searchers"
- titzer 5y agoJust for perspective, here's Google's revenue in 2002 ($0.4 billion) vs 2020 ($180 billion, 450x)) [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-global-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-gl... o -> oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo oooooooooo
- sizzle 5y agoDid this factor into you leaving big G?