6 ms·

I'm not sure what we should've done. Google for a long time won users by making almost objectively better products. It's only in the past decade or so that they

by dtech 5y ago

I'm not sure what we should've done. Google for a long time won users by making almost objectively better products. It's only in the past decade or so that they started to abuse their monopoly. Putting the blame at government failing to enforce existing and create new anti-trust legislation seems much more sensible than blaming users picking the best products.

samizdis 5y ago
I'm having an ironic morning of it. I also posted [1] from The Register a piece about China's antitrust watchdog, which seems to be advocating for policies one can only envy. (What emerges in reality, though, is unlikely to live up to my optimism.) If I were at The Register, I'd look for a way to combine that China news article with the Google opinion piece of this thread. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29064865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29064865
- happycube 5y ago
  There, if you don't play with the unwritten rules, you get clobbered by the written ones...
iamtheworstdev 5y ago
well, people could have been more willing to pay for email. Google's search engine was top notch for sure. But when we gave them the right to scan our emails we really handed over the keys to the kingdom.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  I doubt willingness to pay would be a factor. To my knowledge, Gmail (or any other google services) didn't start off paid, bomb, and then they made free but paid for with privacy. I think aside from having 20/20 hindsight to avoid their services and tell others to do the same (which you cant really blame people for not having), I doubt theres much we could do. I guess theres the whole "vote with your wallet" thing, but again, I think that argument is largely made with the benefit of hindsight
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    The point was that other email (even with a GUI served over the web) services were available when gmail was introduced, and you did have to pay for many of them. IIRC I was using something called "zworg". I almost regret getting a gmail invite early enough to be able to snag my first and last names with no number, since I am constantly getting all sorts of messages that include surprisingly private information about the various "Jess Austin"s around the world who are getting married, renting "flats", going on vacation, considering cosmetic surgery, etc. I don't know whether these various Ms. Austins have forgotten their email addresses, or perhaps their friends and service providers can't be bothered to use those.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Before gmail you either had hotmail, or you had your ISP's mail provision. Both were poor in comparison, and in different ways -- your ISP meant you were locked in to your ISP for all features, and while clients like eudora were fairly good for the time (I tended to use Pine), gmail was still superior for normal users. The move to multi-device from the late 00s onwards also changed the email landscape. It was no longer acceptable to simply download your email onto a single desktop computer via pop3 and remove from the server, you wanted access to it from everywhere on any device, your home desktop, your laptop, your work desktop, and eventually your phone, which meant storing mail on the server. Personally yes, I use DDG, OSM or apple maps, pay for an email provider hanging off my own domain which comes with a decent enough webmail client as well as imap integration for phones, but that's not normal. In the 00s I used Pine and fetchmail and squirrelmail on linux, with latex and StarOffice and Phoenix/Firebird (and konqueror at one point) rather than Microsoft and IE and hotmail and office, but that wasn't normal, and it's not really a defence against a claim of a monopoly.
syshum 5y ago
I find it highly ironic that in a thread about subjective evil one talks about granting more power to governments... The only institution on the planet that has granted itself the right to legally steal, plunder, and murder you... I am no fan of Google, but as much as I despise what google has become, I am do not have a rose colored view of the evil that is government to the point here I think that government could be a viable solution to the Google problem
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > The only institution on the planet that has granted itself the right to legally steal, plunder, and murder you... Rights that, legally, only have validity if people want them to. (In theory, in some countries.) In principle, Google is allowed to ignore the will of the people; in principle, the government is not.
  - syshum 5y ago
    None of that is true, in fact it really is opposite. Google has to entice people into voluntary exchange, yes the power is imbalanced but it is possible to remove yourself from google, thousands have. You can not remove yourself from government, if you try they will kill you. Google will not kill you if you stop using their services if I disconnect from my city utilities, if I stop paying taxes, if I grow an unapproved plant, if I do anything the government does not like well men with guns show up... Further this idea that the government is beholden to the will of the people, even in the ever lauded (and seldom understood) "democracy" is provably false, many many studies have been done that prove the will of the people hardly ever changes the will of government so I am not sure what factual factual basis you have to claim that governments must follow the will of the people.
    - skytreader 5y ago
      > many many studies have been done that prove the will of the people hardly ever changes the will of government Studies such as? Citation needed.
blackhaz 5y ago
One of the biggest assaults is Google Classroom. My son goes to a school in London. He was given out a Chromebook. His Chromebook effectively became his backpack. Everything is in there. They do homework there, collaborate, get used to the "G Suite." Paper is citizen number two. He spends a good portion of his day in Google's ecosystem. I thought Microsoft dominance twenty years ago was scary, but this is something on a completely another level. Very smart move on Google's behalf and something we will all have to fight later on when kids grow up.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  It was always a great part of Apple’s playbook, back in the day. Train the kids.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Microsoft did that in the late 90s onwards, technology == MS Office for an entire generation. However the extent of ecosystem in the 80s and 90s is different to the extent today.
    - mumblemumble 5y ago
      In the 90s, if you used ClarisWorks or WordPerfect or whatever, it was no big deal. You weren't collaborating over the Internet, you were submitting printed essays to your teachers, and group essays weren't really a thing. Heck, a good chunk of kids were still exclusively submitting handwritten homework, because only wealthier families had computers at home, and free access to computers was only during study hall, and even then there weren't enough for everyone. In the 2010s, when I was in grad school, the use of GSuite was absolutely obligatory. Professors shared course materials through Google Drive. They expected you to submit your homework the same way. And, in between, on group projects, all the actual work was done in Google Docs because that was how you collaborated - simultaneous editing.
pibechorro 5y ago
Not a monopoly. They are dominant. Start using duckduckgo and other similar sevices. The internet is still a free market. If you continue to use their products you are just whining. Become the change you wish to see in the world.
- iso1210 5y ago
  How do you avoid google classroom when the school demands you use google classroom? This is the same principles as the Microsoft monopoly of the 90s and 00s, and that at least gives me hope
  - aesthesia 5y ago
    Seems like the monopoly here is the school, not Google. There are other platforms than Google Classroom.
  - codingdave 5y ago
    You bring your concerns to your local school board. Google is just a vendor - the district can choose whatever vendors they wish. The problem is that the other vendors aren't all that great. If you really want to take Google down a peg, you need to build better products than they do. Or go offer assistance to their existing competitors.
    - ForHackernews 5y ago
      > If you really want to take Google down a peg, you need to build better products than they do. This is a meme that really needs to die. If something is harmful, we don't have to wait for a "better" alternative to regulate it. Unleaded gasoline was objectively worse at powering cars, and some people at the time even whined about it, but they were wrong. If regulating Google and Facebook means we have to live with marginally clunkier online tools, so be it.
      - codingdave 5y ago
        That isn't a meme, that is truth. I think your real concern is the definition of "better". In your example of gasoline, public health is more important that power, so "better" gas is measured by health. So we are both right - products need to be "better", but at the same time, by all means schedule time with your local boards to explain to them why these concerns mean that other products are "better", even if clunky.

by dtech 5y ago

samizdis 5y ago

I'm having an ironic morning of it. I also posted [1] from The Register a piece about China's antitrust watchdog, which seems to be advocating for policies one can only envy. (What emerges in reality, though, is unlikely to live up to my optimism.) If I were at The Register, I'd look for a way to combine that China news article with the Google opinion piece of this thread. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29064865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29064865

happycube 5y ago
There, if you don't play with the unwritten rules, you get clobbered by the written ones...

iamtheworstdev 5y ago

well, people could have been more willing to pay for email. Google's search engine was top notch for sure. But when we gave them the right to scan our emails we really handed over the keys to the kingdom.

bodge5000 5y ago
I doubt willingness to pay would be a factor. To my knowledge, Gmail (or any other google services) didn't start off paid, bomb, and then they made free but paid for with privacy. I think aside from having 20/20 hindsight to avoid their services and tell others to do the same (which you cant really blame people for not having), I doubt theres much we could do. I guess theres the whole "vote with your wallet" thing, but again, I think that argument is largely made with the benefit of hindsight
- jessaustin 5y ago
  The point was that other email (even with a GUI served over the web) services were available when gmail was introduced, and you did have to pay for many of them. IIRC I was using something called "zworg". I almost regret getting a gmail invite early enough to be able to snag my first and last names with no number, since I am constantly getting all sorts of messages that include surprisingly private information about the various "Jess Austin"s around the world who are getting married, renting "flats", going on vacation, considering cosmetic surgery, etc. I don't know whether these various Ms. Austins have forgotten their email addresses, or perhaps their friends and service providers can't be bothered to use those.
iso1210 5y ago
Before gmail you either had hotmail, or you had your ISP's mail provision. Both were poor in comparison, and in different ways -- your ISP meant you were locked in to your ISP for all features, and while clients like eudora were fairly good for the time (I tended to use Pine), gmail was still superior for normal users. The move to multi-device from the late 00s onwards also changed the email landscape. It was no longer acceptable to simply download your email onto a single desktop computer via pop3 and remove from the server, you wanted access to it from everywhere on any device, your home desktop, your laptop, your work desktop, and eventually your phone, which meant storing mail on the server. Personally yes, I use DDG, OSM or apple maps, pay for an email provider hanging off my own domain which comes with a decent enough webmail client as well as imap integration for phones, but that's not normal. In the 00s I used Pine and fetchmail and squirrelmail on linux, with latex and StarOffice and Phoenix/Firebird (and konqueror at one point) rather than Microsoft and IE and hotmail and office, but that wasn't normal, and it's not really a defence against a claim of a monopoly.

syshum 5y ago

I find it highly ironic that in a thread about subjective evil one talks about granting more power to governments... The only institution on the planet that has granted itself the right to legally steal, plunder, and murder you... I am no fan of Google, but as much as I despise what google has become, I am do not have a rose colored view of the evil that is government to the point here I think that government could be a viable solution to the Google problem

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> The only institution on the planet that has granted itself the right to legally steal, plunder, and murder you... Rights that, legally, only have validity if people want them to. (In theory, in some countries.) In principle, Google is allowed to ignore the will of the people; in principle, the government is not.
- syshum 5y ago
  None of that is true, in fact it really is opposite. Google has to entice people into voluntary exchange, yes the power is imbalanced but it is possible to remove yourself from google, thousands have. You can not remove yourself from government, if you try they will kill you. Google will not kill you if you stop using their services if I disconnect from my city utilities, if I stop paying taxes, if I grow an unapproved plant, if I do anything the government does not like well men with guns show up... Further this idea that the government is beholden to the will of the people, even in the ever lauded (and seldom understood) "democracy" is provably false, many many studies have been done that prove the will of the people hardly ever changes the will of government so I am not sure what factual factual basis you have to claim that governments must follow the will of the people.
  - skytreader 5y ago
    > many many studies have been done that prove the will of the people hardly ever changes the will of government Studies such as? Citation needed.

blackhaz 5y ago

One of the biggest assaults is Google Classroom. My son goes to a school in London. He was given out a Chromebook. His Chromebook effectively became his backpack. Everything is in there. They do homework there, collaborate, get used to the "G Suite." Paper is citizen number two. He spends a good portion of his day in Google's ecosystem. I thought Microsoft dominance twenty years ago was scary, but this is something on a completely another level. Very smart move on Google's behalf and something we will all have to fight later on when kids grow up.

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
It was always a great part of Apple’s playbook, back in the day. Train the kids.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Microsoft did that in the late 90s onwards, technology == MS Office for an entire generation. However the extent of ecosystem in the 80s and 90s is different to the extent today.
  - mumblemumble 5y ago
    In the 90s, if you used ClarisWorks or WordPerfect or whatever, it was no big deal. You weren't collaborating over the Internet, you were submitting printed essays to your teachers, and group essays weren't really a thing. Heck, a good chunk of kids were still exclusively submitting handwritten homework, because only wealthier families had computers at home, and free access to computers was only during study hall, and even then there weren't enough for everyone. In the 2010s, when I was in grad school, the use of GSuite was absolutely obligatory. Professors shared course materials through Google Drive. They expected you to submit your homework the same way. And, in between, on group projects, all the actual work was done in Google Docs because that was how you collaborated - simultaneous editing.

pibechorro 5y ago

Not a monopoly. They are dominant. Start using duckduckgo and other similar sevices. The internet is still a free market. If you continue to use their products you are just whining. Become the change you wish to see in the world.

iso1210 5y ago
How do you avoid google classroom when the school demands you use google classroom? This is the same principles as the Microsoft monopoly of the 90s and 00s, and that at least gives me hope
- aesthesia 5y ago
  Seems like the monopoly here is the school, not Google. There are other platforms than Google Classroom.
- codingdave 5y ago
  You bring your concerns to your local school board. Google is just a vendor - the district can choose whatever vendors they wish. The problem is that the other vendors aren't all that great. If you really want to take Google down a peg, you need to build better products than they do. Or go offer assistance to their existing competitors.
  - ForHackernews 5y ago
    > If you really want to take Google down a peg, you need to build better products than they do. This is a meme that really needs to die. If something is harmful, we don't have to wait for a "better" alternative to regulate it. Unleaded gasoline was objectively worse at powering cars, and some people at the time even whined about it, but they were wrong. If regulating Google and Facebook means we have to live with marginally clunkier online tools, so be it.
    - codingdave 5y ago
      That isn't a meme, that is truth. I think your real concern is the definition of "better". In your example of gasoline, public health is more important that power, so "better" gas is measured by health. So we are both right - products need to be "better", but at the same time, by all means schedule time with your local boards to explain to them why these concerns mean that other products are "better", even if clunky.