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"vote with your wallet" is a useless aphorism when it comes to implementing systemic change. In order to stop Google from abusing its dominance, billions of peo

"vote with your wallet" is a useless aphorism when it comes to implementing systemic change. In order to stop Google from abusing its dominance, billions of people would have to simultaneously choose not to use the best (?) and most popular set of products. Free market activism doesn't work for consumers.

automatic6131 5y ago
"implementing systemic change" is a useless aphorism when it amounts to "I want someone else to do all the work for me at no inconvenience to myself". Everyone, but everyone, who cries out for "systemic change" either is using it for cover to give themselves total control, else demand someone does it on their behalf.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  So what's your approach to getting Google to stop doing anti competitive things? Presumably you have a plan for getting enough individual people to boycott Google that they have to change their behaviour. Personally I think that laws are useful for constraining bad behaviour, both for people and companies.
  - Tokelin 5y ago
    I try to start from the bottom up. I'm "fortunate" to live in a country where we have a saying - The country doesn't have a mafia, rather the mafia has a country. So I'm pretty used to hearing "we need systemic change, individual action is meaningless". But I just keep telling myself to be the change I want to see and - honestly - I see results. I'm not saying I have changed anything, but the situation feels a bit better. And when it comes to democracy the elected officials are a direct representation of the peoples of the country.
Tokelin 5y ago
To quote a meme... "por que no los dos?" I have been using DuckDuckGo since I don't even remember how long now - pretty much immediately after I heard of it - what made the "switch" easy was the ability to search google (and a slew of other search engines and websites) from the ddg interface using the bang notation. So I have been mainly using ddg the past few years, but when I'm "sure" I would get more relevant results from Google I just add !g to the query and go look there. I agree it's not ideal - and this is pretty much just a ddg "ad" - but it's a start. The beauty of free software (free as in beer) is that you can just use it all. Yes - again - not ideal, but it's a start.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  The problem is that me switching away from Google products isn't going to change their behaviour at all, and I'm disincentivised from doing so because on an individual level, the benefits to using Google products outweighs the cost I bear from their actions. And even if I decide to bear thr cost of switching away as a largely symbolic act of protest, it doesn't change Google's behaviour at all. Problems at a societal or institutional level require solutions at the same level. There are things you can do individually (contrary to the parent's claim) to achieve systemic change but they're things like helping Google employees to strike or unionise, or building a movement around advocating for the breakup of Google. These are individual actions with the intent of building collective action.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    But you really can switch to firefox and DDG today. Firefox works perfectly well if you don't get wound up about silly details (mostly silly details that have been amplified by the internet which has told you to care about them, perhaps by Google astroturfing PR?) and you can DDG for 90-95% of your searches and fall back to google when it isn't doing well. Once you get over the initial few weeks of the learning curve there's very little cost to it.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      it's a bit more involved than that for me (I use Google search, chrome, gmail, calendar, android + play store, sheets, analytics, etc) but yeah I totally can switch. The problem is that that doesn't accomplish what I want, which is for Google to stop doing evil things.
    - Tokelin 5y ago
      Ironically the whole GDPR mess made it easier for me to use ddg first. I just don't have cookies, so every time I use google I'm greeted with that amazing consent form, so I just stick to ddg unless it's really necessary.
  - hellojesus 5y ago

automatic6131 5y ago

"implementing systemic change" is a useless aphorism when it amounts to "I want someone else to do all the work for me at no inconvenience to myself". Everyone, but everyone, who cries out for "systemic change" either is using it for cover to give themselves total control, else demand someone does it on their behalf.

beaconstudios 5y ago
So what's your approach to getting Google to stop doing anti competitive things? Presumably you have a plan for getting enough individual people to boycott Google that they have to change their behaviour. Personally I think that laws are useful for constraining bad behaviour, both for people and companies.
- Tokelin 5y ago
  I try to start from the bottom up. I'm "fortunate" to live in a country where we have a saying - The country doesn't have a mafia, rather the mafia has a country. So I'm pretty used to hearing "we need systemic change, individual action is meaningless". But I just keep telling myself to be the change I want to see and - honestly - I see results. I'm not saying I have changed anything, but the situation feels a bit better. And when it comes to democracy the elected officials are a direct representation of the peoples of the country.

Tokelin 5y ago

To quote a meme... "por que no los dos?" I have been using DuckDuckGo since I don't even remember how long now - pretty much immediately after I heard of it - what made the "switch" easy was the ability to search google (and a slew of other search engines and websites) from the ddg interface using the bang notation. So I have been mainly using ddg the past few years, but when I'm "sure" I would get more relevant results from Google I just add !g to the query and go look there. I agree it's not ideal - and this is pretty much just a ddg "ad" - but it's a start. The beauty of free software (free as in beer) is that you can just use it all. Yes - again - not ideal, but it's a start.

beaconstudios 5y ago
The problem is that me switching away from Google products isn't going to change their behaviour at all, and I'm disincentivised from doing so because on an individual level, the benefits to using Google products outweighs the cost I bear from their actions. And even if I decide to bear thr cost of switching away as a largely symbolic act of protest, it doesn't change Google's behaviour at all. Problems at a societal or institutional level require solutions at the same level. There are things you can do individually (contrary to the parent's claim) to achieve systemic change but they're things like helping Google employees to strike or unionise, or building a movement around advocating for the breakup of Google. These are individual actions with the intent of building collective action.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  But you really can switch to firefox and DDG today. Firefox works perfectly well if you don't get wound up about silly details (mostly silly details that have been amplified by the internet which has told you to care about them, perhaps by Google astroturfing PR?) and you can DDG for 90-95% of your searches and fall back to google when it isn't doing well. Once you get over the initial few weeks of the learning curve there's very little cost to it.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    it's a bit more involved than that for me (I use Google search, chrome, gmail, calendar, android + play store, sheets, analytics, etc) but yeah I totally can switch. The problem is that that doesn't accomplish what I want, which is for Google to stop doing evil things.
  - Tokelin 5y ago
    Ironically the whole GDPR mess made it easier for me to use ddg first. I just don't have cookies, so every time I use google I'm greeted with that amazing consent form, so I just stick to ddg unless it's really necessary.
- hellojesus 5y ago