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You can certainly hate Google and not support them. I don’t know how you can classify them as “leeches on society”, though. I remember the days before Google,

by dpark 5y ago

You can certainly hate Google and not support them. I don’t know how you can classify them as “leeches on society”, though. I remember the days before Google, when web search was utter garbage, free email providers gave you 10mb of storage and stuck ads on the bottom of every email you sent, map apps were limited to about 400x300 for some inexplicable reason, and Android didn’t even exist. Google very much seems like a net positive historically.

macilacilove 5y ago
I am dpark from 2032. I have absolutely no human rights, and I never need to think about what to buy/watch/read, because Google consolidated all markets. I don't vote anymore because every aspect of life is controlled by G anyway. I have access to a shiny new tech that you don't yet have a name for! Google is still a net positive "historically". everything you think you know about "history" is misinformation. In 2032 Google AI-generates colorful VR videos of the Real Past and boy, I am telling you, we are much better off now! Keep Googling, dpark, 2032
bmitc 5y ago
They were useful once upon a time I think, but those days are long and gone in my opinion. And they are leeches. They are the prime example of making money off of people's data (which is at least one instance of their being parasitic). Maybe back in the day this was acceptable because their search and Gmail benefitted users, but I don't see that anymore. For Gmail, I currently use Gmail because it just happened to be the best e-mail 18 years ago, and it's hard to switch. There's very little about it today that makes it the best. Over the past six years, they've made $755 billion and not a cent paid to people for the use and sell of their data. And all because they provide services like ads above searches and link to shopping websites and Wikipedia, meanwhile selling people's data to whoever? Honestly, it's so hard to use Google as an actual search engine it feels like Google is more like a directory these days. Like, when I have to input a search as: "yes" "i" "really" "want" "to" "search" "these" "terms" something is broken. The only other product of Google that I really use besides their search and Gmail is YouTube, and that's only because it's entrenched. It's pretty adversarial towards, well, everyone except copyright holders.
- dpark 5y ago
  > For Gmail, I currently use Gmail because it just happened to be the best e-mail 18 years ago, and it's hard to switch. There's very little about it today that makes it the best. This really undercuts your message. Google is a leech on society and their products aren’t even good, but you keep using Gmail because it’s kind of a hassle to switch. You could switch to a different email provider and use DuckDuckGo for search. But you don’t. So your principled stance against Google doesn’t even extend to them most obvious examples of not giving them your business. But sure, it’s very believable that the days of their products being good are “long and gone”.
rightbyte 5y ago
Google has turned just 24 years old and is allready a monster since more than a decade. Historical Google was just us being blazed by the promises of the future. They single handedly lead the assault on our online privacy. Not that no others were trying, but they succeeded.
properparity 5y ago
> I remember the days before Google, when web search was utter garbage I remember altavista giving me interesting results from actual personal websites and I could tweak it by being more precise. On google today the top results are pretty much always garbage SEO optimized aggregate nonsense.
- dpark 5y ago
  I remember looking for stuff on page 20 of Altavista results. Although lately Google does seem to be losing the battle with the scammers/spammers, at least for certain classes of queries. The number of garbage results I have to wade through if the answer isn’t in Wikipedia seems to be growing.

by dpark 5y ago

macilacilove 5y ago

I am dpark from 2032. I have absolutely no human rights, and I never need to think about what to buy/watch/read, because Google consolidated all markets. I don't vote anymore because every aspect of life is controlled by G anyway. I have access to a shiny new tech that you don't yet have a name for! Google is still a net positive "historically". everything you think you know about "history" is misinformation. In 2032 Google AI-generates colorful VR videos of the Real Past and boy, I am telling you, we are much better off now! Keep Googling, dpark, 2032

bmitc 5y ago

They were useful once upon a time I think, but those days are long and gone in my opinion. And they are leeches. They are the prime example of making money off of people's data (which is at least one instance of their being parasitic). Maybe back in the day this was acceptable because their search and Gmail benefitted users, but I don't see that anymore. For Gmail, I currently use Gmail because it just happened to be the best e-mail 18 years ago, and it's hard to switch. There's very little about it today that makes it the best. Over the past six years, they've made $755 billion and not a cent paid to people for the use and sell of their data. And all because they provide services like ads above searches and link to shopping websites and Wikipedia, meanwhile selling people's data to whoever? Honestly, it's so hard to use Google as an actual search engine it feels like Google is more like a directory these days. Like, when I have to input a search as: "yes" "i" "really" "want" "to" "search" "these" "terms" something is broken. The only other product of Google that I really use besides their search and Gmail is YouTube, and that's only because it's entrenched. It's pretty adversarial towards, well, everyone except copyright holders.

dpark 5y ago
> For Gmail, I currently use Gmail because it just happened to be the best e-mail 18 years ago, and it's hard to switch. There's very little about it today that makes it the best. This really undercuts your message. Google is a leech on society and their products aren’t even good, but you keep using Gmail because it’s kind of a hassle to switch. You could switch to a different email provider and use DuckDuckGo for search. But you don’t. So your principled stance against Google doesn’t even extend to them most obvious examples of not giving them your business. But sure, it’s very believable that the days of their products being good are “long and gone”.

rightbyte 5y ago

Google has turned just 24 years old and is allready a monster since more than a decade. Historical Google was just us being blazed by the promises of the future. They single handedly lead the assault on our online privacy. Not that no others were trying, but they succeeded.

properparity 5y ago

> I remember the days before Google, when web search was utter garbage I remember altavista giving me interesting results from actual personal websites and I could tweak it by being more precise. On google today the top results are pretty much always garbage SEO optimized aggregate nonsense.

dpark 5y ago
I remember looking for stuff on page 20 of Altavista results. Although lately Google does seem to be losing the battle with the scammers/spammers, at least for certain classes of queries. The number of garbage results I have to wade through if the answer isn’t in Wikipedia seems to be growing.