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So you don't at all address whether the problem is hard, and instead deflect completely. The wifi thing is just a silly example. The wifi is required to do fas

So you don't at all address whether the problem is hard, and instead deflect completely. The wifi thing is just a silly example. The wifi is required to do fast start GPS. 99.99999999% of their users probably don't want slow start GPS. If you do, sure, it's no longer the app for you. Yes, they are optimizing for the customers they want and giving them a good experience . I'm not sure exactly how this is something abnormal. Like, you are basically complaining they won't add knobs for you. That's pretty standard in good products - but also means if the knobs they aren't what you want, it's not a good fit for you. I got the email in the latter, and that is a super weird take. They had one control for literally everything, which was owned by admins. They almost certainly got complaints that turning it off it made search suggestions not work in sheets/docs/etc. So they introduced a new separate control for that, and made it controllable by the user. Because it's controllable by the user, it also means the admin can't see the doc search history of the user, only the user can. Nor can they delete your history for you - only you can control it. Your auto-delete preferences, etc apply to it. None of this seems bad or horrible to me. The only thing even worth picking a bone about is whether the new setting should take it's default from the old setting or not. There are issues in there of course, because as mentioned, before admins could turn it on/off for everyone - and this led to lots of complaints. do you take the admin setting? Do you take the setting the user had if it hadn't been overridden by the admin? etc The claim, in that story, i that it is forced on by default even if you had it off. This claim is wrong, afaict. It was not worth wading into that clear firestorm of a thread. The support doc clearly says: "If you disabled Web & App Activity in the Admin console, it is turned off for Google Workspace users. Users can turn it on if they want." IE if the admin had it disabled, it will be turned off. It also says if you had it disabled yourself, it will default to off. It goes through this quite clearly if you click "what if i had it disabled" and "what happens if i don't do anything". Overall presenting this as "re-enable tracking that was manually/intentionally disabled by users" is a real stretch.

pdonis 5y ago
> The wifi is required to do fast start GPS No, it isn't. A cell phone connection is sufficient for that.
- DannyBee 5y ago
  This seems very pedantic, and doesn't change what i said at all. I'm happy to change it to "wifi helps with a bunch of features they have". AGPS is not even the only one. Wifi scanning is happening in the phone anyway to know when to switch networks, etc, so they are saving power when it is used instead of cell phone.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Not when I've turned off the WiFi to conserve battery while out and about not anywhere near wifi signals. Unfortunately, because I've decided to use Bluetooth earbuds, I now leave the bluetooth radio on as well. Until then, that was kept off specifically to avoid bluetooth tracking. GPS is just fine for Garmin, TomToms, etc. Why suddenly for a phone that has WiFi in them Maps suddenly "requires" wifi is just not convincing me of anything other than Googs wants all the data.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > doesn't change what i said at all Yes, it does. See below. > I'm happy to change it to "wifi helps with a bunch of features they have". This does change what you said, because "a bunch of features they have" is not at all the same as "GPS, a feature which pretty much everybody wants to use and wants to start fast". > Wifi scanning is happening in the phone anyway to know when to switch networks, etc Not if wifi is turned off. If I'm in my car, for example, I might well turn wifi off to prevent the phone from wasting power scanning for wifi networks that aren't there. But I'm still going to have my cell phone connection on. > they are saving power when it is used instead of cell phone. Nonsense. See above. Plus, the cell phone antenna is always scanning too, but on a phone it is far less likely to be turned off to prevent that than wifi is. What I really can't understand is how any of this is connected to your (correct) claim that search is hard and content curation is hard and so we shouldn't expect Google, or anyone else, to just magically solve it. Google could easily serve the needs of users much better than it does, even if it can't do it perfectly. But it won't because it's not in the business of serving user needs, it's in the business of serving advertiser needs, and serving users is just a by-product. If Google really wants to solve the problems of users, instead of advertisers, it should have users pay them instead of advertisers. But of course it won't since it has spent more than two decades now getting users used to the idea that search and other "hard" services should magically appear for free, and hoping those users won't notice that they are actually the product, not the customer.
dylan604 5y ago
>So you don't at all address whether the problem is hard, and instead deflect completely. That's right, because I wasn't attempting to address that. Instead, I was addressing that the cynicism towards Googs is not unjustified.
- DannyBee 5y ago
  Except both the comments you reply to are talking about a specific problem and context. If you are saying that you are just claiming "in general, cynicism is warranted", that seems like a generalized opinion that doesn't really add anything interesting to anything. It'd be much more interesting if you would engage with the actual conversation being had.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I did. The conversation stated that the cynicism was not warranted. Just because you brought it up, but now don't want to talk about doesn't mean it wasn't part of the conversation. I did not just randomly reply to a comment with spambot level lack of context.
    - DannyBee 5y ago
      It definitely feels like you did, though you don't seem to believe it. FWIW - There is literally no claim anywhere that the cynicism was unwarranted. Only that it was typical of HN. So like you are making up a strawman and then beating it up, while everyone else is having a conversation about a different thing. I'm simply inviting you to contribute to the latter rathr than the former.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        I have posted in other comments about this subject, and have kept the two topics separate. You seem to be the one unable to handle that people have different views from yours. Not sure why/how you are unable to realize this. Continue the tone deaf hurrahing for the Googs if you must, but it is quite tiresome.
b112 5y ago
The wifi is required to do fast start GPS. This is 100% factually untrue. AGPS data is downloaded via the net, giving a quick bootstrap. This statement of your is just used to deflect the truth ; Google wants more, moar, more, always more.
andrepd 5y ago
1-99.99999999% of people on earth is 0.8 of a person. Forgive me if I don't buy into your thesis. Seeing as the vast majority of people don't even understand the implications and extent of always-on pervasive ubiquitous tracking and surveillance, an honest metric would be: what percentage of tech-literate people don't want to be forced to have wifi-tracking enabled to access a feature which doesn't need wifi-tracking. As you can see from this forum, that percentage is quite high.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I think we saw a glimpse into this kind of response with how FB was affected by the recent changes made by Apple.

pdonis 5y ago

> The wifi is required to do fast start GPS No, it isn't. A cell phone connection is sufficient for that.

DannyBee 5y ago
This seems very pedantic, and doesn't change what i said at all. I'm happy to change it to "wifi helps with a bunch of features they have". AGPS is not even the only one. Wifi scanning is happening in the phone anyway to know when to switch networks, etc, so they are saving power when it is used instead of cell phone.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Not when I've turned off the WiFi to conserve battery while out and about not anywhere near wifi signals. Unfortunately, because I've decided to use Bluetooth earbuds, I now leave the bluetooth radio on as well. Until then, that was kept off specifically to avoid bluetooth tracking. GPS is just fine for Garmin, TomToms, etc. Why suddenly for a phone that has WiFi in them Maps suddenly "requires" wifi is just not convincing me of anything other than Googs wants all the data.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > doesn't change what i said at all Yes, it does. See below. > I'm happy to change it to "wifi helps with a bunch of features they have". This does change what you said, because "a bunch of features they have" is not at all the same as "GPS, a feature which pretty much everybody wants to use and wants to start fast". > Wifi scanning is happening in the phone anyway to know when to switch networks, etc Not if wifi is turned off. If I'm in my car, for example, I might well turn wifi off to prevent the phone from wasting power scanning for wifi networks that aren't there. But I'm still going to have my cell phone connection on. > they are saving power when it is used instead of cell phone. Nonsense. See above. Plus, the cell phone antenna is always scanning too, but on a phone it is far less likely to be turned off to prevent that than wifi is. What I really can't understand is how any of this is connected to your (correct) claim that search is hard and content curation is hard and so we shouldn't expect Google, or anyone else, to just magically solve it. Google could easily serve the needs of users much better than it does, even if it can't do it perfectly. But it won't because it's not in the business of serving user needs, it's in the business of serving advertiser needs, and serving users is just a by-product. If Google really wants to solve the problems of users, instead of advertisers, it should have users pay them instead of advertisers. But of course it won't since it has spent more than two decades now getting users used to the idea that search and other "hard" services should magically appear for free, and hoping those users won't notice that they are actually the product, not the customer.

dylan604 5y ago

>So you don't at all address whether the problem is hard, and instead deflect completely. That's right, because I wasn't attempting to address that. Instead, I was addressing that the cynicism towards Googs is not unjustified.

DannyBee 5y ago
Except both the comments you reply to are talking about a specific problem and context. If you are saying that you are just claiming "in general, cynicism is warranted", that seems like a generalized opinion that doesn't really add anything interesting to anything. It'd be much more interesting if you would engage with the actual conversation being had.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I did. The conversation stated that the cynicism was not warranted. Just because you brought it up, but now don't want to talk about doesn't mean it wasn't part of the conversation. I did not just randomly reply to a comment with spambot level lack of context.
  - DannyBee 5y ago
    It definitely feels like you did, though you don't seem to believe it. FWIW - There is literally no claim anywhere that the cynicism was unwarranted. Only that it was typical of HN. So like you are making up a strawman and then beating it up, while everyone else is having a conversation about a different thing. I'm simply inviting you to contribute to the latter rathr than the former.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      I have posted in other comments about this subject, and have kept the two topics separate. You seem to be the one unable to handle that people have different views from yours. Not sure why/how you are unable to realize this. Continue the tone deaf hurrahing for the Googs if you must, but it is quite tiresome.

b112 5y ago

The wifi is required to do fast start GPS. This is 100% factually untrue. AGPS data is downloaded via the net, giving a quick bootstrap. This statement of your is just used to deflect the truth ; Google wants more, moar, more, always more.

andrepd 5y ago

1-99.99999999% of people on earth is 0.8 of a person. Forgive me if I don't buy into your thesis. Seeing as the vast majority of people don't even understand the implications and extent of always-on pervasive ubiquitous tracking and surveillance, an honest metric would be: what percentage of tech-literate people don't want to be forced to have wifi-tracking enabled to access a feature which doesn't need wifi-tracking. As you can see from this forum, that percentage is quite high.

dylan604 5y ago
I think we saw a glimpse into this kind of response with how FB was affected by the recent changes made by Apple.