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Google's 25th Birthday
- reidjs 3y agoGoogle search was great back in the day! It’s a shame what it’s become, but nothing lasts forever.
- jldugger 3y ago"Die a hero or live long enough to become the villian"
- morkalork 3y agoAnd how far they've strayed from the beginning. Don't be evil. Won't show ads inline with search results that look like organic links. Constant product churn, search results inundated by click farms, and one can't leave out WEI...
- benatkin 3y agoFunny how they introduced WEI using an unknown dev in the UK. It seems dirty. Like something that wouldn't be ethical to have a person do, even if that person agreed to do it. They still haven't gone and officially claimed it, months later it's under the developer with a rubber duck for an avatar and 26 followers on GitHub.
- skinkestek 3y agoWhat am I missing out on here?
- jjoonathan 3y agoThey knew it was inevitable. > The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. - Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
- fractalb 3y agoYou're only counting the negatives. Even with all those negatives, Google has a net positive effect on the web/Internet, IMO.
- Gud 3y agoIt had. Now thanks to google, the web is filled with SEO crap. Thank god for Kagi
- benatkin 3y agoHmm, I guess it's nothing to celebrate, what with all the attacks on privacy and the open web they've been doing.
- sidcool 3y agoLove them or hate them, their impact on the internet and the world is unparalleled - Both positive and negative impact, but mostly positive.
- skinkestek 3y ago> but mostly positive. For now. But I see they are working extremely hard to change that.
- bluSCALE4 3y agoI'd argue we're past the tipping point and moved into negative territory.
- inasio 3y agoPositive impact: Google maps The amount of people that were empowered to explore and discover (or time saved from getting lost) is incredible by any measure
- jazzyjackson 3y agoIt's not as if Google invented the idea of a website the plots directions. Sure their product was better than all the rest, especially once they started purchasing satellite imagery, but Bing and Nokia Here were not that far behind, not to mention the traditional GPS players. I'm not trying to be negative, just don't see where the praise is coming from, it's a crowded market.
- paxys 3y agoPeople used to pay hundreds of dollars for GPS units and hundreds more for annual maps updates before Google entered the picture. There may be alternatives now, but Google Maps absolutely revolutionized the space when it showed up and brought online maps/GPS to regular consumers for the first time.
- 3y ago
- sidcool 3y agoI fell in love with Google when I used their first Gmail beta version (Google search was the beginning of the affair). It was a fresh new outlook (pun?) to how email should be. And Google wave was a jaw dropper for me. It did not succeed but the tech was solid for its time. Eric Schmidt did an absolutely wonderful job. Then came Chrome and Android and YouTube. Their knack of creating/acquiring the best products and making them world class peaked in 2013 I feel. When Larry took over, I was overjoyed since he is the quintessential nerd. But alas it was Elon Musk and not Larry Page. The Google Glass demo was stellar too but again failed to commercialize. Their early thoughts on high altitude internet balloons and self driving cards enthralled the crap out of me. I always wanted to work with Google. I hope it returns to "Don't be Evil" mantra and create/acquire some world class products again.
- oxw 3y agoI’m surprised the first result today for “how to cut a pineapple” isn’t an SEO optimized recipe with a wall of nonsense to scroll past before the actual instructions How much tuning did Google need to do for that?
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoI'll always remember waking up in the morning to the sound of my grandmother cutting pineapples...
- pcurve 3y agoCoincidentally, You Suck at Cooking put out a video on cutting pineapple couple weeks ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd0hwou8kSA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd0hwou8kSA
- yurimoreno 3y agoNo need. Back in the days, as you can see in the video, you just needed a couple of sentences and a few images. Interesting to see the big adsense block present on the page and the example being an exact match domain, which is clearly an MFA (Made for Adsense) website.
- artursapek 3y agoHey Google uh, can you melt an egg? heheh
- dforrestwilson 3y ago[flagged]
- vernal 3y agoThere is an anti-trust trial against Google going on at the moment.
- dforrestwilson 3y agoI did not realize this thank you!
- mattnewton 3y agoIt’s apparently the DOJ’s turn to call Google a monopoly, the case they filed in 2020 is finally going to trial, and it’s all over the news. The FTC itself sues google every few years, last two were in 2019 and 2022 so give it a few more years.
- AlbertCory 3y agoActually, "all over the news" is what it's NOT. Just yesterday there was a story about how Judge Mehta caved to G's desire to keep everything secret. Consequently, the journalists have nothing to write.
- mattnewton 3y agoI see multiple new articles a day on this. Even covering what can be covered is news haha https://gizmodo.com/judge-says-google-cant-keep-hiding-docs-antitrust-1850877990 https://gizmodo.com/judge-says-google-cant-keep-hiding-docs-...
- AlbertCory 3y agoTrue, but the counterfactual is "how much news would you see if the whole thing was public?"
- natch 3y agoAnd they still mark their own email as spam and even phishing after 25 years. They should get some kind of an award.
- justgaurav 3y agoGoogle has been a constant part of my life from early 2000's and I'm grateful to them for providing so many useful products. Most of them were awesome and worked fully without annoying ads or subscriptions. They will come with something new (usually unannounced) and I will be so excited to try it. Technically, they would almost work from day one. Needless to say, I was a Google fanboi during the first decade of the company. Google Search, GMail, Maps, News, Android, Chrome... thanks Google for all these great products. For a commercial company, they had high ethical standards and still seem better than most competition. Thank you Google, you've made a dent in the universe!
- bamboozled 3y ago[flagged]
- pixxel 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lolinder 3y agoI came here expecting to see this thread completely filled with the usual Google hate and was pleasantly surprised to find this here instead. Thank you! I'm fully in agreement with most here that the modern Google is a danger to the internet, but it's pleasant to be reminded that this wasn't always the case. It's a bittersweet anniversary, so let's take the sweet with the bitter.
- jjoonathan 3y agoHere's to the days when ad results had yellow backgrounds!
- benatkin 3y agoI was thinking it was bitter, but you reminded me that there is something sweet about it, it brings us closer to the end of Google. In fact this makes me wonder if it could be half over. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1259275/average-company-lifespan/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1259275/average-company-...
- wetpaws 3y ago[dead]
- noduerme 3y agoThey destroyed the internet, with blessings for simplifying it, and then they cannibalized their own services for short term profit. To paraphrase what the DOJ just said in their opening statement, the Google you're talking about is long gone.
- eddythompson80 3y agoThe minute a competitor appeared to challenge them, they threw all their initial goodwill away. It’s very unfortunate, so yeah. Thanks for destroying the internet Google.
- hotnfresh 3y agoThe google that deserved much praise has been dead since not long after the DoubleClick acquisition. They’ve been DoubleClick/Google since. Ordering intentional. That means they’ve been evil or rushing as fast as they can toward evil since… 2008. Google died at about 10 years old.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoI think I’ve seen someone here comment something similar before but I don’t know the back story. Did DS management infiltrate Google after the acquisition or something? I have never heard of anything like that. Would you mind filling me in?
- skinkestek 3y agoIncentives and opportunities I guess? What is the good of owning the leading ad and tracking network if you don't use it? And besides think of all the good things one can do for the world with so much money... Only, like Mozilla they sold out the one thing they could do that no one else could (providing a free, independent browser in Mozillas case, having access to everyones thoughts without abusing it in Googles case).
- noduerme 3y ago
- bastardoperator 3y agoEh...
- nonrandomstring 3y agoI honestly think the world is a poorer place for having had a single US company dominate so many areas of digital technology for so long. I hope that in another 25 years giants like Google, Microsoft, Apple and so on are just small players in a globally inter-operable, open and diverse technological world.
- Arainach 3y agoThere has never been such a world, in any industry. Capitalism abhors competition. Absent strong government regulation monopolies are inevitable. I would argue that a strong unified platform (Windows, the web, whatever) is good for user and developer experience.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago> There has never been such a world, Book publishing. Fine art. Music. Poetry. Travel and tourism. Food.... need I go on? > Capitalism abhors competition "One of the foundational blocks of capitalism is competition." [0] > I would argue that a strong unified platform ... the web, whatever) is good for user and developer "The Web" was [1] a standard, not a company or "platform". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism [1] I say "was", because companies like Google practically destroyed it, leading the creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee to tragically denounce the Web as having "failed humanity". (I disagree the Web did not fail humanity, greedy companies did.)
- Arainach 3y ago>Book publishing. Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan combine for 77-91% of the market: https://www.statista.com/topics/9280/book-publishing/#topicOverview https://www.statista.com/topics/9280/book-publishing/#topicO... >Fine art. This isn't an industry, just a tax evasion scheme for rich people >Music. 3 players control 70% of recording: https://musically.com/2023/04/26/music-copyright-publishes-its-market-share-analysis-for-2022/ https://musically.com/2023/04/26/music-copyright-publishes-i... >Poetry. Not an industry, never has been >Travel and tourism. Airlines consolidate and consolidate, rail is nationalized, taxis have been cannibalized by Lyft/Uber - what's your argument here? >Food.... https://www.good.is/Business/food-brands-owners-rp https://www.good.is/Business/food-brands-owners-rp
- exodust 3y ago> "That search returned 10 blue links, but no green dress." Such a heart-warming story about Google wanting the green dress for itself, scraping a copy so the destination site didn't get the web traffic.
- jerrygoyal 3y agoI just got an email that they killed Google Podcasts app. Birthday surprise for us!
- gundmc 3y agoWell, back to Podcast Addict I go, I suppose. I liked the clean, minimal interface of Google Podcasts and have no interest in a bloated music service app like YTM.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoNot killed just moving it all to YouTube music. Shrug. Lots of discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37659482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37659482
- jrflowers 3y agoIf I were Google I would celebrate by renting a car. It’s crazy to think that in ten years they’ll be old enough to run for president of the United States.
- greatpostman 3y agoWish that company would just fail already. Thank god openai is dominating the next chapter in technology
- Mistletoe 3y agoI’m afraid this is like being happy Saruman is being replaced by Sauron. If you were making a joke I applaud you and apologize for my whoosh.
- raister 3y agoI miss iGoogle............. :'(
- callalex 3y agoThat was always a ripoff of Konfabulator widgets. The Widget paradigm of computing once again reigns supreme with deep first party support in Android launchers, iOS home and lock screens, and macOS support in the desktop and in overlays.
- hiddencost 3y agoI mourn the death of what I thought they could be. These feel like epitaphs, to me: "We're not a conventional company and we don't intend to become one." "Do know evil."
- melagonster 3y agoat least thanks for google offer google drive to me:)
- welfareleech 3y agoIt's difficult for me to celebrate what this company has become.
- p0w3n3d 3y agoI remember using Google Chrome as a way to fight the Microsoft's IE monopoly. Now I'm using Firefox for similar reasons
- walteweiss 3y agoI used Opera back then. It was the best browser in so many ways. Sad it’s long gone (sold to China).
- elcritch 3y agoI hope someone makes a spoof animation / video that shows a timeline of the descent from “do no evil” to “evil” and showing how search used to be great up just an SEO optimized wall of ads. I still have fond memories of being in high school and a librarian showing me this “Google page”. Back when it seemed like SV tech would be an enlightened realm for the betterment of humanity.
- 1970-01-01 3y agoHow many more years before search, the undisputed King of the Web, is dethroned? You can sense the end coming. Verbatim search stopped working years ago. AI returns false info in big bold font. Billions and trillions of results are only 9 or 10 pages deep, and then the links abruptly stop. Ads everywhere, but nothing has ever been remotely worth my click. I hope their downfall comes soon. Watching it slowly descend into an abyss of garbage is saddening.
- invertigo 3y agoGet lost with this congratulatory BS. Google has been a monopoly, a force for evil, an advertising protection racket that the mob would envy, for longer than many of our children can remember. We’ll all be better off when Google is no longer around, and when new companies can take its place.
- tgma 3y agoObviously denting the universe at such scale comes with upsides and downsides. Aside from the impact they've had product wise, it's important to highlight the contribution they have made by shaping the culture of Silicon Valley technically, socially, and economically and second and third order effects of that (e.g. folks find their partners and have kids at Google :). I myself am a beneficiary and thankful for that.
- surfingdino 3y agoMany good memories. I am old enough to remember how bad search was before Google and when Google was one of the alternative search engines on Yahoo!
- usr1106 3y agoGoogle has taken away parts of our freedom. Today you have to make a choice: Do I want to pay a premium to lock myself into the Apple walled garden or do I want to prostitute all of my privacy to Google. Choosing a 3rd way comes with severe limitations in your daily life.
- matthewfelgate 3y agoHas Google had any good new products in the last decade?
- glimshe 3y agoWhat an incredible change in just 25 years: from the darling of the tech world with a ton of goodwill to just another big US corporation spreading spyware around the world. I miss old Google.
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- ptnarvaez 3y agoGoogle i want to celebrate every year with you the shift and fullfillment that my life finally have taken in action with trough You and your Team Make My today my crossover to a life of pourpose and abundance partnering and sharing todays date of Celebration forever i want to give you as a gift the priviledge of being the hand who believed in me as much as i believed in you and Make my dream NOW A Reality You Daugther in Spirit,Flesh and Bone i said EXPLODE MY PAYDAY GOOGLE HAPPY 25TH ANIVERSARY !!.