5 ms·

I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host t

by roenxi 2y ago

I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly. There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may freeloaders resisting the ads then Google won't host the videos, and on the path to that the freeloaders are really just leeching off a system in an entitled way (unless their goal is to destroy YouTube in which case good on them for consistency and for picking a worthy target). If people aren't going to be polite and accept that contract then fine, enforcement was always by an honour system. But strategically if Google's social contract doesn't work for someone then they shouldn't use YouTube - they'd just be feeding the beast. They should go make PeerTube work or investigate the long list of alternative video platforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_video_platforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_video_platforms .

akkartik 2y ago
I had a lot more sympathy for this argument a few years ago, but lately Google does enough short-term thinking all by itself that it seems fine to just take what you can get for as long as it does something that happens to be useful to you, amidst all the stuff it does that is useful only to itself. Just be prepared for the good times to end at any moment.
Vampiero 2y ago
Hey, you want a monopoly on information while at the same time operating the largest ad network in the world? Then don't complain if people block your stupid ads and count yourself lucky that the government didn't split your megacorp into several tiny companies The only morally wrong thing here is NOT blocking Google's ads
- stavros 2y ago
  Why doesn't the government split the megacorp into several tiny companies? All this collusion between these otherwise unrelated companies is only good for Google.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    People always say this but what is the practical way this would come into effect? Unless the intention is to simply kill either YouTube or Google, or both, how do you separate out YouTube in a way that is meaningfully "breaking up" with Google but that the separate entity could afford?
    - miah_ 2y ago
      There already was a time when Youtube was its own company. Google bought it. Maybe they didn't do great on their own but it was also ~2005 and things are very different now.
      - jeffbee 2y ago
        Yes but before Google bought it, it was a money incinerator.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    Because breaking companies up seems to be more theatre and less useful outcomes. People call for it freely and usually don't have a theory of how it will actually help. And nobody seems to bring up evidence from past corporate breakups beyond "we did it ergo it was good" (which is suspicious logic). On paper it looks something like a choice between one company with one shareholder or two companies with ... the same shareholder. It isn't clear what has really changed; the company was only ever a legal fiction anyway. If there were incentives to collude then they haven't gone away.
toastercat 2y ago
Exactly. But I would like to take it a step further -- anytime you visit a page anywhere on the internet, there is an unwritten social contract that you will not block ads or trackers. For this reason, adblock in itself is unethical and basically equivalent to piracy. Additionally, actors like Mozilla who build tracker-blocking tech into their browsers should be held accountable for encouraging this disgusting behavior. Don't like the ads? Don't visit the site then. Simple as that.
- Vampiero 2y ago
  That argument MAYBE worked 25 years ago when ads genuinely paid for hosting costs and nothing else. But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will. So who's really being unethical here? The amoral ***** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect their privacy from being raped?
  - toastercat 2y ago
    > But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will. > So who's really being unethical here? The amoral *** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect themselves? No one is forcing you to visit sites with "malware", you are equally as free to visit an alternative site that doesn't have ads or trackers. And call it what you will, that "malware" is essential for the web as we know it to survive. How else will Google be able to maintain the monopoly on video hosting if they can't harvest and profit off the data off freeloading users? Also, for YouTube there is a simple solution: it's called YouTube Premium. You see no ads and you get great perks to boot. And Google promises to respect your privacy so long as you use YouTube Premium.
    - Gualdrapo 2y ago
      > Also, for YouTube there is a simple solution: it's called YouTube Premium. You see no ads I mean, only a Google search will reveal there's people still getting ads despite using YouTube Premium.
fsckboy 2y ago
>this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly it's not ugly at all: parasites deserve their place in the ecosystem right alongside carnivores. What I don't like is people like this who broadcast and evangelize as if google will allow it to keep happening. I'd rather it survived longer hiding under the radar. "hey everybody I discovered a secret hack to get a free donut with your coffee!!!"... how about just keep doing it yourself, donuts for life?
- c22 2y ago
  That definitely seems like the least ethical response to finding a free donut loophole? Unless it's not a loophole at all, but just a marketing tactic deployed by the coffeemaker.
  - ddtaylor 2y ago
    Full donut disclosure.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    you are responding to a comment that started by justifying parasitism. To make an effective counter argument along the lines you've chosen, you need to address that part of the comment and explain why parasites in nature don't "deserve" to exist, or at least show that they are also unethical. That is/ought to be something easy to prove, right?
    - c22 2y ago
      Responding to a comment does not imply that one disagrees with the entirety or any part of said comment and does not necessitate crafting an effective counter argument. In fact, I am not making an argument as to parasitism, parasites, or their right to exist at all. The closest thing I am making to an argument is that, as a human, if you find what you believe to be a bug in a system and you choose to exploit the bug repeatedly for your own gain while keeping it a secret to yourself, this is, in fact, the least ethical choice you, as a human, can make. (More ethical choices include: not telling anyone but walking away and never exploiting the bug again, telling the system maintainers about the bug confidentially, exposing the bug publicly, etc...) And I guess, in some way, my response is implying that wanting other humans to make the least ethical choice in these sorts of situations and displaying animosity towards those who make a more ethical choice is a little bit strange.
amelius 2y ago
Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Sounds like they can't really complain if someone took that information and made it universally accessible :)
- roenxi 2y ago
  That level of analysis is on par with arguing for robbing someone's house because they believe that social welfare is a good idea. To influence the world in a positive way (for yourself or others) it is necessary to look a little deeper into how to make situations sustainable.
  - yazzku 2y ago
    "sustainable" while making the board $20bn quarterly profit, of course.
movedx 2y ago
As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: just charge me a fee to host my videos. I'd pay $100/month, possibly more, to run a YouTube channel without. Why is running ads the _only_ choice? Why can't a creator opt to pay to host videos on their channel with limitations? $10/month? That's 30 videos in HD max. $100? 300 videos in 4K... etc. ... or whatever. As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: I use Freetube. Please use it until abusive adverts and practices aren't a thing anymore.
- rafaelmn 2y ago
  If you're just using YouTube for hosting - there's other ways to pay for that, Vimeo comes to mind.
  - stavros 2y ago
    What about if you're using YouTube as a hosting platform and viewer acquisition channel, but not as a monetization channel?
    - rafaelmn 2y ago
      Then you'd have to pay for viewer acquisition part and no way in hell you're getting that kind of a platform with creators paying for development/hosting without advertising.
- ozr 2y ago
  There are plenty of third-party video hosts out there that let you do this. Wistia, Vimeo, etc.
  - movedx 2y ago
    I know, and neither of them are the second biggest search engine in the world and have _all_ the traffic and viewers.
- 2y ago
gray_charger 2y ago
The social contract was to show ads. Gathering people's data even on websites they don't even own was not the social contract. Google broke the contract and to suggest otherwise is gaslightling. Google can either start blindly showing context-relevant ads with no tracking or they can eat the loss from those willing to use free services.
cen4 2y ago
But there is more content than there are people who can watch it. What do you think happens when the production curve grows way past the consumption curve?
- grugagag 2y ago
  Genuinely curios. What happens?
  - toastercat 2y ago
    Google will be forced to delete unviewed content more frequently, or start charging for hosting video. The latter of which would probably help reduce the amount of garbage content on YouTube.
    - grugagag 2y ago
      A lot of garbage content on youtube is exactly because of google’s offered incentive to get users to produce more content. I wouldn’t be upset if clickbait garbage gets archived away.
portn0y 2y ago
Google just hosting the data is exactly what I want. Making them a monolith gives them too much leverage. All we need is hosted APIs and frontend frameworks to wrap content as the user desires. Charge API users for their bandwidth. I don’t want Google also deciding what to boost to help them gobble up more human agency. Reduce redundancy by making HR its own thing. At the end of the day Google’s core engineering competency is load balancing date center use. The rest is behavioral economics research influenced gamification of our agency
ethanol-brain 2y ago
Do you think that any significant number of users are circumventing advertisements on YouTube? No one has the right to control my client just because I visited their server. If Google doesn't want my client, they can easily block me. Acting like people running custom clients are thieves or something is ridiculous.
nine_k 2y ago
Fortunately, YouTure offers the premium account for a small price I gladly pay. I want YouTube to be around, and I don't want it to turn to trash in a desperate attempt to turn a profit. This also frees me from any qualms about using alternative clients, which are superior in certain situations.
ProAm 2y ago
. There is an unwritten social contract here It's not a contract though, its a dictatorship (which they have the right to do) but it's been getting worse and worse for the consumer, and is just another loss leader until who have consumers trapped and then start charging, abusing, etc... I'm with you in spirit, but google is not a good participant in this agreement as of late.
mopsi 2y ago
Google itself is the leech and parasite. It has embedded itself into private correspondence, discovery of internet resources, and a ton of other things, going as far as vacuuming up offline credit card transactions to spy on people. Google and honor do not belong in the same sentence. Hosting videos costs a lot of money and alternatives to Youtube will see only limited success as long as Google can subsidize the service with the money from the massive spy machine. Causing maximum drain of resources for Google while providing as little as possible for their spy machine is the ethical choice. Let them bleed. Youtube is the largest obstacle to honest businesses that provide video hosting and viewing in exchange for money - instead of making money from spying on users in ways they are unable to fully comprehend and consent to.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
create-username 2y ago
It’s not ads, it’s tracking and profiling to better manipulate you
- gizajob 2y ago
  …by showing you more ads.
gorgoiler 2y ago
YouTube is similar to a free museum where the gift shop as the only source of revenue. How does the museum handle people who deliberately show up without money and exit via the main entrance? From a business perspective the building is a shop. Anyone without money is provably there to just wander around looking at things. Doing this a lot is weird, especially given that 99% of visitors buy a coffee or a pencil to keep the museum going. From a user perspective it’s a museum — the whole point is to wander around looking at things! Should it be required that you buy something, or at least be forced to exit through the gift shop?
- create-username 2y ago
  The gift shop clerks analyse museum CCTV footage, as well as information obtained from your license plate and credit card (where you live, what you purchase) to better organise their gift shop, your local supermarket and the news you receive; in a way that’s more alluring to you so they can better organise your behaviour to purchase and think as desired.
Brian_K_White 2y ago
Google can stop making the official experience terrible any time it wants. Until then they deserve nothing. Poor poor abused google definitely on the bottom of this abusive relationship.
eesmith 2y ago
> There is an unwritten social contract here. Is this the same unwritten social contract which means we shouldn't use a mute button on ads? After all, the TV company gets paid to send ads to us, and muting those ads means less ad effectiveness. Don't use the toilet during an ad break either. Nor use the +15 seconds functionality on video recorder playback to skip ads. You can see how the social contract for my entire life include the option to avoid ads, and even with 'freeloaders', the broadcast TV business model worked. YouTube started long after Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. ("the Betamax case") established time shifting as an allowed practice in the US. Their business model, based on any implied social contract, must therefore include that possibility, eg, that people may watch content via downloaders. They could respond by, for example, placing ads directly in the downloaded video steam. This would mean less profit, but no social contract requires customers to keep a company profitable. And it would be odd indeed if broadcast TV had a more effective business model in the face of freeloaders than online video.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
"However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly." "Freeloading" off a $2T company. Not really. What is really going on. If Google was concerned about "freeloading" then they would not be encouraging people to store their data "in the cloud"; they would be encouraging them to store it on their own computers. Google wants people to upload data "for free" to Google servers. They design software and hardware to coerce people into uploading, e.g., "syncing". It's not cool to invade peoples' privacy for profit. That is a social contract that has been broken. Google could charge fees for storing peoples' data, these fees could cover the costs and allow for some profit, but then they would not be a $2T company. Only a relatively small number of people would pay. The Google customer is the advertiser not the uploader. Thus, this alleged "social contract" to allow Google to spy on people through their computer use, including surreptitiously sending data to Google, is motivated by greed. That's the ugly culture.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  What happens when Google stops giving unlimited cloud storage to educational institutions. This was answered yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404530 Top comment: "If [the university computer science department's] cluster somehow ever runs out of disks, I'm happy to donate a terabytes worth, but like hell I'm giving money to big-G for cloud storage."
pixxel 2y ago
Don’t be torn. They could have offloaded the hosting using P2P tech, but they prefer to silo the world’s video library. Google is the parasitical leech.

by roenxi 2y ago

akkartik 2y ago

I had a lot more sympathy for this argument a few years ago, but lately Google does enough short-term thinking all by itself that it seems fine to just take what you can get for as long as it does something that happens to be useful to you, amidst all the stuff it does that is useful only to itself. Just be prepared for the good times to end at any moment.

Vampiero 2y ago

Hey, you want a monopoly on information while at the same time operating the largest ad network in the world? Then don't complain if people block your stupid ads and count yourself lucky that the government didn't split your megacorp into several tiny companies The only morally wrong thing here is NOT blocking Google's ads

stavros 2y ago
Why doesn't the government split the megacorp into several tiny companies? All this collusion between these otherwise unrelated companies is only good for Google.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  People always say this but what is the practical way this would come into effect? Unless the intention is to simply kill either YouTube or Google, or both, how do you separate out YouTube in a way that is meaningfully "breaking up" with Google but that the separate entity could afford?
  - miah_ 2y ago
    There already was a time when Youtube was its own company. Google bought it. Maybe they didn't do great on their own but it was also ~2005 and things are very different now.
    - jeffbee 2y ago
      Yes but before Google bought it, it was a money incinerator.
- roenxi 2y ago
  Because breaking companies up seems to be more theatre and less useful outcomes. People call for it freely and usually don't have a theory of how it will actually help. And nobody seems to bring up evidence from past corporate breakups beyond "we did it ergo it was good" (which is suspicious logic). On paper it looks something like a choice between one company with one shareholder or two companies with ... the same shareholder. It isn't clear what has really changed; the company was only ever a legal fiction anyway. If there were incentives to collude then they haven't gone away.

toastercat 2y ago

Exactly. But I would like to take it a step further -- anytime you visit a page anywhere on the internet, there is an unwritten social contract that you will not block ads or trackers. For this reason, adblock in itself is unethical and basically equivalent to piracy. Additionally, actors like Mozilla who build tracker-blocking tech into their browsers should be held accountable for encouraging this disgusting behavior. Don't like the ads? Don't visit the site then. Simple as that.

Vampiero 2y ago
That argument MAYBE worked 25 years ago when ads genuinely paid for hosting costs and nothing else. But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will. So who's really being unethical here? The amoral ***** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect their privacy from being raped?
- toastercat 2y ago
  > But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will. > So who's really being unethical here? The amoral *** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect themselves? No one is forcing you to visit sites with "malware", you are equally as free to visit an alternative site that doesn't have ads or trackers. And call it what you will, that "malware" is essential for the web as we know it to survive. How else will Google be able to maintain the monopoly on video hosting if they can't harvest and profit off the data off freeloading users? Also, for YouTube there is a simple solution: it's called YouTube Premium. You see no ads and you get great perks to boot. And Google promises to respect your privacy so long as you use YouTube Premium.
  - Gualdrapo 2y ago
    > Also, for YouTube there is a simple solution: it's called YouTube Premium. You see no ads I mean, only a Google search will reveal there's people still getting ads despite using YouTube Premium.

fsckboy 2y ago

>this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly it's not ugly at all: parasites deserve their place in the ecosystem right alongside carnivores. What I don't like is people like this who broadcast and evangelize as if google will allow it to keep happening. I'd rather it survived longer hiding under the radar. "hey everybody I discovered a secret hack to get a free donut with your coffee!!!"... how about just keep doing it yourself, donuts for life?

c22 2y ago
That definitely seems like the least ethical response to finding a free donut loophole? Unless it's not a loophole at all, but just a marketing tactic deployed by the coffeemaker.
- ddtaylor 2y ago
  Full donut disclosure.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  you are responding to a comment that started by justifying parasitism. To make an effective counter argument along the lines you've chosen, you need to address that part of the comment and explain why parasites in nature don't "deserve" to exist, or at least show that they are also unethical. That is/ought to be something easy to prove, right?
  - c22 2y ago
    Responding to a comment does not imply that one disagrees with the entirety or any part of said comment and does not necessitate crafting an effective counter argument. In fact, I am not making an argument as to parasitism, parasites, or their right to exist at all. The closest thing I am making to an argument is that, as a human, if you find what you believe to be a bug in a system and you choose to exploit the bug repeatedly for your own gain while keeping it a secret to yourself, this is, in fact, the least ethical choice you, as a human, can make. (More ethical choices include: not telling anyone but walking away and never exploiting the bug again, telling the system maintainers about the bug confidentially, exposing the bug publicly, etc...) And I guess, in some way, my response is implying that wanting other humans to make the least ethical choice in these sorts of situations and displaying animosity towards those who make a more ethical choice is a little bit strange.

amelius 2y ago

Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Sounds like they can't really complain if someone took that information and made it universally accessible :)

roenxi 2y ago
That level of analysis is on par with arguing for robbing someone's house because they believe that social welfare is a good idea. To influence the world in a positive way (for yourself or others) it is necessary to look a little deeper into how to make situations sustainable.
- yazzku 2y ago
  "sustainable" while making the board $20bn quarterly profit, of course.

movedx 2y ago

As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: just charge me a fee to host my videos. I'd pay $100/month, possibly more, to run a YouTube channel without. Why is running ads the _only_ choice? Why can't a creator opt to pay to host videos on their channel with limitations? $10/month? That's 30 videos in HD max. $100? 300 videos in 4K... etc. ... or whatever. As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: I use Freetube. Please use it until abusive adverts and practices aren't a thing anymore.

rafaelmn 2y ago
If you're just using YouTube for hosting - there's other ways to pay for that, Vimeo comes to mind.
- stavros 2y ago
  What about if you're using YouTube as a hosting platform and viewer acquisition channel, but not as a monetization channel?
  - rafaelmn 2y ago
    Then you'd have to pay for viewer acquisition part and no way in hell you're getting that kind of a platform with creators paying for development/hosting without advertising.
ozr 2y ago
There are plenty of third-party video hosts out there that let you do this. Wistia, Vimeo, etc.
- movedx 2y ago
  I know, and neither of them are the second biggest search engine in the world and have _all_ the traffic and viewers.
2y ago

gray_charger 2y ago

The social contract was to show ads. Gathering people's data even on websites they don't even own was not the social contract. Google broke the contract and to suggest otherwise is gaslightling. Google can either start blindly showing context-relevant ads with no tracking or they can eat the loss from those willing to use free services.

cen4 2y ago

But there is more content than there are people who can watch it. What do you think happens when the production curve grows way past the consumption curve?

grugagag 2y ago
Genuinely curios. What happens?
- toastercat 2y ago
  Google will be forced to delete unviewed content more frequently, or start charging for hosting video. The latter of which would probably help reduce the amount of garbage content on YouTube.
  - grugagag 2y ago
    A lot of garbage content on youtube is exactly because of google’s offered incentive to get users to produce more content. I wouldn’t be upset if clickbait garbage gets archived away.

portn0y 2y ago

Google just hosting the data is exactly what I want. Making them a monolith gives them too much leverage. All we need is hosted APIs and frontend frameworks to wrap content as the user desires. Charge API users for their bandwidth. I don’t want Google also deciding what to boost to help them gobble up more human agency. Reduce redundancy by making HR its own thing. At the end of the day Google’s core engineering competency is load balancing date center use. The rest is behavioral economics research influenced gamification of our agency

ethanol-brain 2y ago

Do you think that any significant number of users are circumventing advertisements on YouTube? No one has the right to control my client just because I visited their server. If Google doesn't want my client, they can easily block me. Acting like people running custom clients are thieves or something is ridiculous.

nine_k 2y ago

Fortunately, YouTure offers the premium account for a small price I gladly pay. I want YouTube to be around, and I don't want it to turn to trash in a desperate attempt to turn a profit. This also frees me from any qualms about using alternative clients, which are superior in certain situations.

ProAm 2y ago

. There is an unwritten social contract here It's not a contract though, its a dictatorship (which they have the right to do) but it's been getting worse and worse for the consumer, and is just another loss leader until who have consumers trapped and then start charging, abusing, etc... I'm with you in spirit, but google is not a good participant in this agreement as of late.

mopsi 2y ago

Google itself is the leech and parasite. It has embedded itself into private correspondence, discovery of internet resources, and a ton of other things, going as far as vacuuming up offline credit card transactions to spy on people. Google and honor do not belong in the same sentence. Hosting videos costs a lot of money and alternatives to Youtube will see only limited success as long as Google can subsidize the service with the money from the massive spy machine. Causing maximum drain of resources for Google while providing as little as possible for their spy machine is the ethical choice. Let them bleed. Youtube is the largest obstacle to honest businesses that provide video hosting and viewing in exchange for money - instead of making money from spying on users in ways they are unable to fully comprehend and consent to.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

create-username 2y ago

It’s not ads, it’s tracking and profiling to better manipulate you

gizajob 2y ago
…by showing you more ads.

gorgoiler 2y ago

YouTube is similar to a free museum where the gift shop as the only source of revenue. How does the museum handle people who deliberately show up without money and exit via the main entrance? From a business perspective the building is a shop. Anyone without money is provably there to just wander around looking at things. Doing this a lot is weird, especially given that 99% of visitors buy a coffee or a pencil to keep the museum going. From a user perspective it’s a museum — the whole point is to wander around looking at things! Should it be required that you buy something, or at least be forced to exit through the gift shop?

create-username 2y ago
The gift shop clerks analyse museum CCTV footage, as well as information obtained from your license plate and credit card (where you live, what you purchase) to better organise their gift shop, your local supermarket and the news you receive; in a way that’s more alluring to you so they can better organise your behaviour to purchase and think as desired.

Brian_K_White 2y ago

Google can stop making the official experience terrible any time it wants. Until then they deserve nothing. Poor poor abused google definitely on the bottom of this abusive relationship.

eesmith 2y ago

> There is an unwritten social contract here. Is this the same unwritten social contract which means we shouldn't use a mute button on ads? After all, the TV company gets paid to send ads to us, and muting those ads means less ad effectiveness. Don't use the toilet during an ad break either. Nor use the +15 seconds functionality on video recorder playback to skip ads. You can see how the social contract for my entire life include the option to avoid ads, and even with 'freeloaders', the broadcast TV business model worked. YouTube started long after Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. ("the Betamax case") established time shifting as an allowed practice in the US. Their business model, based on any implied social contract, must therefore include that possibility, eg, that people may watch content via downloaders. They could respond by, for example, placing ads directly in the downloaded video steam. This would mean less profit, but no social contract requires customers to keep a company profitable. And it would be odd indeed if broadcast TV had a more effective business model in the face of freeloaders than online video.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

"However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly." "Freeloading" off a $2T company. Not really. What is really going on. If Google was concerned about "freeloading" then they would not be encouraging people to store their data "in the cloud"; they would be encouraging them to store it on their own computers. Google wants people to upload data "for free" to Google servers. They design software and hardware to coerce people into uploading, e.g., "syncing". It's not cool to invade peoples' privacy for profit. That is a social contract that has been broken. Google could charge fees for storing peoples' data, these fees could cover the costs and allow for some profit, but then they would not be a $2T company. Only a relatively small number of people would pay. The Google customer is the advertiser not the uploader. Thus, this alleged "social contract" to allow Google to spy on people through their computer use, including surreptitiously sending data to Google, is motivated by greed. That's the ugly culture.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
What happens when Google stops giving unlimited cloud storage to educational institutions. This was answered yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404530 Top comment: "If [the university computer science department's] cluster somehow ever runs out of disks, I'm happy to donate a terabytes worth, but like hell I'm giving money to big-G for cloud storage."

pixxel 2y ago

Don’t be torn. They could have offloaded the hosting using P2P tech, but they prefer to silo the world’s video library. Google is the parasitical leech.