3 ms·

> Google plans to use AI to consume and replace the open web. They've been boiling the frog here for a long time. The "open web" is a euphemism for the Google

> Google plans to use AI to consume and replace the open web. They've been boiling the frog here for a long time. The "open web" is a euphemism for the Google Chrome monoculture walled-garden-in-waiting. Google exert so much influence there that building on the web is in practice barely different than building on say iOS. You can do what you want if you don't want to make money, but if you do then you will have to play along with the big G. My hunch is Google never psychologically recovered from Facebook absolutely wiping out G+, and they have been on a mission to ensure nothing like that ever happens again.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>My hunch is Google never psychologically recovered from Facebook absolutely wiping out G+, and they have been on a mission to ensure nothing like that ever happens again. That's an orthogonal issue to me. IMHO, modern Google never really cared about social media platforms because it never really understood them. Otherwise it would have bought Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Tiktok, Twitter, early on before they became industry titans, the same way they bought Youtube, Maps, etc in the early days. They've been coasting for so long on the search ad revenue money printer, that they're blind to everything else going on around them, so they're always reacting instead of proactive, but always too late.
- masklinn 1y ago
  > That's an orthogonal issue to me. IMHO, modern Google never really cared about social media platforms because it never really understood them. Caring (or at least wanting in) and not understanding are perfectly compatible. I know for a fact that a number of old googlers are still frustrated over Google Video got stomped, and Google having to buy Youtube in the end. > Otherwise it would have bought Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Tiktok, Twitter, early on before they became industry titans That only works if: 1. they see it coming 2. the in-house competition effort does not remain politically unassailable 3. until the competitor is too big for google to realistically acquire it
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    >That only works if: 1. they see it coming Zuckerberg saw them coming though. That's why he owns a social media empire now, and wants to either own or destroy Tiktok as well. Musk saw it coming with Twatter, hell, even Bezos saw it coming, that why Amazon bought Twitch. Google leadership just doesn't understand social media, otherwise they would have bought a rising platform instead of building one from scratch that flopped with zero user base. Social media platforms are all about the existing user base, not about the tech behind it. That's why G+ failed despite being technically superior in some aspects. >I know for a fact that a number of old googlers are still frustrated over Google Video got stomped, and Google having to buy Youtube in the end It's irrelevant what old googlers think. Google has a responsibility to their shareholders to make line go up, not make some of their programmers feel good by keeping them working on dying platforms with no user base wile their competitors steam ahead. Buying youtube was the right business decision because it was the more popular platform, instead of trying to make Google Video happen, as it would have had the same faith as G+, and those old googlers would have probably been laid off instead of being moved to work on Youtube. Programmers don't always make good business decisions.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - masklinn 1y ago
      > Zuckerberg saw them coming though [...] even Bezos saw it coming, that why Amazon bought Twitch. Which pertains to my reply... how? > Musk saw it coming with Twatter Musk saw nothing coming. He bought twitter in 2022 after getting baited into making a binding offer. Twitter was a household name at least a decade before that: news networks had direct twitter interactions and mentions at least as far back as the 2012 election. And although it's been turned private and delisted, it's estimated to be worth just a fraction of what he paid for it. > Google leadership just doesn't understand social media Have you considered actually reading replies instead of going off with whatever your pet assertions are? > That's irrelevant what old googlers think. It's very relevant to your assertion that "google never really cared". > Google has a responsibility to their shareholders to make line go up, not make some of their programmers feel good by keeping them working on platforms with no user base wile their competitors steam ahead. That has nothing whatsoever to do with what I'm replying to.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
SecretDreams 1y ago
> My hunch is Google never psychologically recovered from Facebook absolutely wiping out G+, and they have been on a mission to ensure nothing like that ever happens again. Same for Microsoft with phones. That's why Google and Microsoft are trying to use AI to crush us while Apple is like "I'm pretty content with how much money I make".
- amaccuish 1y ago
  Ye, Apple just doesn't support PWAs fully because they're "pretty content with the money they may from the app store".
  - fidotron 1y ago
    Apple web app support for home screen apps is better than Android PWA today. Prime example being push notification support, where Android has random 10 minute latencies added because they don't want to fix the service worker startup problem.
    - owebmaster 1y ago
      > Apple web app support for home screen apps is better than Android PWA today. No, it's not, Apple hides it behind a "share" link that had nothing to do with installing a PWA, the most incongruent UX in the whole OS, God knows why
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- blinding-streak 1y ago
  > Apple is like "I'm pretty content with how much money I make". What a laughably silly depiction of a multi-trillion dollar company. Their predatory app store policies, defended (and lost) in court, paint a completely different picture. Just one of dozens of examples. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-executive-outright-lied-under-082407298.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-executive-outright-lied...
flenserboy 1y ago
the funniest part here is that if G+ is part of the reason, they still don't understand why people didn't want to use it, making any decisions which follow wrong &/or misguided. while I'm not terribly in favor of breaking up companies, there is far too much incentive for Google, given its ad business (which is really what the company now is), to have any voice in the future of the Web. Chrome must be spun off, & firewalls put in place between the ad side & the search side of things (unless, of course, they really are just a govt subsidiary & this has been the plan all along, but there would have to be tangible proof of that).
- philistine 1y ago
  > they still don't understand why people didn't want to use it That's what OP is saying. Google knows it doesn't understand, knows it cannot compete on even ground, so it is pulling every lever of its monopoly so that no other entrant can ever rise from the web. Only serfs, no lords.
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    Only serfing, no surfing
BlueTemplar 1y ago
Yes, the warnings were there for more than a decade. And yet these websites were still kowtowing to Google ! I doubt that the USA will do anything to rein in their platforms though : they're too convenient as a form of soft power. (Of course, you never know with Trump.) So it's probably time to cut off the USA from the Internet. Let them stew in the bed they made. The timing is good too, with Trump having even managed to piss of Canada !! ---- However, this won't solve an issue with search engines : just yesterday I was using Kagi, and it was still a miserable experience. Blocking the likes of YouTube and Reddit is easy enough. It's much harder to deal with all the spam consisting of pseudo-guide websites, each with very specific names, seemingly a lot of them using LLMs to generate them, which I guess make money from either ads and/or referrals ? And anyone can scrap the web and train LLMs, so even limiting the size of infocoms by law (and banning foreign ones) wouldn't solve this issue.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago

>My hunch is Google never psychologically recovered from Facebook absolutely wiping out G+, and they have been on a mission to ensure nothing like that ever happens again. That's an orthogonal issue to me. IMHO, modern Google never really cared about social media platforms because it never really understood them. Otherwise it would have bought Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Tiktok, Twitter, early on before they became industry titans, the same way they bought Youtube, Maps, etc in the early days. They've been coasting for so long on the search ad revenue money printer, that they're blind to everything else going on around them, so they're always reacting instead of proactive, but always too late.

masklinn 1y ago
> That's an orthogonal issue to me. IMHO, modern Google never really cared about social media platforms because it never really understood them. Caring (or at least wanting in) and not understanding are perfectly compatible. I know for a fact that a number of old googlers are still frustrated over Google Video got stomped, and Google having to buy Youtube in the end. > Otherwise it would have bought Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Tiktok, Twitter, early on before they became industry titans That only works if: 1. they see it coming 2. the in-house competition effort does not remain politically unassailable 3. until the competitor is too big for google to realistically acquire it
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >That only works if: 1. they see it coming Zuckerberg saw them coming though. That's why he owns a social media empire now, and wants to either own or destroy Tiktok as well. Musk saw it coming with Twatter, hell, even Bezos saw it coming, that why Amazon bought Twitch. Google leadership just doesn't understand social media, otherwise they would have bought a rising platform instead of building one from scratch that flopped with zero user base. Social media platforms are all about the existing user base, not about the tech behind it. That's why G+ failed despite being technically superior in some aspects. >I know for a fact that a number of old googlers are still frustrated over Google Video got stomped, and Google having to buy Youtube in the end It's irrelevant what old googlers think. Google has a responsibility to their shareholders to make line go up, not make some of their programmers feel good by keeping them working on dying platforms with no user base wile their competitors steam ahead. Buying youtube was the right business decision because it was the more popular platform, instead of trying to make Google Video happen, as it would have had the same faith as G+, and those old googlers would have probably been laid off instead of being moved to work on Youtube. Programmers don't always make good business decisions.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - masklinn 1y ago
    > Zuckerberg saw them coming though [...] even Bezos saw it coming, that why Amazon bought Twitch. Which pertains to my reply... how? > Musk saw it coming with Twatter Musk saw nothing coming. He bought twitter in 2022 after getting baited into making a binding offer. Twitter was a household name at least a decade before that: news networks had direct twitter interactions and mentions at least as far back as the 2012 election. And although it's been turned private and delisted, it's estimated to be worth just a fraction of what he paid for it. > Google leadership just doesn't understand social media Have you considered actually reading replies instead of going off with whatever your pet assertions are? > That's irrelevant what old googlers think. It's very relevant to your assertion that "google never really cared". > Google has a responsibility to their shareholders to make line go up, not make some of their programmers feel good by keeping them working on platforms with no user base wile their competitors steam ahead. That has nothing whatsoever to do with what I'm replying to.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

SecretDreams 1y ago

> My hunch is Google never psychologically recovered from Facebook absolutely wiping out G+, and they have been on a mission to ensure nothing like that ever happens again. Same for Microsoft with phones. That's why Google and Microsoft are trying to use AI to crush us while Apple is like "I'm pretty content with how much money I make".

amaccuish 1y ago
Ye, Apple just doesn't support PWAs fully because they're "pretty content with the money they may from the app store".
- fidotron 1y ago
  Apple web app support for home screen apps is better than Android PWA today. Prime example being push notification support, where Android has random 10 minute latencies added because they don't want to fix the service worker startup problem.
  - owebmaster 1y ago
    > Apple web app support for home screen apps is better than Android PWA today. No, it's not, Apple hides it behind a "share" link that had nothing to do with installing a PWA, the most incongruent UX in the whole OS, God knows why
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
blinding-streak 1y ago
> Apple is like "I'm pretty content with how much money I make". What a laughably silly depiction of a multi-trillion dollar company. Their predatory app store policies, defended (and lost) in court, paint a completely different picture. Just one of dozens of examples. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-executive-outright-lied-under-082407298.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-executive-outright-lied...

flenserboy 1y ago

the funniest part here is that if G+ is part of the reason, they still don't understand why people didn't want to use it, making any decisions which follow wrong &/or misguided. while I'm not terribly in favor of breaking up companies, there is far too much incentive for Google, given its ad business (which is really what the company now is), to have any voice in the future of the Web. Chrome must be spun off, & firewalls put in place between the ad side & the search side of things (unless, of course, they really are just a govt subsidiary & this has been the plan all along, but there would have to be tangible proof of that).

philistine 1y ago
> they still don't understand why people didn't want to use it That's what OP is saying. Google knows it doesn't understand, knows it cannot compete on even ground, so it is pulling every lever of its monopoly so that no other entrant can ever rise from the web. Only serfs, no lords.
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  Only serfing, no surfing

BlueTemplar 1y ago

Yes, the warnings were there for more than a decade. And yet these websites were still kowtowing to Google ! I doubt that the USA will do anything to rein in their platforms though : they're too convenient as a form of soft power. (Of course, you never know with Trump.) So it's probably time to cut off the USA from the Internet. Let them stew in the bed they made. The timing is good too, with Trump having even managed to piss of Canada !! ---- However, this won't solve an issue with search engines : just yesterday I was using Kagi, and it was still a miserable experience. Blocking the likes of YouTube and Reddit is easy enough. It's much harder to deal with all the spam consisting of pseudo-guide websites, each with very specific names, seemingly a lot of them using LLMs to generate them, which I guess make money from either ads and/or referrals ? And anyone can scrap the web and train LLMs, so even limiting the size of infocoms by law (and banning foreign ones) wouldn't solve this issue.