3 ms·

FWIW, I think Google is overly-hated, but it's hard to frame them as a bleeding-heart altruist. Much like Apple and Microsoft, they have every incentive to work

FWIW, I think Google is overly-hated, but it's hard to frame them as a bleeding-heart altruist. Much like Apple and Microsoft, they have every incentive to work with the government and basically no obligation to individual consumers. It feels likely that these decisions are made to cover their own ass, and not out of overwhelming respect for Android users.

gruez 6mo ago
>Much like Apple and Microsoft, they have every incentive to work with the government and basically no obligation to individual consumers. It feels likely that these decisions are made to cover their own ass, and not out of overwhelming respect for Android users. I don't get it. In the first sentence you're claiming that there's "basically no obligation to individual consumers", but when they do a pro-consumer thing, you dismiss it as being "made to cover their own ass". Which one is it? Is this just a lot of words to say that Google isn't as pro-consumer as you'd like it to be?
- Forgeties79 6mo ago
  “Covering their ass” from government pressure. If they can’t provide it they can’t be dinged for not doing so.
- vel0city 6mo ago
  I don't think Google genuinely does a lot of these things to truly be pro-consumer. One could see these kind of actions as them not wanting to have to deal with the bad publicity of handling all this data that they overall haven't been able to really monetize well anyways. The truth is probably somewhere in between if you were to actually sit down and talk with all the people involved with such a decision. Regardless of the reasons though I do think we should give praise to companies and organizations doing things that ultimately benefit us though. We should give feedback as to the changes we like to let decision-makers know people actually do care.
  - brookst 6mo ago
    Companies like Google are too large to have single, clear motives. I think it is appropriate to judge their actions, but I am not sure any simplistic “good motives/bad motives“ discussion can be fruitful.
culi 6mo ago
Exactly. A lot of people acted like the attacks on Waymos during the ICE protests were random but they were anything but. All the local organizers are well aware of Google's contracts with ICE as well as the tributes Google paid to Trump.
- copper-float 6mo ago
  How is this relevant? Just because you disagree with some vague connection between two entities doesn't give you the right to destroy property. That's the definition of a childish tantrum. Inflicting blind pain on random, unrelated people because you don't get your way.
  - pocksuppet 6mo ago
    It's relevant because Waymo is Google
  - ch4s3 6mo ago
    [flagged]
  - shadowgovt 6mo ago
    There's a rhetorical dodge in this argument where it transitioned from talking about property destruction to talking about harming people. One can cause the other, but the burden of proof is on the claimant that wrecking a mass-produced special purpose autonomous vehicle did more tangible harm to a human being than make some engineer sad before they rolled up their sleeves and built a replacement. The Waymo emphatically did not care it was destroyed.
  - rexpop 6mo ago
    [dead]
- joe_mamba 6mo ago
  How can you justify anarchist vigilante violence? Should I be legally allowed to assault you or vandalize your property because I think your political orientation or that of your company is not "on the right side of history" ?
danielmarkbruce 6mo ago
I worked at google some years back, in the VR team for a while. I can't speak to all of google, but at least in that org, the amount of nonsense we had to go through to make sure there wasn't some way some genius could figure something out related to personal information by correlating various pieces of data that we were storing in good faith to improve the product was absurd. They were trying really really hard to do the right thing. Lots of people really cared about it, many to the point of it being detrimental to just making the product better.
- lokar 6mo ago
  From my time there, a favorite quip of mine, towards some new startup we bought was: welcome to Google, here is a list of every settlement and consent decree you are now subject to.

gruez 6mo ago

>Much like Apple and Microsoft, they have every incentive to work with the government and basically no obligation to individual consumers. It feels likely that these decisions are made to cover their own ass, and not out of overwhelming respect for Android users. I don't get it. In the first sentence you're claiming that there's "basically no obligation to individual consumers", but when they do a pro-consumer thing, you dismiss it as being "made to cover their own ass". Which one is it? Is this just a lot of words to say that Google isn't as pro-consumer as you'd like it to be?

Forgeties79 6mo ago
“Covering their ass” from government pressure. If they can’t provide it they can’t be dinged for not doing so.
vel0city 6mo ago
I don't think Google genuinely does a lot of these things to truly be pro-consumer. One could see these kind of actions as them not wanting to have to deal with the bad publicity of handling all this data that they overall haven't been able to really monetize well anyways. The truth is probably somewhere in between if you were to actually sit down and talk with all the people involved with such a decision. Regardless of the reasons though I do think we should give praise to companies and organizations doing things that ultimately benefit us though. We should give feedback as to the changes we like to let decision-makers know people actually do care.
- brookst 6mo ago
  Companies like Google are too large to have single, clear motives. I think it is appropriate to judge their actions, but I am not sure any simplistic “good motives/bad motives“ discussion can be fruitful.

culi 6mo ago

Exactly. A lot of people acted like the attacks on Waymos during the ICE protests were random but they were anything but. All the local organizers are well aware of Google's contracts with ICE as well as the tributes Google paid to Trump.

copper-float 6mo ago
How is this relevant? Just because you disagree with some vague connection between two entities doesn't give you the right to destroy property. That's the definition of a childish tantrum. Inflicting blind pain on random, unrelated people because you don't get your way.
- pocksuppet 6mo ago
  It's relevant because Waymo is Google
- ch4s3 6mo ago
  [flagged]
- shadowgovt 6mo ago
  There's a rhetorical dodge in this argument where it transitioned from talking about property destruction to talking about harming people. One can cause the other, but the burden of proof is on the claimant that wrecking a mass-produced special purpose autonomous vehicle did more tangible harm to a human being than make some engineer sad before they rolled up their sleeves and built a replacement. The Waymo emphatically did not care it was destroyed.
- rexpop 6mo ago
  [dead]
joe_mamba 6mo ago
How can you justify anarchist vigilante violence? Should I be legally allowed to assault you or vandalize your property because I think your political orientation or that of your company is not "on the right side of history" ?

danielmarkbruce 6mo ago

I worked at google some years back, in the VR team for a while. I can't speak to all of google, but at least in that org, the amount of nonsense we had to go through to make sure there wasn't some way some genius could figure something out related to personal information by correlating various pieces of data that we were storing in good faith to improve the product was absurd. They were trying really really hard to do the right thing. Lots of people really cared about it, many to the point of it being detrimental to just making the product better.

lokar 6mo ago
From my time there, a favorite quip of mine, towards some new startup we bought was: welcome to Google, here is a list of every settlement and consent decree you are now subject to.