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Google has overstayed the web's welcome. What started out as a quirky, innovative company that bucked all of the suit-and-tie trends (see Microsoft, HP, even A

by kunai 14y ago

Google has overstayed the web's welcome. What started out as a quirky, innovative company that bucked all of the suit-and-tie trends (see Microsoft, HP, even Apple in some regards) of Silicon Valley, has now turned into a monstrous calamity with no regard for its users. Up until 2009, it was breezy and beautiful, but right now, at this moment, it's a different story altogether. Don't be evil? Pfeh. The only thing left of Google that they haven't managed to screw up or cause outrage over is search. The only thing they can't afford to change, for fear people will stop using it. This harkens back far before Google, far before any company dared invest in the Internet. This type of corporate mentality is one we see often, but tend to forget quickly. Apple did it in the 1990s. Microsoft is doing it now; look at Windows 8. Any corporation that strays too far from its roots with fail. Not in a fiscal sense, but in an ethical sense, and that's the worst type of failure there is. Do I hope they get their shit together and start being Google again? Of course. They could start by fixing YouTube, exhuming Google Reader, and rethinking the decision to end iGoogle. And please, PLEASE, reinvent that horrid thing called Google+. Even the name sucks.

mindcrime 14y ago
I actually kinda like G+, BUT... I agree with the author of TFA about Google and their move away from the Open Web and towards another walled garden. If I could subscribe to RSS feeds to populate my G+ streams, and post to G+ using AtomPub, and expose my social-graph from G+ using FOAF, consume G+ using RSS/Atom, etc., then I would have no problem with it. But right now, Google seem determined to build something that's just one more walled garden, albeit one with a gate[1] that you can laboriously, manually, tediously drag your "stuff" out through. [1]: http://www.google.com/takeout http://www.google.com/takeout
gkoberger 14y ago
Overstayed the web's welcome? I'm not convinced that's happened yet. I certainly don't disagree with your points, but it's moot. Normal users don't care about things like "privacy" or "neutrality" or "standards". If it works and is free, that's good enough. And the page views Google gets is testament to the fact that nobody outside of the HN-esque world has any issues with Google. Heck, I (and most people here) use GMail+Search+Docs+etc for the same reasons "normal" people do.. the privacy I give up is worth the convenience of their products.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  ... nobody outside of the HN-esque world has any issues with Google. Until they do. And that's the rub. Even non-hackers often eventually get burned by these issues, but they aren't usually thinking about any of this stuff in advance. They lack awareness. What that tells me is that we need to find a way to do a better of educating people on the importance of things like "privacy" or "neutrality" or "standards". How best to do that is, of course, an open question...
- mnicole 14y ago
  > nobody outside of the HN-esque world has any issues with Google. People say the same thing about non-technical people using Facebook, but it isn't all that truthful. They have legitimate concerns, they're just waiting on the internet-at-large to determine the next best thing before expending any energy on making the switch.
- _delirium 14y ago
  That's part of what makes this strategy a bit strange, because "normal" users don't care about or use Google+ either.
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  > Normal users don't care about things like "privacy" ... This is not true. If you explained exactly what the extension was doing to a normal user I can almost guarantee they wouldn't like it. No one wants every website they visit to be looked at by an external source. The problem is it's not obvious this is happening. Hell, I'm a web developer and even I wouldn't have thought twice about how Google was displaying this information to me. The technology has gotten so far outside of a "normal users"'s grasp that it's not even fair anymore. They care about privacy, they just have no way of knowing each and every way their privacy can be eroded. Luckily no one uses Google+ so the extension is pretty useless...
  - robryan 14y ago
    Wouldn't my ISP also be recording this information? Your non https browsing is also being sent through countless routers you have no control over. Hell even Google is already tracking you through GA, the +1 button and Adsense. And if you are using Chrome everything you type in the search bar is being sent to power autocomplete.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
The biggest problem with Google has been that they've been a "benevolent monarch", more or less. Meaning, much of the reason why google has been good for the web has been due to specific choices that google leadership has made and the ways that google has chosen to wield its power. This contrasts to strict limits on power and strong external forces from competition, etc. As long as the monarch is benevolent this is great, but then there's no mechanism to prevent abuses of power, and then maybe the monarch changes, or circumstances change, and the inevitable happens. Google is making more money than ever, but that's still not enough for them. And now we're starting to see a lot of the "well, we chose not to be evil" slip away. The problem with "don't be evil" is that it's weak, and it's a double negative. Contrast it with "be good". Neutral isn't evil[1], and once you're down in the moral gray area pit anyway it's easy to move the goal posts and define "evil" differently. One could make a very well-founded argument, for example, that Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, and even EA or Comcast are not, strictly speaking, "evil" companies. [1: what makes a man turn neutral?]
- slg 14y ago
  Since you raised the issue, how exactly is a for profit and publicly owned company supposed to run effectively if not through a (benevolent or not) monarchy? Do you expect Google to put product decisions up for a vote?
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    I think you misunderstand. This isn't about actions, it's about power. Google is in a bit of an unusual position because it has a shit-load of power that it, mostly, hasn't abused for its own advantage, yet. Partly because google has been "good" many people haven't been overly concerned about their power and they haven't sought to try to limit that power (in all of the typical ways power is usually limited in the business world, through regulation, through competition, etc.) But on the flip side that means that there are very few roadblocks to google deciding all of a sudden to try to convert its power into cold hard cash, regardless of how it hurts individuals. Which may be something that could happen in the near future.
- r00fus 14y ago
kaoD 14y ago
What I specially hate about Google+ is the fact that Google can't stop spamming me to join it. Now even Google Play comments need to be part of Google+. You know what, Google? Fuck you. No. Fuck you twice. I won't join that fucking horrid place. I don't even have Facebook, why would I join a crappy social network?
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  You know, I don't really like Google+ but I have had no difficulty in opting out of it and declining to share things like my YouTube favorites and so forth (with a few exceptions that were wholly by choice). I'm not happy with their social strategy in general, but I don't feel it's anything like as burdensome on the user as Facebook's, which caused me to stop using that service altogether.
  - ajanuary 14y ago
    They really do push you to at least create an account though. I've accidentally created and had to close an account several times. I've given up and just left an open but dormant account now.
  - kaoD 14y ago
    Well, I've had difficulty opting out, and new Google accounts are linked to Google+ by default. E.g.: I have an Android phone and I would like to rate a scam app so people don't download it. Oops, it's not possible without a Google+ account. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5535556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5535556
    - knightzero 14y ago
      Google is trying to consolidate all of their services under one account. Like it or not a Google+ is just public facing page for a Google account. In away it dose make sense and answers an age old internet problem. It requires users to be responsible for what they put online.
NewAccnt 14y ago
Google, has no obligation to support Reader. What they did to the RSS market was shady, indeed, but it is well within their rights and they did not do anything that would infringe on the rights of developers or users the way Apple does. Nobody has a right to make a profitable RSS service, and nobody can tell them they have to support RSS in place of their social network of choice Apple on the otherhand enforces a single marketplace on their operating system today. Microsoft has mostly learned from their past mistakes and people watch their every move and jump on them if any technology they use can be used to subvert freedom of developers or users down the line. I don't have any dog in this race, but I don't understand why Apple continues to get a free pass to implement market control mascaraing in the name of clean interfaces with comforting whitespace and unified design, especially when it is used regularly to usurp users' and developers' rights. This article is nothing but platitudes and entitlement. Somehow people got in their minds that they have a right to Google Search and can demand features and support from them.. I have no idea how this idea came about, but it seems that the gist of it is that we've come to expect everything for free from Google and that's just how it should always be.
- doktrin 14y ago
  I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think any criticism of Google automatically translates into tacit support of Apple. They [Apple] certainly have their warts, but this isn't about them at all. For my part, I share many of the frustrations voiced here. I can't stand Google's persistence in ensuring I'm constantly logged in, or Chrome's ever helpful reminder that I should sync it with my Google account. The business case is obvious, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. In fact, I dislike it enough to no longer use Chrome as my default browser and have moved away from all of their services with the exception of Gmail. I don't take my privacy as seriously as some here, but it's easily gotten to the point that I no longer feel comfortable trusting Google with the entirety of my online experience. For what it's worth, my bar [for not-trusting-companies] is set relatively high, and Google has absolutely begun clearing it, unfortunately.
  - NewAccnt 14y ago
    It is support for Apple with the OP casually mentions Apple as being somehow better than Microsoft today then vaguely points to Windows 8 as if there were anything especially wrong with it from a moral point of view. IMHO, My post is more on topic than the OPs because I actually address the Google situation where the OP is just shallow insinuation and emotional appeal directed at Google. I have yet to see any proof that Google has done anything shady with the information they collect from users that isn't mandated by law, while that is not true of Apple. That's probably the reason that people continue to trust them with their data while people trust Apple simply because it is trendy or easy.
DanBC 14y ago
What do they need to do to fix YouTube? (I'm really asking. I think some of it is broken, and maybe people can pass information onto YouTube people.) 1) Default to 240: I want to be able to always watch videos in the worst resolution possible. I want the lightest bandwidth possible. I'd sometimes be happy with just the audio. It seems that I can't default to 240, no matter what I click. 2) Small elements in UI: There is a teeny little grey drop-down arrow at the top of the Subscriptions list. I didn't see that for weeks, and the randomly changing order of the subscriptions menu drove me bonkers. Making that arrow bigger would be good. 3) Default to Uploads only: When I click a name in the subscriptions list I want to see the videos they've uploaded. I probably don't care about other videos they've liked. And if I do I can clicky the menu. Making me clicky the menu for something I do every time is sub-optimal. 4) Please god something for comments: Google and YouTube are full of smart people. Some kind of "poor comment quality" filter should be easy to implement. Allow youtubers to have no comments; full comments; or 'no poor comments'. (Maybe with a 1, 2, or 3 level setting). This would stop people posting "FIRST!!" and then getting into flamebaiting over it. It could stop some of the vile juvenile language use. (Seriously, I can string all those words together, but I can't show a nipple?) It's not a cure for poor comments, but it could help. I don't know what iGoogle is. Seriously, I think I'm signed into it. Or maybe I signed out when I found out it was going. I'm not quite sure where you're going with the MS thing. For years they've had "sweet spot" OSs. MSDOS 3.3 was good; MSDOS 6 was good. Win 3.11 for workgroups was good while the other win 3.1s were bad. Windows 98SE with plus pack (is that right?) was good, while all the others were okay. Windows 2000 was god tier. Windows ME was a crime.
- doktrin 14y ago
  > Google and YouTube are full of smart people. Some kind of "poor comment quality" filter should be easy to implement. This touches on something I actually feel deserves a second look, if only from an academic or sociological perspective. I have never quite understood why Youtube appears to be the single largest (or, at least most prominent) internet cesspool. Comments there are routinely among the most vile I've seen anywhere, and I've never been able to rationalize a suitable explanation.
  - 14y ago
lawdawg 14y ago
I must have missed all of this outrage over Android, Chrome, GMail, Docs + Drive, Adwords, Analytics, etc, etc. To be honest, I'm really glad Google finally pulled the plug on Reader instead of letting it rot to death. It's opened up the market for companies who will really focus on it. The same with iGoogle, which will be replaced by a much better "Google Now"-ish product.
- GFischer 14y ago
  Maybe you missed it, but searching here in Hacker News, you'll find it creeping along. PLENTY of complaints In my personal case: Android - bugs that stay open for years (my own post from a year ago is unresolved, and it affects all Spanish-speaking Android users https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4532596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4532596 ) Chrome: other than it displaying advertising, I haven't heard much bad about Chrome https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5218153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5218153 GMail: if you have a problem with GMail, you're SCREWED. My mother still hasn't got her account back, and mine was hacked some time ago (I now have 2-factor auth, which still has some bugs - for example someone reported a bug with Android auth even if you revoke the keys) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3839726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3839726 Adwords: don't get me started. The rules for an Adwords account are really opaque. I think there's a post on the frontpage right now. Ahh, here it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5523992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5523992 I've had my run-ins with Adwords too. While I still depend way too much on my GMail account, I have my personal email somewhere else, and I won't consider it for business use (and they probably are going to lose millions of dollars because of that). There's still not a strong challenger to AdWords, but I'll definitely look forward to it. Even Google search is starting to degrade somewhat, it's still not Altavista-level. To be fair, Google still produces some amazing products which they give away for free, but they generate a lot of ill will by not giving even paid support.
  - wilfra 14y ago
    tl;dr 'i'm mad and can name at least one thing i don't like about every Google product' one could make a similar list about every popular product - online or offline. nothing pleases everybody all the time at scale.
BHSPitMonkey 14y ago
You think they haven't caused outrage in the Search space? The DuckDuckGo people would like to have a word with you. As for Google+, aside from the ever-increasing pervasive integrations with other Google properties, I actually do like the product itself. They've made sense of choosing who you share individual items with (Facebook still hasn't done this), it combines the "friend" and "follower" models nicely (it's quite nice reading posts from people like Linus there), the photo albums are very nicely presented and high in quality, and Hangouts are unmatched IMO. If I knew anyone else who used it, I would participate there more...
vacri 14y ago
Maps? Gmail? Youtube? All these are screwed up? Compared to whom? Driverless cars? Android? Streetview? Damn I am tired of people unhappy with one product line using it to damn the entire company.
- kyllo 14y ago
  I dislike how they are playing fast and loose with my personal information and seem to be building their own "walled garden" on the internet by sabotaging open standards like RSS. But if they get everyone to ride in self-driving cars I will forgive them forever. I cannot exaggerate how excited I am about that, it will completely reshape American society.
  - tomkarlo 14y ago
    How, in any way, did they "sabotage open standards like RSS"? That's a pretty broad statement to throw out there - that Google is somehow undermining the open standards process. I'd argue it's done better than other companies, including Apple and Microsoft, in supporting open standards.
    - lxst 14y ago
      One example would be Calendar. First they announce that they retire EAS for CalDav. A few month later they announce that CalDAV will be deprecated and only available for selected developers and other services should use the proprietary Google calendar API. Which is kinda sad as Google could have really improved CalDAV with their move. Now it is back to "walled garden".
      - tomkarlo 14y ago
        While I think that pattern sucks, I'm not sure that "not supporting" a standard constitutes "sabotaging" it. There's a big gap between "promoting" and "destroying/undermining", it's not either-or. Saying Google "sabotaged" a standard implies that they somehow made it unusable for everyone.
flaktrak 14y ago
killed all my Google accounts. Can't stand G+ at least with FB most of the people who have accounts wanted the account. G+ most people don't even want the stupid thing.
blantonl 14y ago
Don't be evil? Pfeh. Google is a publicly traded company (Stock Ticker: NASDAQ: GOOG) The demands of the shareholders and board of directors outweighs the expectations of Google's users and business partners.
- kunai 14y ago
  That has not stopped Apple. Going public does not mean you abandon the ideals your company was founded on.
- Shank 14y ago
  The "Don't be evil" motto was created out of the fact that at the time, other search engines were taking money to show ads higher on the page in search results, without being marked. The methodology is essentially the same as being transparent in how they've executed on that. They're a business, they'll do what's healthy for that business to do. At the same time, however, they're more open and transparent than most Internet companies with what they're doing with data and what they hope to achieve. I'm tired of people denouncing Google+ as some sort of crazed attempt at creating a Facebook competitor, when Google repeatedly has to clarify that it is simply Google's social fabric. Stream is a competitor to newsfeed, but +1s are displayed in search results (Search Plus Your World), and other recommendation data is spread about Google too. It's primary goal creates a unified identity across all Google services. If Google were truly being "evil," they'd automatically turn on Google+ for everybody and provide no opt out or no way to leave. They haven't. You can still "downgrade" and remove Google+.
blhack 14y ago
>Google has overstayed the web's welcome. Then stop using their products. Switch to bing, switch to Internet Explorer, get an iPhone and shut up about it. No, google has not "overstayed the web's welcome", google has overstayed the welcome of a few entitled silicon valley golddiggers who will continue feeling wronged for the next 10 minutes until they realize what wonderful things google has created in the world for them to use.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  >what wonderful things google has created in the world for them to use. Like.... search? That's all they made that I used. Every other product of theirs I used wasn't theirs when I started using it. They bought it and often fucked it up. In another post you go on about how we should be so excited by google cars and google glass. I am excited such things have been made but I'm very disappointed that they come from google. If I ride in a google car am I going to get to recover that wasted travel time by reading a book or working on my laptop? Or will I be unable to do anything because some shitty ad is blasted at me the whole way (or, worse, at regular annoying intervals)? Same thing with google glass, this could add so much but will it? Or is this going to end up as a way for google to blast more shitty ads at me?
- kunai 14y ago
  > Then stop using their products. Switch to bing, switch to Internet Explorer, get an iPhone and shut up about it. I use Yahoo (flame me all you want), I use Firefox, and I do own an iPhone. But I am not going to shut up about it, because Google is forcing me away even though they're the best at what they do. I hate them because I care.
  - 3825 14y ago
    >I hate them because I care. I am sorry but I can't understand your rationale. Please elaborate? What do you care about and what do you hate? Do you care about Google as a publicly shared company and hate the lack of focus in the growing company? Do you care about the web and hate the growth of walled gardens? >Google is forcing me away even though they're the best at what they do What specifically bothers you? If there is one thing I have learned from the Internet, it is that I am never first and I am never unique. Perhaps, someone else has found workarounds for the problems you face? I don't know why anyone would choose to use Y! Search but Firefox is a great web browser and the iPhone is a great app phone (not that you needed my validation). In any case, wish you all the best. :)
chipsy 14y ago
I guess it won't be long now before we start coming up with the "Evil Empire" and "Borg" comparisons for Google. No tech monopoly seems to be immune...
mythz 14y ago
Google, more than any other company, has made the web a better place. The web was horrible dumping ground before Google - laced with Portals and flashing display ads, pathetic Search, fragmented content. Chrome's the best browser, Gmail the best Email client, Google Maps / Earth the best mapping client, there's only 1 YouTube, the Mobile landscape would be a walled garden with every user a hostage if it wasn't for Android, then there's a zillion other apps I use on a daily basis that is best-in-class like Hangouts, Analytics, Google G+ Communities, Groups, etc - and I use them all for free. The world needs more Google's not less, the web is a much better place for having them.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  I disagree, the web of the 90s was really awesome. I remember one of the first things I did when I got online was look up Star Wars websites (using Webcrawler). There were dozens of sites, all made by fans, all amateur, all full of cheesy graphics, .wav sounds, but all unique. Here's the Google results for "Star wars". Tell me when you get to a result that wasn't created by a corporation: https://www.google.com/q=star+wars https://www.google.com/q=star+wars
  - notatoad 14y ago
    The web of the 90s was an awesome exclusive subculture. The web google has been promoting is inclusive and egalitarian. It isn't just for nerds, and cares about things other than Star Wars.
    - ori_b 14y ago
      I think the word you're looking for is "corporate". It's not google's fault, of course. It's just the way the world works when money is involved. Large organizations that stood to make a profit were going to change it significantly to raise their margins, no matter what. The web of the 1990s was far more open to participation outside of the walled gardens. It may have been more difficult to get started with, but it was definitely more inclusive.
cageface 14y ago
Overall I am a big fan of Google and admire their ability to create products that are not only technically superior but fairly open for most useful definitions of that term. But Google+ is a poison spreading through the rest of the business. Their ridiculous, disingenuous defense of their real name policy was the first thing they did that made me second guess my reliance on their services. Their agenda of shoving it down everyone's throat on the back of their other services seems sinister.
OGinparadise 14y ago
Don't be evil? Pfeh. The only thing left of Google that they haven't managed to screw up or cause outrage over is search. The only thing they can't afford to change, for fear people will stop using it. Search is gone too, virtually all ads: http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/google-search-ads-600x486.jpg http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/google-sear... http://www.click-conversion.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/google-products-ads.png http://www.click-conversion.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/g...
- city41 14y ago
  Your two examples are "get credit card" and "Nike shoes on sale"? Try "geomorphology" or "big o notation" or anything not consumer related. Quite frankly if I searched for "Nike shoes on sale" then those ads are exactly what I'd want to see.
  - OGinparadise 14y ago
    in related news....my point was not that they are ads but that ads are probably 90% of the page. To the unsuspecting user, those seem like unbiased results (not as ads) and to everyone they start the "Google tax" price increase for everyone. Try "geomorphology" or "big o notation" Go and buy those keywords and see what happens. Google posts ad for bought keywords and that usually includes every commercial word. If the defense is that not sure if you're helping them.
PavlovsCat 14y ago
And please, PLEASE, reinvent that horrid thing called Google+. Even the name sucks. How about Doubleplusgoogle? Or maybe MeinGoogle?
mtreis86 14y ago
Google's search has changed. At one point the searches you and I perform would have returned the same results. Now, even without being logged it, we get differing results. This can be both good and bad depending on your view but it certainly has changed.
euroclydon 14y ago
>The only thing left of Google that they haven't managed to screw up or cause outrage over is search. Really? They're on the verge of it. The way they load search results as their auto-complete hones in, breaks browser history.

by kunai 14y ago

mindcrime 14y ago

I actually kinda like G+, BUT... I agree with the author of TFA about Google and their move away from the Open Web and towards another walled garden. If I could subscribe to RSS feeds to populate my G+ streams, and post to G+ using AtomPub, and expose my social-graph from G+ using FOAF, consume G+ using RSS/Atom, etc., then I would have no problem with it. But right now, Google seem determined to build something that's just one more walled garden, albeit one with a gate[1] that you can laboriously, manually, tediously drag your "stuff" out through. [1]: http://www.google.com/takeout http://www.google.com/takeout

gkoberger 14y ago

Overstayed the web's welcome? I'm not convinced that's happened yet. I certainly don't disagree with your points, but it's moot. Normal users don't care about things like "privacy" or "neutrality" or "standards". If it works and is free, that's good enough. And the page views Google gets is testament to the fact that nobody outside of the HN-esque world has any issues with Google. Heck, I (and most people here) use GMail+Search+Docs+etc for the same reasons "normal" people do.. the privacy I give up is worth the convenience of their products.

mindcrime 14y ago
... nobody outside of the HN-esque world has any issues with Google. Until they do. And that's the rub. Even non-hackers often eventually get burned by these issues, but they aren't usually thinking about any of this stuff in advance. They lack awareness. What that tells me is that we need to find a way to do a better of educating people on the importance of things like "privacy" or "neutrality" or "standards". How best to do that is, of course, an open question...
mnicole 14y ago
> nobody outside of the HN-esque world has any issues with Google. People say the same thing about non-technical people using Facebook, but it isn't all that truthful. They have legitimate concerns, they're just waiting on the internet-at-large to determine the next best thing before expending any energy on making the switch.
_delirium 14y ago
That's part of what makes this strategy a bit strange, because "normal" users don't care about or use Google+ either.
ianstormtaylor 14y ago
> Normal users don't care about things like "privacy" ... This is not true. If you explained exactly what the extension was doing to a normal user I can almost guarantee they wouldn't like it. No one wants every website they visit to be looked at by an external source. The problem is it's not obvious this is happening. Hell, I'm a web developer and even I wouldn't have thought twice about how Google was displaying this information to me. The technology has gotten so far outside of a "normal users"'s grasp that it's not even fair anymore. They care about privacy, they just have no way of knowing each and every way their privacy can be eroded. Luckily no one uses Google+ so the extension is pretty useless...
- robryan 14y ago
  Wouldn't my ISP also be recording this information? Your non https browsing is also being sent through countless routers you have no control over. Hell even Google is already tracking you through GA, the +1 button and Adsense. And if you are using Chrome everything you type in the search bar is being sent to power autocomplete.

InclinedPlane 14y ago

The biggest problem with Google has been that they've been a "benevolent monarch", more or less. Meaning, much of the reason why google has been good for the web has been due to specific choices that google leadership has made and the ways that google has chosen to wield its power. This contrasts to strict limits on power and strong external forces from competition, etc. As long as the monarch is benevolent this is great, but then there's no mechanism to prevent abuses of power, and then maybe the monarch changes, or circumstances change, and the inevitable happens. Google is making more money than ever, but that's still not enough for them. And now we're starting to see a lot of the "well, we chose not to be evil" slip away. The problem with "don't be evil" is that it's weak, and it's a double negative. Contrast it with "be good". Neutral isn't evil[1], and once you're down in the moral gray area pit anyway it's easy to move the goal posts and define "evil" differently. One could make a very well-founded argument, for example, that Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, and even EA or Comcast are not, strictly speaking, "evil" companies. [1: what makes a man turn neutral?]

slg 14y ago
Since you raised the issue, how exactly is a for profit and publicly owned company supposed to run effectively if not through a (benevolent or not) monarchy? Do you expect Google to put product decisions up for a vote?
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  I think you misunderstand. This isn't about actions, it's about power. Google is in a bit of an unusual position because it has a shit-load of power that it, mostly, hasn't abused for its own advantage, yet. Partly because google has been "good" many people haven't been overly concerned about their power and they haven't sought to try to limit that power (in all of the typical ways power is usually limited in the business world, through regulation, through competition, etc.) But on the flip side that means that there are very few roadblocks to google deciding all of a sudden to try to convert its power into cold hard cash, regardless of how it hurts individuals. Which may be something that could happen in the near future.
r00fus 14y ago

kaoD 14y ago

What I specially hate about Google+ is the fact that Google can't stop spamming me to join it. Now even Google Play comments need to be part of Google+. You know what, Google? Fuck you. No. Fuck you twice. I won't join that fucking horrid place. I don't even have Facebook, why would I join a crappy social network?

anigbrowl 14y ago
You know, I don't really like Google+ but I have had no difficulty in opting out of it and declining to share things like my YouTube favorites and so forth (with a few exceptions that were wholly by choice). I'm not happy with their social strategy in general, but I don't feel it's anything like as burdensome on the user as Facebook's, which caused me to stop using that service altogether.
- ajanuary 14y ago
  They really do push you to at least create an account though. I've accidentally created and had to close an account several times. I've given up and just left an open but dormant account now.
- kaoD 14y ago
  Well, I've had difficulty opting out, and new Google accounts are linked to Google+ by default. E.g.: I have an Android phone and I would like to rate a scam app so people don't download it. Oops, it's not possible without a Google+ account. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5535556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5535556
  - knightzero 14y ago
    Google is trying to consolidate all of their services under one account. Like it or not a Google+ is just public facing page for a Google account. In away it dose make sense and answers an age old internet problem. It requires users to be responsible for what they put online.

NewAccnt 14y ago

Google, has no obligation to support Reader. What they did to the RSS market was shady, indeed, but it is well within their rights and they did not do anything that would infringe on the rights of developers or users the way Apple does. Nobody has a right to make a profitable RSS service, and nobody can tell them they have to support RSS in place of their social network of choice Apple on the otherhand enforces a single marketplace on their operating system today. Microsoft has mostly learned from their past mistakes and people watch their every move and jump on them if any technology they use can be used to subvert freedom of developers or users down the line. I don't have any dog in this race, but I don't understand why Apple continues to get a free pass to implement market control mascaraing in the name of clean interfaces with comforting whitespace and unified design, especially when it is used regularly to usurp users' and developers' rights. This article is nothing but platitudes and entitlement. Somehow people got in their minds that they have a right to Google Search and can demand features and support from them.. I have no idea how this idea came about, but it seems that the gist of it is that we've come to expect everything for free from Google and that's just how it should always be.

doktrin 14y ago
I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think any criticism of Google automatically translates into tacit support of Apple. They [Apple] certainly have their warts, but this isn't about them at all. For my part, I share many of the frustrations voiced here. I can't stand Google's persistence in ensuring I'm constantly logged in, or Chrome's ever helpful reminder that I should sync it with my Google account. The business case is obvious, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. In fact, I dislike it enough to no longer use Chrome as my default browser and have moved away from all of their services with the exception of Gmail. I don't take my privacy as seriously as some here, but it's easily gotten to the point that I no longer feel comfortable trusting Google with the entirety of my online experience. For what it's worth, my bar [for not-trusting-companies] is set relatively high, and Google has absolutely begun clearing it, unfortunately.
- NewAccnt 14y ago
  It is support for Apple with the OP casually mentions Apple as being somehow better than Microsoft today then vaguely points to Windows 8 as if there were anything especially wrong with it from a moral point of view. IMHO, My post is more on topic than the OPs because I actually address the Google situation where the OP is just shallow insinuation and emotional appeal directed at Google. I have yet to see any proof that Google has done anything shady with the information they collect from users that isn't mandated by law, while that is not true of Apple. That's probably the reason that people continue to trust them with their data while people trust Apple simply because it is trendy or easy.

DanBC 14y ago

What do they need to do to fix YouTube? (I'm really asking. I think some of it is broken, and maybe people can pass information onto YouTube people.) 1) Default to 240: I want to be able to always watch videos in the worst resolution possible. I want the lightest bandwidth possible. I'd sometimes be happy with just the audio. It seems that I can't default to 240, no matter what I click. 2) Small elements in UI: There is a teeny little grey drop-down arrow at the top of the Subscriptions list. I didn't see that for weeks, and the randomly changing order of the subscriptions menu drove me bonkers. Making that arrow bigger would be good. 3) Default to Uploads only: When I click a name in the subscriptions list I want to see the videos they've uploaded. I probably don't care about other videos they've liked. And if I do I can clicky the menu. Making me clicky the menu for something I do every time is sub-optimal. 4) Please god something for comments: Google and YouTube are full of smart people. Some kind of "poor comment quality" filter should be easy to implement. Allow youtubers to have no comments; full comments; or 'no poor comments'. (Maybe with a 1, 2, or 3 level setting). This would stop people posting "FIRST!!" and then getting into flamebaiting over it. It could stop some of the vile juvenile language use. (Seriously, I can string all those words together, but I can't show a nipple?) It's not a cure for poor comments, but it could help. I don't know what iGoogle is. Seriously, I think I'm signed into it. Or maybe I signed out when I found out it was going. I'm not quite sure where you're going with the MS thing. For years they've had "sweet spot" OSs. MSDOS 3.3 was good; MSDOS 6 was good. Win 3.11 for workgroups was good while the other win 3.1s were bad. Windows 98SE with plus pack (is that right?) was good, while all the others were okay. Windows 2000 was god tier. Windows ME was a crime.

doktrin 14y ago
> Google and YouTube are full of smart people. Some kind of "poor comment quality" filter should be easy to implement. This touches on something I actually feel deserves a second look, if only from an academic or sociological perspective. I have never quite understood why Youtube appears to be the single largest (or, at least most prominent) internet cesspool. Comments there are routinely among the most vile I've seen anywhere, and I've never been able to rationalize a suitable explanation.
- 14y ago

lawdawg 14y ago

I must have missed all of this outrage over Android, Chrome, GMail, Docs + Drive, Adwords, Analytics, etc, etc. To be honest, I'm really glad Google finally pulled the plug on Reader instead of letting it rot to death. It's opened up the market for companies who will really focus on it. The same with iGoogle, which will be replaced by a much better "Google Now"-ish product.

GFischer 14y ago
Maybe you missed it, but searching here in Hacker News, you'll find it creeping along. PLENTY of complaints In my personal case: Android - bugs that stay open for years (my own post from a year ago is unresolved, and it affects all Spanish-speaking Android users https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4532596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4532596 ) Chrome: other than it displaying advertising, I haven't heard much bad about Chrome https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5218153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5218153 GMail: if you have a problem with GMail, you're SCREWED. My mother still hasn't got her account back, and mine was hacked some time ago (I now have 2-factor auth, which still has some bugs - for example someone reported a bug with Android auth even if you revoke the keys) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3839726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3839726 Adwords: don't get me started. The rules for an Adwords account are really opaque. I think there's a post on the frontpage right now. Ahh, here it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5523992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5523992 I've had my run-ins with Adwords too. While I still depend way too much on my GMail account, I have my personal email somewhere else, and I won't consider it for business use (and they probably are going to lose millions of dollars because of that). There's still not a strong challenger to AdWords, but I'll definitely look forward to it. Even Google search is starting to degrade somewhat, it's still not Altavista-level. To be fair, Google still produces some amazing products which they give away for free, but they generate a lot of ill will by not giving even paid support.
- wilfra 14y ago
  tl;dr 'i'm mad and can name at least one thing i don't like about every Google product' one could make a similar list about every popular product - online or offline. nothing pleases everybody all the time at scale.

BHSPitMonkey 14y ago

You think they haven't caused outrage in the Search space? The DuckDuckGo people would like to have a word with you. As for Google+, aside from the ever-increasing pervasive integrations with other Google properties, I actually do like the product itself. They've made sense of choosing who you share individual items with (Facebook still hasn't done this), it combines the "friend" and "follower" models nicely (it's quite nice reading posts from people like Linus there), the photo albums are very nicely presented and high in quality, and Hangouts are unmatched IMO. If I knew anyone else who used it, I would participate there more...

vacri 14y ago

Maps? Gmail? Youtube? All these are screwed up? Compared to whom? Driverless cars? Android? Streetview? Damn I am tired of people unhappy with one product line using it to damn the entire company.

kyllo 14y ago
I dislike how they are playing fast and loose with my personal information and seem to be building their own "walled garden" on the internet by sabotaging open standards like RSS. But if they get everyone to ride in self-driving cars I will forgive them forever. I cannot exaggerate how excited I am about that, it will completely reshape American society.
- tomkarlo 14y ago
  How, in any way, did they "sabotage open standards like RSS"? That's a pretty broad statement to throw out there - that Google is somehow undermining the open standards process. I'd argue it's done better than other companies, including Apple and Microsoft, in supporting open standards.
  - lxst 14y ago
    One example would be Calendar. First they announce that they retire EAS for CalDav. A few month later they announce that CalDAV will be deprecated and only available for selected developers and other services should use the proprietary Google calendar API. Which is kinda sad as Google could have really improved CalDAV with their move. Now it is back to "walled garden".
    - tomkarlo 14y ago
      While I think that pattern sucks, I'm not sure that "not supporting" a standard constitutes "sabotaging" it. There's a big gap between "promoting" and "destroying/undermining", it's not either-or. Saying Google "sabotaged" a standard implies that they somehow made it unusable for everyone.

flaktrak 14y ago

killed all my Google accounts. Can't stand G+ at least with FB most of the people who have accounts wanted the account. G+ most people don't even want the stupid thing.

blantonl 14y ago

Don't be evil? Pfeh. Google is a publicly traded company (Stock Ticker: NASDAQ: GOOG) The demands of the shareholders and board of directors outweighs the expectations of Google's users and business partners.

kunai 14y ago
That has not stopped Apple. Going public does not mean you abandon the ideals your company was founded on.
Shank 14y ago
The "Don't be evil" motto was created out of the fact that at the time, other search engines were taking money to show ads higher on the page in search results, without being marked. The methodology is essentially the same as being transparent in how they've executed on that. They're a business, they'll do what's healthy for that business to do. At the same time, however, they're more open and transparent than most Internet companies with what they're doing with data and what they hope to achieve. I'm tired of people denouncing Google+ as some sort of crazed attempt at creating a Facebook competitor, when Google repeatedly has to clarify that it is simply Google's social fabric. Stream is a competitor to newsfeed, but +1s are displayed in search results (Search Plus Your World), and other recommendation data is spread about Google too. It's primary goal creates a unified identity across all Google services. If Google were truly being "evil," they'd automatically turn on Google+ for everybody and provide no opt out or no way to leave. They haven't. You can still "downgrade" and remove Google+.

blhack 14y ago

>Google has overstayed the web's welcome. Then stop using their products. Switch to bing, switch to Internet Explorer, get an iPhone and shut up about it. No, google has not "overstayed the web's welcome", google has overstayed the welcome of a few entitled silicon valley golddiggers who will continue feeling wronged for the next 10 minutes until they realize what wonderful things google has created in the world for them to use.

flyinRyan 14y ago
>what wonderful things google has created in the world for them to use. Like.... search? That's all they made that I used. Every other product of theirs I used wasn't theirs when I started using it. They bought it and often fucked it up. In another post you go on about how we should be so excited by google cars and google glass. I am excited such things have been made but I'm very disappointed that they come from google. If I ride in a google car am I going to get to recover that wasted travel time by reading a book or working on my laptop? Or will I be unable to do anything because some shitty ad is blasted at me the whole way (or, worse, at regular annoying intervals)? Same thing with google glass, this could add so much but will it? Or is this going to end up as a way for google to blast more shitty ads at me?
kunai 14y ago
> Then stop using their products. Switch to bing, switch to Internet Explorer, get an iPhone and shut up about it. I use Yahoo (flame me all you want), I use Firefox, and I do own an iPhone. But I am not going to shut up about it, because Google is forcing me away even though they're the best at what they do. I hate them because I care.
- 3825 14y ago
  >I hate them because I care. I am sorry but I can't understand your rationale. Please elaborate? What do you care about and what do you hate? Do you care about Google as a publicly shared company and hate the lack of focus in the growing company? Do you care about the web and hate the growth of walled gardens? >Google is forcing me away even though they're the best at what they do What specifically bothers you? If there is one thing I have learned from the Internet, it is that I am never first and I am never unique. Perhaps, someone else has found workarounds for the problems you face? I don't know why anyone would choose to use Y! Search but Firefox is a great web browser and the iPhone is a great app phone (not that you needed my validation). In any case, wish you all the best. :)

chipsy 14y ago

I guess it won't be long now before we start coming up with the "Evil Empire" and "Borg" comparisons for Google. No tech monopoly seems to be immune...

mythz 14y ago

Google, more than any other company, has made the web a better place. The web was horrible dumping ground before Google - laced with Portals and flashing display ads, pathetic Search, fragmented content. Chrome's the best browser, Gmail the best Email client, Google Maps / Earth the best mapping client, there's only 1 YouTube, the Mobile landscape would be a walled garden with every user a hostage if it wasn't for Android, then there's a zillion other apps I use on a daily basis that is best-in-class like Hangouts, Analytics, Google G+ Communities, Groups, etc - and I use them all for free. The world needs more Google's not less, the web is a much better place for having them.

MatthewPhillips 14y ago
I disagree, the web of the 90s was really awesome. I remember one of the first things I did when I got online was look up Star Wars websites (using Webcrawler). There were dozens of sites, all made by fans, all amateur, all full of cheesy graphics, .wav sounds, but all unique. Here's the Google results for "Star wars". Tell me when you get to a result that wasn't created by a corporation: https://www.google.com/q=star+wars https://www.google.com/q=star+wars
- notatoad 14y ago
  The web of the 90s was an awesome exclusive subculture. The web google has been promoting is inclusive and egalitarian. It isn't just for nerds, and cares about things other than Star Wars.
  - ori_b 14y ago
    I think the word you're looking for is "corporate". It's not google's fault, of course. It's just the way the world works when money is involved. Large organizations that stood to make a profit were going to change it significantly to raise their margins, no matter what. The web of the 1990s was far more open to participation outside of the walled gardens. It may have been more difficult to get started with, but it was definitely more inclusive.

cageface 14y ago

Overall I am a big fan of Google and admire their ability to create products that are not only technically superior but fairly open for most useful definitions of that term. But Google+ is a poison spreading through the rest of the business. Their ridiculous, disingenuous defense of their real name policy was the first thing they did that made me second guess my reliance on their services. Their agenda of shoving it down everyone's throat on the back of their other services seems sinister.

OGinparadise 14y ago

Don't be evil? Pfeh. The only thing left of Google that they haven't managed to screw up or cause outrage over is search. The only thing they can't afford to change, for fear people will stop using it. Search is gone too, virtually all ads: http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/google-search-ads-600x486.jpg http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/google-sear... http://www.click-conversion.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/google-products-ads.png http://www.click-conversion.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/g...

city41 14y ago
Your two examples are "get credit card" and "Nike shoes on sale"? Try "geomorphology" or "big o notation" or anything not consumer related. Quite frankly if I searched for "Nike shoes on sale" then those ads are exactly what I'd want to see.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  in related news....my point was not that they are ads but that ads are probably 90% of the page. To the unsuspecting user, those seem like unbiased results (not as ads) and to everyone they start the "Google tax" price increase for everyone. Try "geomorphology" or "big o notation" Go and buy those keywords and see what happens. Google posts ad for bought keywords and that usually includes every commercial word. If the defense is that not sure if you're helping them.

PavlovsCat 14y ago

And please, PLEASE, reinvent that horrid thing called Google+. Even the name sucks. How about Doubleplusgoogle? Or maybe MeinGoogle?

mtreis86 14y ago

Google's search has changed. At one point the searches you and I perform would have returned the same results. Now, even without being logged it, we get differing results. This can be both good and bad depending on your view but it certainly has changed.

euroclydon 14y ago

>The only thing left of Google that they haven't managed to screw up or cause outrage over is search. Really? They're on the verge of it. The way they load search results as their auto-complete hones in, breaks browser history.