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> I work on Google Fiber. You give us money, we give you an Internet connection. ...so that there's a pretty good chance that [you] will use Google Search, and

> I work on Google Fiber. You give us money, we give you an Internet connection. ...so that there's a pretty good chance that [you] will use Google Search, and [we] will then show you ads. Also, [we] inadvertently created a channel for analysis on [your] Web browsing habits if [we] were so inclined, which would enable [us] to refine advertising even more, among other things. If those are not the entire rationale for Google's "everybody should be online" initiatives, like Fiber and Loon, it's at least a significant portion thereof and you know it. Hell, it's probably why the Chromebook exists. You and I are kidding ourselves if we arrive at a conclusion that Google is in any other business than data and advertising impressions. Facebook needs eyeballs, too, hence why Zuckerberg has been on the same warpath. I didn't make the account just now.

yuhong 13y ago
The ads are not bad by themselves.
- jsmthrowaway 13y ago
  I would contend that advertising, marketing, and consumerism are not noble causes for humanity, and engineers who devote their lifespan to enabling such things are wasting their precious allotment of time. Google's revenue driver is putting products in front of eyeballs. Imagine a world in which such a thing was not a market. Yes, you need awareness of products for people to buy said products. I get that. But no, you don't need to do data analysis on my browsing and search habits to come up with the most effective product to show me to increase the chances of me buying it. Spreading the word about a product is one thing. Treating the human being as a means to a sale, optimizing accordingly, and creating a market for "data" is another. That anybody on planet Earth would consider my shopping habits worthy of purchase just boggles me, and that I am not even consulted in most cases about analysis and sales of such data taking place is just the icing on the cake. It says something that I pay Comcast $100/month+ for entertainment and I am still shown advertisements for a third (or more) of every hour. I pay for the privilege of being shown new cars. Repeatedly. Black Friday comes to mind, too, as another example of the feedback loop losing control of itself. To be clear, things are not bad. Our consumer culture is a little bit out of hand, and I'd rather devote my remaining years to producing something of actual value instead of imaginary marketing value. To that end, that Google let me go was in fact a blessing in disguise, and I just hadn't realized it yet.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    IMO it depends on which kind.
  - michaelt 13y ago
    Does your assessment of the value of advertising include the things that are funded by adverts? That covers almost all print journalism, a lot of full-time internet content creators (from the onion to full time youtube content creators) not to mention Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome and Youtube. If advertising includes everything paid for by adverts, advertising is useful to humanity. If advertising doesn't include everything paid for by adverts, Google isn't only an advertising company.
    - wpietri 13y ago
      We happen to currently fund some things via ads. But that's an accident of history. If we didn't have ads, there's no reason to think we wouldn't have found another way.
      - rodgerd 13y ago
        There are rather a lot of industries that are all ears for yor alternatives.
        wpietri 13y ago
        Now that we have ads, they're hard to get away from. You're removing a problem people notice (having to pay) and causing problems they mostly don't (wasted time, wasted money, suboptimal purchases). This path dependence doesn't make ads good, though.
    - o0-0o 13y ago
      I would encourage you to support nonprofit journalism. High-end journalism is dying. Check out NPR or ProPublica. The lack of ads is refreshing.
    - cma 13y ago
- wpietri 13y ago
  The point of my ad is to manipulate your behavior, typically your purchasing behavior. I understand people differ on this, but I'm pretty comfortable saying it's bad to manipulate others for your own profit.
- madaxe_again 13y ago
  It's all ads. "Organic" search is ads. The majority of online businesses are absolutely, totally, dependent on google's free ads(organic). Cf. rap genius. ... and the moment you start manually tweaking rankings... You can't possibly claim that you're not managing marketing.

yuhong 13y ago

The ads are not bad by themselves.

jsmthrowaway 13y ago
I would contend that advertising, marketing, and consumerism are not noble causes for humanity, and engineers who devote their lifespan to enabling such things are wasting their precious allotment of time. Google's revenue driver is putting products in front of eyeballs. Imagine a world in which such a thing was not a market. Yes, you need awareness of products for people to buy said products. I get that. But no, you don't need to do data analysis on my browsing and search habits to come up with the most effective product to show me to increase the chances of me buying it. Spreading the word about a product is one thing. Treating the human being as a means to a sale, optimizing accordingly, and creating a market for "data" is another. That anybody on planet Earth would consider my shopping habits worthy of purchase just boggles me, and that I am not even consulted in most cases about analysis and sales of such data taking place is just the icing on the cake. It says something that I pay Comcast $100/month+ for entertainment and I am still shown advertisements for a third (or more) of every hour. I pay for the privilege of being shown new cars. Repeatedly. Black Friday comes to mind, too, as another example of the feedback loop losing control of itself. To be clear, things are not bad. Our consumer culture is a little bit out of hand, and I'd rather devote my remaining years to producing something of actual value instead of imaginary marketing value. To that end, that Google let me go was in fact a blessing in disguise, and I just hadn't realized it yet.
- yuhong 13y ago
  IMO it depends on which kind.
- michaelt 13y ago
  Does your assessment of the value of advertising include the things that are funded by adverts? That covers almost all print journalism, a lot of full-time internet content creators (from the onion to full time youtube content creators) not to mention Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps, Chrome and Youtube. If advertising includes everything paid for by adverts, advertising is useful to humanity. If advertising doesn't include everything paid for by adverts, Google isn't only an advertising company.
  - wpietri 13y ago
    We happen to currently fund some things via ads. But that's an accident of history. If we didn't have ads, there's no reason to think we wouldn't have found another way.
    - rodgerd 13y ago
      There are rather a lot of industries that are all ears for yor alternatives.
      - wpietri 13y ago
        Now that we have ads, they're hard to get away from. You're removing a problem people notice (having to pay) and causing problems they mostly don't (wasted time, wasted money, suboptimal purchases). This path dependence doesn't make ads good, though.
  - o0-0o 13y ago
    I would encourage you to support nonprofit journalism. High-end journalism is dying. Check out NPR or ProPublica. The lack of ads is refreshing.
  - cma 13y ago
wpietri 13y ago
The point of my ad is to manipulate your behavior, typically your purchasing behavior. I understand people differ on this, but I'm pretty comfortable saying it's bad to manipulate others for your own profit.
madaxe_again 13y ago
It's all ads. "Organic" search is ads. The majority of online businesses are absolutely, totally, dependent on google's free ads(organic). Cf. rap genius. ... and the moment you start manually tweaking rankings... You can't possibly claim that you're not managing marketing.