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I did not downvote. But I disagree his post contributes to the conversation. Nobody believes the strawman argument that Google is a "benevolent company". Of co

by DCKing 12y ago

I did not downvote. But I disagree his post contributes to the conversation. Nobody believes the strawman argument that Google is a "benevolent company". Of course they are being assholes to make their services more used. Everyone is aware of that. Moreover, "Google is evil" => "Google wants to create a lock-in for Chrome or Android" is a total non sequitur. None of what is mentioned means or even implies that Google wants to create a vendor lock-in for Chrome and Android. Nothing in that list has to do with creating a platform lock-in at all. In fact, it shows that Google are being assholes mostly about their services. It is their services that bring in the money, and I think Google really does not care if you use Firefox, Chrome, iOS, Android or whatever. As long as you use their services. Posting a list like that does not contribute at all to the discussion about Google's alleged vendor lock-in. It only makes this a Google hate thread, and muffles proper discussion.

lucb1e 12y ago
> Google really does not care if you use Firefox, Chrome, iOS, Android or whatever I think they do. Maybe it's not a huge deal, but it's an advantage to control more aspects of what users use (ISP, OS, browser, and finally the service itself). With Google Chrome they can make anything the way they want and support any feature they like, whereas with Firefox they'd have to wait for the guys at Mozilla to agree with something. Let's just name something silly: a pdf viewer that does OCR so that website authors can put relevant ads there if they want. I can see how Mozilla developers would sleep a night on that feature while for Google it would be a no-brainer that makes them money.
- DCKing 12y ago
  > I think they do. Maybe it's not a huge deal, but it's an advantage to control more aspects of what users use (ISP, OS, browser, and finally the service itself). Fair enough. Make it "Google really does not care much if you use Firefox, Chrome, iOS, Android or whatever". The point is that even if Google prefers that you use Chrome, it's not an argument to go for vendor lock-in. It's an argument maybe for wanting to increase market share. This piece suggests that Google has motivation for breaking other platforms though, which I find ridiculous as it will only diminish their returns.
  - wfjackson 12y ago
    They do try to break other platforms, like refusing to make a YouTube app on Windows Phone and then sending a takedown on a Microsoft written app. YouTube and the content providers do get hurt with these actions but Google doesn't care because they're willing to hurt themselves in order to hurt Windows Phone. Even Vimeo has a Windows Phone app since many years. Also, interesting that this article seems to have completely disappeared off HN very suddenly.
    - DCKing 12y ago
      > YouTube and the content providers do get hurt with these actions but Google doesn't care because they're willing to hurt themselves in order to hurt Windows Phone. This is false. Having third party apps that do not adhere to the ad- and video distribution policies hurts Google/YouTube's money sources. So they have valid reasoning - evil, yes, but valid. The browser app does follow YouTube's policies, so Google's reasoning here is still valid without breaking access to their platform. The browser and MetroTube still work, so it's not as if Google is actively breaking WP access to their services. They just did not accept Microsoft's "official" app. I do agree that Google should stop being such a scumbag about Windows and just make some apps for them. But "refusing to make an app" does not equate to "breaking another platform". There is/was no official YouTube app for BB10 or WebOS either, and Google is/was not trying to break them either.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      > Also, interesting that this article seems to have completely disappeared off HN very suddenly. This article moved directly from #2 to #247. It's not obvious why an entire thread of 255 comments was moved, instead of downvoting a single sockpuppet post.
      - dang 12y ago
        The post was a duplicate. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8185935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8185935
  - stephenr 12y ago

by DCKing 12y ago

lucb1e 12y ago

> Google really does not care if you use Firefox, Chrome, iOS, Android or whatever I think they do. Maybe it's not a huge deal, but it's an advantage to control more aspects of what users use (ISP, OS, browser, and finally the service itself). With Google Chrome they can make anything the way they want and support any feature they like, whereas with Firefox they'd have to wait for the guys at Mozilla to agree with something. Let's just name something silly: a pdf viewer that does OCR so that website authors can put relevant ads there if they want. I can see how Mozilla developers would sleep a night on that feature while for Google it would be a no-brainer that makes them money.

DCKing 12y ago
> I think they do. Maybe it's not a huge deal, but it's an advantage to control more aspects of what users use (ISP, OS, browser, and finally the service itself). Fair enough. Make it "Google really does not care much if you use Firefox, Chrome, iOS, Android or whatever". The point is that even if Google prefers that you use Chrome, it's not an argument to go for vendor lock-in. It's an argument maybe for wanting to increase market share. This piece suggests that Google has motivation for breaking other platforms though, which I find ridiculous as it will only diminish their returns.
- wfjackson 12y ago
  They do try to break other platforms, like refusing to make a YouTube app on Windows Phone and then sending a takedown on a Microsoft written app. YouTube and the content providers do get hurt with these actions but Google doesn't care because they're willing to hurt themselves in order to hurt Windows Phone. Even Vimeo has a Windows Phone app since many years. Also, interesting that this article seems to have completely disappeared off HN very suddenly.
  - DCKing 12y ago
    > YouTube and the content providers do get hurt with these actions but Google doesn't care because they're willing to hurt themselves in order to hurt Windows Phone. This is false. Having third party apps that do not adhere to the ad- and video distribution policies hurts Google/YouTube's money sources. So they have valid reasoning - evil, yes, but valid. The browser app does follow YouTube's policies, so Google's reasoning here is still valid without breaking access to their platform. The browser and MetroTube still work, so it's not as if Google is actively breaking WP access to their services. They just did not accept Microsoft's "official" app. I do agree that Google should stop being such a scumbag about Windows and just make some apps for them. But "refusing to make an app" does not equate to "breaking another platform". There is/was no official YouTube app for BB10 or WebOS either, and Google is/was not trying to break them either.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    > Also, interesting that this article seems to have completely disappeared off HN very suddenly. This article moved directly from #2 to #247. It's not obvious why an entire thread of 255 comments was moved, instead of downvoting a single sockpuppet post.
    - dang 12y ago
      The post was a duplicate. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8185935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8185935
- stephenr 12y ago