Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57763382
255 comments
Now you've seen how a "journalist" doesn't have the patience to spend 60 seconds searching for something you're knowledgeable about, will you (not you specifically) take as gospel anything they say about something you're not knowledgeable about?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
It appears you are attempting to indict the entire field of journalism by referring to a cocktail story told by a sci-fi writer.
Wouldn't it make more sense to study the field and sort journalists into groups based on their performance over time? Even casual sports fan do that kind of work reflexively. I don't get why journalism should be treated any different, and I especially don't get the desire to find an anecdote that could reject the entire field out of hand.
Put differently-- if Glenn Greenwald publishes another leak-based story about state-level corruption, I'll read it and ascribe more veracity to him than I will Crichton's cocktail story. I'll bet you a dollar that when/if I do that, nothing bad will happen as a result.
Wouldn't it make more sense to study the field and sort journalists into groups based on their performance over time? Even casual sports fan do that kind of work reflexively. I don't get why journalism should be treated any different, and I especially don't get the desire to find an anecdote that could reject the entire field out of hand.
Put differently-- if Glenn Greenwald publishes another leak-based story about state-level corruption, I'll read it and ascribe more veracity to him than I will Crichton's cocktail story. I'll bet you a dollar that when/if I do that, nothing bad will happen as a result.
I think most people have never in their life read an article by a journalist about something they're knowledgeable of that wasn't complete dogshit. You mention Glenn Greenwald because presumably you're not an expert on state-level corruption. Pretty much any piece of journalism on any topic you can poke plenty of holes in with some research. Hell some articles you can use the article itself to disprove the main point the journalist was trying to make. At some point overwhelming empirical evidence can elevate a "cocktail story" to a rule of thumb.
I have to say, I find this bit amusing:
"That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say."
The last 4 years of US politics (and 20? of UK politics) have given the lie to that belief.
[edit: added UK politics because they're just as bad]
"That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say."
The last 4 years of US politics (and 20? of UK politics) have given the lie to that belief.
[edit: added UK politics because they're just as bad]
Are you saying most people would answer Yes to "Are politicians trustworthy?" because then I clearly live in a completely different bubble than you do and have a very different interpretation of TV speaking heads talking about the issue. In my bubble at least 90% would say that US politicians are not trustworthy (no idea about UK). Not much different if you ask about Trump or Biden either.
Individual congressmen and women tend to have high favorability ratings in the locality that voted for them, despite congress overall consistently having practically nonexistant support, and political parties not faring significantly better.
In short, every politician is trustworthy to the people who voted for them, but not the rest- kindof an inverse of the effect, really.
In short, every politician is trustworthy to the people who voted for them, but not the rest- kindof an inverse of the effect, really.
Eh, your view of other people's cynicism is too absolute.
People distrust politicians ... except. Except for their favorite politician, except for their party, except for the ones they voted for, except...
You see this with Congress writ large. People hate Congress, its approval ratings are through the floor. But they like their own Congresspeople. Sure, gerrymandering, safe districts, etc, but by and large people are much happier with their own Representatives than everyone else's.
People distrust politicians ... except. Except for their favorite politician, except for their party, except for the ones they voted for, except...
You see this with Congress writ large. People hate Congress, its approval ratings are through the floor. But they like their own Congresspeople. Sure, gerrymandering, safe districts, etc, but by and large people are much happier with their own Representatives than everyone else's.
>Except for their favorite politician, except for their party, except for the ones they voted for, except...
As I wrote in another reply I believe this to be A Very American Thing. At least I have never heard of anyone here (in Denmark) seeing themselves as represented by a person. It is more of a party thing. I'm sure I live in a bubble (don't we all) so my experience might not match any official numbers but in my experience people seem to just change to another party at the next election if they feel the representation does not match their expectation. This likely makes it easier not to get caught up in having to defend a specific person that "can do no wrong". But again, I have not looked it up and it is all based on my own experience and intuition. I do know that election day sees a much higher turnout here (~%85) than in the US (>65%?) though, but is it related to distrusting politicians? Who knows.
As I wrote in another reply I believe this to be A Very American Thing. At least I have never heard of anyone here (in Denmark) seeing themselves as represented by a person. It is more of a party thing. I'm sure I live in a bubble (don't we all) so my experience might not match any official numbers but in my experience people seem to just change to another party at the next election if they feel the representation does not match their expectation. This likely makes it easier not to get caught up in having to defend a specific person that "can do no wrong". But again, I have not looked it up and it is all based on my own experience and intuition. I do know that election day sees a much higher turnout here (~%85) than in the US (>65%?) though, but is it related to distrusting politicians? Who knows.
> At least I have never heard of anyone here (in Denmark) seeing themselves as represented by a person. It is more of a party thing.
This might be a parliamentary democracy thing. In the US, everything is about borders and leaders. You're happy with corrupt politicians because corrupt politicians are connected politicians, and they might bring benefits to your state/district.
This might be a parliamentary democracy thing. In the US, everything is about borders and leaders. You're happy with corrupt politicians because corrupt politicians are connected politicians, and they might bring benefits to your state/district.
I kind of see it both ways. 90% of people would call all politicians liars, but every person in that 90% has their pet politician that can do no wrong.
I'm guessing a "pet politician" is a very American Thing -though I have nothing to base it on but my own opinion- since US politics are very much based on specific persons while I'm used to people looking at politics as a big group of people they vote for out of many parties.
There are currently 15 parties to vote for here in Denmark, with a government on average being based on 2-3 of them. A single person rarely get more votes than 1% in our elections because most vote for the party, not the person.
There are currently 15 parties to vote for here in Denmark, with a government on average being based on 2-3 of them. A single person rarely get more votes than 1% in our elections because most vote for the party, not the person.
I'm speaking specifically about individuals people vote for among the hoard in any given party or set of parties. For instance, my grandfather who thinks all politicians are crooks, believes almost everything Trump says, and my girlfriend who likewise thinks all politicians are liars, takes everything AOC says as gospel. Both disagree with a lot of what the respective parties do, or want.
I'm fairly confident you cannot get to the higher levels of politics without skeletons in your closet.
It's the same with typical sales persons: Even though they constantly exaggerate, you want to believe (unless there's animosity). So you take it into account that they exaggerate, but not by as much as they do exaggerate. Which means it's still better for them to do it than not. At least that's my impression of these dynamics, would love good studies about it.
It's well studied that over time people believe lies even if they know they are lies, because we remember things by association, not rigorously. We easily remember that X is associated with Y, but it's hard to remember if the correlation is to Y or to NOT Y.
You mean people are not perfect causal reasoning agents? The shock. /s
So many AI models have been ridiculed for the same flaw - learning correlations.
So many AI models have been ridiculed for the same flaw - learning correlations.
If somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to their boss, they just might get promoted!
Let's not act like news readers or politicians are different sorts of humans than anyone else.
Let's not act like news readers or politicians are different sorts of humans than anyone else.
I'm not convinced.
The wiki article you linked to is a paragraph in an article about a novelist, not an article about widely-accepted term. And rightfully so.
Google Plus and Google Glass were big bets in my view. That doesn't take away from Google being unscrupulous in ending unsuccessful offerings. That's part of what made them succesful, I assume.
Journalists often use hyperbole or simplify complex facts to deliver an interesting and easily understandable story. That doesn't make every sinplification a gross misrepresentation.
You're free to dive deeper into any topic you want, but it's delusional to expect every reader to be an expert in every field.
Bashing journalism as a whole has become common gospel, but to me it seems that the effect of that thinking is not that people become better informed.
The article sounds Google-friendly and uncritical to me, but it's also very common to cover interviews in a way that represents the views of the interviewed person.
Google Plus and Google Glass were big bets in my view. That doesn't take away from Google being unscrupulous in ending unsuccessful offerings. That's part of what made them succesful, I assume.
Journalists often use hyperbole or simplify complex facts to deliver an interesting and easily understandable story. That doesn't make every sinplification a gross misrepresentation.
You're free to dive deeper into any topic you want, but it's delusional to expect every reader to be an expert in every field.
Bashing journalism as a whole has become common gospel, but to me it seems that the effect of that thinking is not that people become better informed.
The article sounds Google-friendly and uncritical to me, but it's also very common to cover interviews in a way that represents the views of the interviewed person.
OK, after reading a bit more about the persons responsible for the mentioned products, I'll admit the "big bets" part maybe was a gross misrepresentation.
Pinchai joined Google in 2004, and was "Product Chief" prior to becoming CEO. He's been responsible for a lot of Google products.
His leadership roles were in Chrome, Gmail and Android, not any of the four products mentioned.
> Third, a lot of Pichai's big bets have failed: Google Glass, Google Plus, Google Wave, Project Loon
> He's been responsible for a lot of Google products.
He might have been responsible but i wouldn't call those projects as Pichai's big bets.
> He's been responsible for a lot of Google products.
He might have been responsible but i wouldn't call those projects as Pichai's big bets.
Pichai is there to keep the factory lights on and the assembly line running. Nobody is expecting anything more from him.
You're wrong there I think. I personally was surprised by Chrome and the way it took off - initially when it started it looked like a me too product, it seemed pointless to repeat the good work at Firefox. And Android was also a good bet, though in my humble view, not as good a one as Chrome. Sundar got some big calls right.
Chromebooks too.
The most accurate analogy for that responsibility would be Benjamin Treynor Sloss
> was "Product Chief" prior to becoming CEO
for about a year, so still after all those dates. I'd guess Wave fell into his previous responsibility though.
for about a year, so still after all those dates. I'd guess Wave fell into his previous responsibility though.
Google doesn’t have a Product Chief responsible for all the products. It’s not organized that way.
> However, it was also an experiment from day 1, not "the next big thing"
Not sure I understand that distinction. If I label all my projects as experiments, do I also get to escape culpability for their failure while loading on the self-praise when they succeed?
Not sure I understand that distinction. If I label all my projects as experiments, do I also get to escape culpability for their failure while loading on the self-praise when they succeed?
> If I label all my projects as experiments, do I also get to escape culpability for their failure while loading on the self-praise when they succeed
Sure, if your funding sources are okay with spending 100% on a high-variance, low-hit-rate manner of output. Every single Google earnings call I've been on has the CEO reassuring investors about their high-risk "moonshots", emphasizing that they're only 5% of Google's budget. You'll note that the parent comment didn't use that reason to justify the other failures, which were not explicitly classified pre hoc as high-risk experiments.
I'm not sure how you think the answer could be anything other than yes. If you were working on high-risk moonshot private projects and either self-funding them or being funded by someone comfortable with the risk of your endeavor, do you think you _wouldn't_ "escape culpability" yet be rewarded for successes?
(Note also that you're using an extremely odd definition of "escaping culpability". Moonshots failing is the _expected_ outcome, and pointing that out isn't helping anyone "escape culpability".
Sure, if your funding sources are okay with spending 100% on a high-variance, low-hit-rate manner of output. Every single Google earnings call I've been on has the CEO reassuring investors about their high-risk "moonshots", emphasizing that they're only 5% of Google's budget. You'll note that the parent comment didn't use that reason to justify the other failures, which were not explicitly classified pre hoc as high-risk experiments.
I'm not sure how you think the answer could be anything other than yes. If you were working on high-risk moonshot private projects and either self-funding them or being funded by someone comfortable with the risk of your endeavor, do you think you _wouldn't_ "escape culpability" yet be rewarded for successes?
(Note also that you're using an extremely odd definition of "escaping culpability". Moonshots failing is the _expected_ outcome, and pointing that out isn't helping anyone "escape culpability".
Kinda? All of Alphabet's Bets including Loon are explicitly high-risk, high-reward "moonshots", meaning it's expected for many if not most to fail.
By contrast, Wave, Plus and Glass were all consumer products from the mothership that were heavily hyped as being the Next Big Thing that would revolutionize work/IM, social networks and mobile phones respectively.
By contrast, Wave, Plus and Glass were all consumer products from the mothership that were heavily hyped as being the Next Big Thing that would revolutionize work/IM, social networks and mobile phones respectively.
loon was neither high risk or high reward. it was just an internet balloon.
A lot of Loon's early engineers were drawn from a team I was on, because Loon's founder (Mike Cassidy) was our PM's boss. When our PM left to work with him, he said "It's a crazy idea. Less than 5% chance of success." He joined it anyway. The team certainly felt it was both high risk and high reward.
But... why? It's just a balloon with internet. All the failures would be a lack of business model, not the technology.
A quick list of issues that early engineers had to solve with Loon:
1. Can you get wi-fi reception on the ground from a balloon? How big a transmitter, how big a power source, how long can you keep it going for, and how much weight do you need to spend on batteries for this?
2. Will your wi-fi reception cut out if a tall building happens to pass between you and the balloon? How do you mitigate this? Do you need duplicate coverage from multiple balloons? (Starlink is dealing with this now.)
3. How do you keep the balloons in one place, or at least control where they go? If one goes out of range, how do you make sure there's another covering all its receivers?
4. How much propellant/battery can you carry on the balloon for course adjustments? How long can it stay aloft before this is exhausted?
5. Where do the winds go in the stratosphere? If the balloons are not propelled, where will they end up? Can you use altitude changes to get into different jet-streams and reduce propellant use?
6. How do you respect country's airspace? How do you avoid causing international incidents? If a balloon does come down, how do you ensure it doesn't harm anyone and can be retrieved? Early in the project, Loon had an ops team of former navy SEALs whose job was to retrieve any crashed balloons without starting any wars.
And I wasn't even on the team - this is just what I got from a few lunchtime conversations. They had to invent new algorithms, first to model the wind systems in the stratosphere and then to optimize balloon placement given that wind. I know their CTO - he's got a Ph.D in stochastic optimal control (pretty appropriate for this problem). The math behind control theory, once you get past simple PID controllers, is hard.
1. Can you get wi-fi reception on the ground from a balloon? How big a transmitter, how big a power source, how long can you keep it going for, and how much weight do you need to spend on batteries for this?
2. Will your wi-fi reception cut out if a tall building happens to pass between you and the balloon? How do you mitigate this? Do you need duplicate coverage from multiple balloons? (Starlink is dealing with this now.)
3. How do you keep the balloons in one place, or at least control where they go? If one goes out of range, how do you make sure there's another covering all its receivers?
4. How much propellant/battery can you carry on the balloon for course adjustments? How long can it stay aloft before this is exhausted?
5. Where do the winds go in the stratosphere? If the balloons are not propelled, where will they end up? Can you use altitude changes to get into different jet-streams and reduce propellant use?
6. How do you respect country's airspace? How do you avoid causing international incidents? If a balloon does come down, how do you ensure it doesn't harm anyone and can be retrieved? Early in the project, Loon had an ops team of former navy SEALs whose job was to retrieve any crashed balloons without starting any wars.
And I wasn't even on the team - this is just what I got from a few lunchtime conversations. They had to invent new algorithms, first to model the wind systems in the stratosphere and then to optimize balloon placement given that wind. I know their CTO - he's got a Ph.D in stochastic optimal control (pretty appropriate for this problem). The math behind control theory, once you get past simple PID controllers, is hard.
Much of what you describe are pedestrian problems that could be addressed by straightforward, low-risk engineering. The issues with wifi reception around buildings were solved by AT&T when they developed the tech for mobile phones long ago. All the balloon control stuff- people have navigated balloons around the world for a while now. Using the altitude changes to navigate is standard.
That you need a team of NAVY SEALs to clean up your messes is a sign you're doing it wrong.
After working at Google for 12 years, I am always amazed at how people talk up their projects as risky when really, there's little or no risk involved, and the majority of the problems are political or social opposition to your plans, as well as the lack of a business model.
That you need a team of NAVY SEALs to clean up your messes is a sign you're doing it wrong.
After working at Google for 12 years, I am always amazed at how people talk up their projects as risky when really, there's little or no risk involved, and the majority of the problems are political or social opposition to your plans, as well as the lack of a business model.
Parent comment is classical old guard mentality Googler who thinks if something sounds big and impressive it automatically is big and impressive. It was a marketing trick that weirdly infected employees throughout the org, glad to see here the trick has all but completely lost its effect.
Yes. The best baseball players miss almost every swing. The best poker players lose almost every hand.
And isn't Google Glass redirected at companies were it enjoys (a moderate) success?
Correct. It’s been utilized in a highly limited capacity in enterprise conditions, like manufacturing. The Community Edition (aka consumer version) was killed.
And not because of lack of demand because of fears we would be recorded everywhere. Fast forward and we are recorded everywhere anyways.
Wave also largely turned into Enterprise Apps - docs, hangouts, etc.
Plus was Larry's and Vic's baby.
Plus was Larry's and Vic's baby.
I’ve never met a person inspired by what we thought the Internet would be in the 90s who isn’t sad that it went the way it did. I suspect the more idealistic of the cryptocurrency people will also feel nostalgic when Goldman and JP Morgan run blockchain in a few years.
It’s extremely tempting, especially to technical people, to believe that some piece of technology will create net freedom and equality.
The reality is more mundane: technology is just a fancy word for tool, and the only thing the guillotine ever freed anyone from was tomorrow.
It’s extremely tempting, especially to technical people, to believe that some piece of technology will create net freedom and equality.
The reality is more mundane: technology is just a fancy word for tool, and the only thing the guillotine ever freed anyone from was tomorrow.
Utopian thinking almost never comes to fruition because by definition it discounts a lot of negatives. It rarely comes from a place of first-principles reasoning about human behavior. And above all, human beings cannot see into the future so any vision is always incomplete and flawed.
Nevertheless, as much as there are heaps of shit on the internet - digital surveillance, bottomless wells of inane addiction, hateful discourse, etc. - I’d say there is a net benefit overall, and where the 90s techno-optimists were merely wrong was in degree and concrete detail.
Nevertheless, as much as there are heaps of shit on the internet - digital surveillance, bottomless wells of inane addiction, hateful discourse, etc. - I’d say there is a net benefit overall, and where the 90s techno-optimists were merely wrong was in degree and concrete detail.
The only real benefit I see is 1) Wikipedia, Sci-Hub, Archive/LibGen, and 2) the increase in general literacy that came from people commenting/posting.
I think 2) gets underestimated a lot - 10 years ago you could recognize a lot of stupid comments by the fact that they capitalized every word or the grammar and spelling were horrific. Those people didn't stop posting, they learned how to express themselves well through practice.
I think 2) gets underestimated a lot - 10 years ago you could recognize a lot of stupid comments by the fact that they capitalized every word or the grammar and spelling were horrific. Those people didn't stop posting, they learned how to express themselves well through practice.
There are SO many more valuable things on the internet than academic sites with genuinely useful material, even if you're not considering commercial transactions "useful". Forums, blogs, public libraries, newspapers, even if you don't consider the titans which we use so much we take them for granted (Google (Scholar, Books, Maps), Youtube, Amazon, Ebay, etc. etc.)
Just because there are parts of the internet like social media of questionable net positive impact, the sum total utility of the web for humanity has been an overwhelming positive. It's hard to see good things when you're thinking about bad ones. Take a step back.
Just because there are parts of the internet like social media of questionable net positive impact, the sum total utility of the web for humanity has been an overwhelming positive. It's hard to see good things when you're thinking about bad ones. Take a step back.
No, they outsourced orthography to smartphones.
The Internet (and especially the WWW) suffered the fate of television: advertising and banality consumed the user's time.
The difference is that Internet/WWW also involved some degree of technical and creative understanding, whereas twaddlevision is passive absorption.
All told, I would say the the Internet/WWW is progress. But like any human progress, there is a deplorable waste of opportunity.
The difference is that Internet/WWW also involved some degree of technical and creative understanding, whereas twaddlevision is passive absorption.
All told, I would say the the Internet/WWW is progress. But like any human progress, there is a deplorable waste of opportunity.
Wayne Dyer used to sometimes take diametrically opposed criticism of his books, photocopy it and send it to the other party — together with the four simple words:
"You may be right."
Here's the other envelope:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27697973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27528350
The modern day equivalent to the old internet isn't YouTube or Facebook. That's the equivalent to Cable TV.
It's rather the private Discords, Signal groups and maker spaces, grassroots efforts like EleutherAI and what other cool stuff young (and old) people are doing these days.
Depending on how close you look, 2021 internet is everything as cool as it used to be in 1990. And yes, I was there.
Here's the other envelope:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27697973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27528350
The modern day equivalent to the old internet isn't YouTube or Facebook. That's the equivalent to Cable TV.
It's rather the private Discords, Signal groups and maker spaces, grassroots efforts like EleutherAI and what other cool stuff young (and old) people are doing these days.
Depending on how close you look, 2021 internet is everything as cool as it used to be in 1990. And yes, I was there.
How does one find such places?
Same way you did in the 90s. You bump around until you find something you like. Or get referred to it by a friend.
The vast majority of it is crap. Always was. There's also a ton of things you'll like, but finding the things that you like but not popular with everybody else is a matter of sifting through (a) the things that everybody likes and (b) the things some people like but not you. Those two things make up 99.999% of the world.
The vast majority of it is crap. Always was. There's also a ton of things you'll like, but finding the things that you like but not popular with everybody else is a matter of sifting through (a) the things that everybody likes and (b) the things some people like but not you. Those two things make up 99.999% of the world.
> I’ve never met a person inspired by what we thought the Internet would be in the 90s who isn’t sad that it went the way it did.
waves hand
I got online in 1991. Spent faaarrrrr time much time on Usenet. Almost got in trouble at my university for figuring out how to post to alt.hackers. I ran a computer lab, cannibalized some old IIcis, installed FreeBSD, got httpd running to spin up one of the first servers on campus. I debated with friends if WWW was that different from gopher. (I wrongly maintained it wasn't.)
I'm absolutely blown away by what the Internet has become today. It's far more amazing than I think anything any of us imagined. Yes, it's far from perfect, but to me the pros far, far, far outweigh the cons.
To wit, a NYT reporter wrote an article about how it was "impossible" to live without the Internet. The tone was clearly to condemn the Internet, but I found it applauded it. She essentially lamented how difficult life was without it. One example was the challenges of finding a place without Google Maps. It wasn't impossible -- it was basically what all of us had to do in the 90s -- but her standard had risen so much, what we considered "normal" she now considered impossible.
waves hand
I got online in 1991. Spent faaarrrrr time much time on Usenet. Almost got in trouble at my university for figuring out how to post to alt.hackers. I ran a computer lab, cannibalized some old IIcis, installed FreeBSD, got httpd running to spin up one of the first servers on campus. I debated with friends if WWW was that different from gopher. (I wrongly maintained it wasn't.)
I'm absolutely blown away by what the Internet has become today. It's far more amazing than I think anything any of us imagined. Yes, it's far from perfect, but to me the pros far, far, far outweigh the cons.
To wit, a NYT reporter wrote an article about how it was "impossible" to live without the Internet. The tone was clearly to condemn the Internet, but I found it applauded it. She essentially lamented how difficult life was without it. One example was the challenges of finding a place without Google Maps. It wasn't impossible -- it was basically what all of us had to do in the 90s -- but her standard had risen so much, what we considered "normal" she now considered impossible.
The whole Web 2.0 shift really changed power away from individuals to corporations on the Internet. The "appifization" further created walled gardens.
I remember using IRC, Lynx browser, Unix Talk in the 1990s and being genuinely impressed. I feel the same excitement with Crypto after many years.
Decentralized trust, pseudonymous identity and device-to-device communication will change the Internet for the better in the coming decade.
There is reason for optimism.
I remember using IRC, Lynx browser, Unix Talk in the 1990s and being genuinely impressed. I feel the same excitement with Crypto after many years.
Decentralized trust, pseudonymous identity and device-to-device communication will change the Internet for the better in the coming decade.
There is reason for optimism.
I like your writing, but disagree with your point. Tools (technology) empower people; of course, it's up to them to what ends they use them. You don't want to empower a fool. If we're fools, we might as well make guillotines. But if we're smart, tools is what will give us leverage needed for a better tomorrow.
> technology is just a fancy word for tool
The form and function of the tool have a significant impact on its use.
If installing & maintaining a home server (just a domain name and static content like vacation pictures) were as simple as setting up a fridge, more people would probably run home servers.
The form and function of the tool have a significant impact on its use.
If installing & maintaining a home server (just a domain name and static content like vacation pictures) were as simple as setting up a fridge, more people would probably run home servers.
>> "The reality is more mundane: technology is just a fancy word for tool, and the only thing the guillotine ever freed anyone from was tomorrow."
Did you just come up with that? :O
Did you just come up with that? :O
It's true. If an existential threat is elected/takes office the guillotine can free us all from the tyranny of tomorrow.
>Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
Freedom fighter vs terrorist is merely a question of narrative.
>Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
Freedom fighter vs terrorist is merely a question of narrative.
I wasn't being cynical. I am just impressed by the talent at wording it.
"It’s extremely tempting, especially to technical people, to believe that some piece of technology will create net freedom and equality." I think this certainly used to be the case; when geeks ran the valley roost so to speak, there was capitalistic ambitions coupled/borne from a sincere interest in tech. Now the former drives the latter, with characteristic milquetoast results (this isn't to say that the tech interest now isn't sincere, just that it's "source" and how it's shaped is different).
It's a subtle but critical shift in the drivers of the industry at an individual level, and it bubbles up through the firms those individuals build and try to sustain.
It's a subtle but critical shift in the drivers of the industry at an individual level, and it bubbles up through the firms those individuals build and try to sustain.
Many tools have increased net freedom and equality.
It felt (at the time and in retrospect) that the horribly capped upload speeds of broadband really destroyed that decentralized and equalitarian ideal. The fight against Napster, content mega-corps snatching up broadband providers…
There was a brief moment in time where P2P looked like the future, but a lot of powerful wheels turn against it.
To your point, business and the desire for control ultimately trumped what was technically possible.
There was a brief moment in time where P2P looked like the future, but a lot of powerful wheels turn against it.
To your point, business and the desire for control ultimately trumped what was technically possible.
Does anyone think that Google cares about the free and open Internet anymore? I don’t mean they oppose it, I just mean it doesn’t seem like it’s on the list of things the company prioritizes.
It sometimes seems like Google’s internal self-image is stuck in 2001, when they were an idealistic search engine company whose goal was to organize the world’s information.
Today they are an ad company, running some office apps and cloud computing on the side. The transition has been great for revenue but it seems like they long ago sold the moral authority to make pronouncements about the free and open Internet.
It sometimes seems like Google’s internal self-image is stuck in 2001, when they were an idealistic search engine company whose goal was to organize the world’s information.
Today they are an ad company, running some office apps and cloud computing on the side. The transition has been great for revenue but it seems like they long ago sold the moral authority to make pronouncements about the free and open Internet.
> I don’t mean they oppose it,
They do. They want an Internet where they control the flow of information.
They do. They want an Internet where they control the flow of information.
For real. Chrome is one of the biggest threats to an open internet that exists today. Every week we see some Chrome-led attempt to make the Internet more proprietary and under Google’s control. They interviewed one of the worst perpetrators of the threat against internet freedom.
To echo that sentiment. Does anyone believe Google under Sundar Pichai actually believes in anything open and private, given how many google employees during his reign have tried to organize against what google stands for, only to be shut down.
I find it grotesquely comical to even see this headline with Sundar Pichai's name attached to it.
I find it grotesquely comical to even see this headline with Sundar Pichai's name attached to it.
[deleted]
> Today they are an ad company, running some office apps and cloud computing on the side.
Everything you listed has maximum profits when there is a free and open internet, which is something Google depends on to reach its users.
Everything you listed has maximum profits when there is a free and open internet, which is something Google depends on to reach its users.
They are much more profitable in a locked down internet where Google is one of or the only approved provider for those services.
Unfortunately for Google (and fortunately for the rest of us), they have no risk-free mechanism[1] to achieve this feat exclusively. Strategically, any sort of balkanization will mean Google's competitors can gather resources and improve technically while being shielded from competing with Google; Google would much rather bludgeon any nascent competitor early (by offering a better[2] product, today) before they grow any legs.
ISPs, on the other hand, can approve service providers this via prioritization, or DNS-/traffic-level blocking. Google was cognizant early, which is why it became a fervent "net neutrality" supporter.
1. I cannot think of anything else that could bring down anti-trust regulation faster than Google angling to be the sole service provider for an entire market
2. "better" being measured by market success.
ISPs, on the other hand, can approve service providers this via prioritization, or DNS-/traffic-level blocking. Google was cognizant early, which is why it became a fervent "net neutrality" supporter.
1. I cannot think of anything else that could bring down anti-trust regulation faster than Google angling to be the sole service provider for an entire market
2. "better" being measured by market success.
Right, there will be Google and Apple. Totally competition.
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dkdk8283(2)
I read the article and shame the BBC went for the small sound-bite click-bait title. Most of the article is about other aspects, from AI, Quantum computing, corporation TAX and the title per-say does not do the article justice.
With that in mind, it seems most comments appear along the lines of a response to the title and not the content and is just going to clog Dang up with work.
I personally found the aspect and questioning about corporation TAX more insightful and perhaps would of been a better sound-bite of a title.
With that in mind, it seems most comments appear along the lines of a response to the title and not the content and is just going to clog Dang up with work.
I personally found the aspect and questioning about corporation TAX more insightful and perhaps would of been a better sound-bite of a title.
Amol Rajan thrives on being contrary and questioning designed to provoke. You could see from his other questions that they were purely designed to create headlines in a similar way:
> When I invited Pichai to commit there and then to Google pulling out of all tax havens immediately, he didn't take up the offer.
> In a very revealing quick-fire round of questions, we discover he doesn't eat meat, drives a Tesla, reveres Alan Turing, wishes he'd met Stephen Hawking, and is jealous of Jeff Bezos's space mission.
The headline really is irrelevant to the majority of the interview, but I really wouldn't be surprised if he personally signed off that headline to run with from the interview (the same was used on the television news). He's a former newspaper editor after all.
This form of journalism is what I thought was starting to be considered old fashioned. I don't understand how he became the BBC's Media Editor and host of the most prestigious morning radio programme on the BBC, apart from having loads of connections and history in the publishing industry.
> When I invited Pichai to commit there and then to Google pulling out of all tax havens immediately, he didn't take up the offer.
> In a very revealing quick-fire round of questions, we discover he doesn't eat meat, drives a Tesla, reveres Alan Turing, wishes he'd met Stephen Hawking, and is jealous of Jeff Bezos's space mission.
The headline really is irrelevant to the majority of the interview, but I really wouldn't be surprised if he personally signed off that headline to run with from the interview (the same was used on the television news). He's a former newspaper editor after all.
This form of journalism is what I thought was starting to be considered old fashioned. I don't understand how he became the BBC's Media Editor and host of the most prestigious morning radio programme on the BBC, apart from having loads of connections and history in the publishing industry.
Ok so this is a PR interview, done due to the increased pressure Big Tech sees coming their way.
Its always the largest companies with the largest share and encrusted monopolies the first ones talking about "freedom", "leveling the playing field", and providing "equal opportunities for all".
They do that because they know that only regulatory measures can temper their current abuses. If there is a "level playing field" any other parameters of the game where they already have advantages will keep the outcomes biased in their direction.
The discussion on internet freedom is a diversion on what should be seen as the main item out of the interview. Sadly this being a BBC interview, as usual it was kind of a softball...
Here is a "level playing field" where the CEO from Google refused to commit to....Special Tax structures. When challenged did not commit to stop using tax havens.
At 47 min and 17 sec of the Podcast... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09nxhrd
Its always the largest companies with the largest share and encrusted monopolies the first ones talking about "freedom", "leveling the playing field", and providing "equal opportunities for all".
They do that because they know that only regulatory measures can temper their current abuses. If there is a "level playing field" any other parameters of the game where they already have advantages will keep the outcomes biased in their direction.
The discussion on internet freedom is a diversion on what should be seen as the main item out of the interview. Sadly this being a BBC interview, as usual it was kind of a softball...
Here is a "level playing field" where the CEO from Google refused to commit to....Special Tax structures. When challenged did not commit to stop using tax havens.
At 47 min and 17 sec of the Podcast... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09nxhrd
This person gets it.
Start from the beginning. You think Sundar just gets a call one day from a reporter about this topic and says “yeah, I’ll do an interview”?
This article was generated by google. Their internal PR team thought it up and used their external agency to float the idea of the article (and an interview with Sundar!) to a bunch of reporters until someone took the bait (well, not bait, the reporter knows what’s up).
And this is a small slice of the overall strategy google has put together to counter the antitrust action the US govt is pushing.
Start from the beginning. You think Sundar just gets a call one day from a reporter about this topic and says “yeah, I’ll do an interview”?
This article was generated by google. Their internal PR team thought it up and used their external agency to float the idea of the article (and an interview with Sundar!) to a bunch of reporters until someone took the bait (well, not bait, the reporter knows what’s up).
And this is a small slice of the overall strategy google has put together to counter the antitrust action the US govt is pushing.
Welcome to capitalism, where money can buy you your own story and a good reputation.
The "open" Internet is done for because in recent years most governments have realised that the natural culmination of an open Internet is in fact an open, cross-mingling, world culture, community and economy, and eventually, the deprecation of the traditional idea of nation states. And you can prise that control from their cold, dead hands.
PS. Include mega-corps in 'nation states' above. They both want total control over the Internet. They will get it too, in some proportion. Because truly democratic forces are too weak and disorganised, as always.
PS. Include mega-corps in 'nation states' above. They both want total control over the Internet. They will get it too, in some proportion. Because truly democratic forces are too weak and disorganised, as always.
From where I sit the #1 risk to the free and open internet these days is Google.
Edit: two reasons:
1) Because adtech is destroying society. Surveillance is never good. Ads as funding smears absolutely everything with perverse incentives that act consistently against both the explicit wishes and implicit best-interests of the viewers, and (it seems moreso every year) society at large.
2) Google is doing everything it can to protect and defend their control over said adtech, using all mechanisms at its disposal including a monopoly on Search, almost a monopoly (and veto power) on what defines HTML (Blink not Chrome), and like 70% of mobile platform.
Edit: two reasons:
1) Because adtech is destroying society. Surveillance is never good. Ads as funding smears absolutely everything with perverse incentives that act consistently against both the explicit wishes and implicit best-interests of the viewers, and (it seems moreso every year) society at large.
2) Google is doing everything it can to protect and defend their control over said adtech, using all mechanisms at its disposal including a monopoly on Search, almost a monopoly (and veto power) on what defines HTML (Blink not Chrome), and like 70% of mobile platform.
Google is literally the only tech giant with an interest in the open internet.
Facebook scored the mortal wound on the web — they reinvented a bigger, badder AOL closed garden.
Facebook scored the mortal wound on the web — they reinvented a bigger, badder AOL closed garden.
> Google is literally the only tech giant with an interest in the open internet.
This statement is an oxymoron.
"Tech giants" hobble the open principles of the internet by their own existence, persistence and, by-definition, over-bearing influence.
Any entity genuinely concerned with preserving open principles would seek to limit its growth far-prior to where Google is now, and eliminate the pervasiveness of its influence, favouring and encouraging the results of diverse decentralisation over narrow centralisation.
Google and Facebook are the antithesis of everything the concept of an open internet stands for.
This statement is an oxymoron.
"Tech giants" hobble the open principles of the internet by their own existence, persistence and, by-definition, over-bearing influence.
Any entity genuinely concerned with preserving open principles would seek to limit its growth far-prior to where Google is now, and eliminate the pervasiveness of its influence, favouring and encouraging the results of diverse decentralisation over narrow centralisation.
Google and Facebook are the antithesis of everything the concept of an open internet stands for.
If there is no open internet, there is nothing to index or organize.
If anything Apple has does more harm than anyone to the Web by pushing the idea of native apps for everything served from a closed proprietary App Store that you can’t even side load around.
If anything Apple has does more harm than anyone to the Web by pushing the idea of native apps for everything served from a closed proprietary App Store that you can’t even side load around.
You can index and organize billions of AMP pages.
You can index and organize the content of an intranet of every large organization.
You can index and organize the content of an intranet of every large organization.
> You can index and organize the content of an intranet of every large organization.
Good luck. The magic of the internet is that everything is public and interlinked.
Usually within a company the incentives are such that information is more tightly controlled. A software engineer doesn't see purchase orders and an HR specialist doesn't see software assignments. Usually a directory is more useful than a search within a company. Obviously there are exceptions.
Good luck. The magic of the internet is that everything is public and interlinked.
Usually within a company the incentives are such that information is more tightly controlled. A software engineer doesn't see purchase orders and an HR specialist doesn't see software assignments. Usually a directory is more useful than a search within a company. Obviously there are exceptions.
I've worked at several large companies and all are very bad at documenting anything.
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Relying on giants to defend the interests of the rest of us mere humans sounds dangerous.
But if you look around across all the industries, it is not very hard to realize that most big names that you can easily recognize were created by few giants. Giants is the norm.
A real hero knows when to resist the fear and borrow the power from the giants.
A real hero knows when to resist the fear and borrow the power from the giants.
The "norm" is also... shit.
Just because it's what's "always" happened before, doesn't mean we can't do better.
This being the case is the very driving force of any innovation.
Your statement seems like defeatism wrapped in a pretty bow of faux-insight.
A tendency toward giants is also not necessarily a sustainable state of affairs.
Once technology becomes sufficiently advanced and pervasive, the window of time available for a giant to gestate, before the next giant-level disruption, inevitably shrinks to the point the system reaches an equilibrium of innovational equanimity and balance.
This is ordinary and expected, and parallels can be seen anywhere in nature.
The - relatively-brief - "time of giants" of human progress may soon be coming to a close.
Just because it's what's "always" happened before, doesn't mean we can't do better.
This being the case is the very driving force of any innovation.
Your statement seems like defeatism wrapped in a pretty bow of faux-insight.
A tendency toward giants is also not necessarily a sustainable state of affairs.
Once technology becomes sufficiently advanced and pervasive, the window of time available for a giant to gestate, before the next giant-level disruption, inevitably shrinks to the point the system reaches an equilibrium of innovational equanimity and balance.
This is ordinary and expected, and parallels can be seen anywhere in nature.
The - relatively-brief - "time of giants" of human progress may soon be coming to a close.
Giants are more visible, I won't dispute that but I'm not sure I agree with a strategy of surrendering to them because of that fact.
I don't think we need a real hero here, we need end-user solidarity perhaps in the form of public policy and market regulation. Humans would have more freedom on the internet if corporate giants didn't.
I don't think we need a real hero here, we need end-user solidarity perhaps in the form of public policy and market regulation. Humans would have more freedom on the internet if corporate giants didn't.
True. Google at least does not create walled gardens like FB. You are not even allowed to post link in comment section. That's a tactic to keep users on its own platform. Recently they have stopped allowing people to browse even browse public profiles.
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Google also seems to be one of the few entities in the world capable of building kick-ass web apps.
I've yet to see a single kick ass web app from Google. All of them are barely functioning slow-as-molasses slugs (or I'm jaded by the entire GCP experience).
I recently tried https://deps.dev and was surprised by the speed. But then I realized I was no longer used to things being that fast, and it used to be normal
EDIT: typo
EDIT: typo
> But the I realized I was no longer used to things being that fast, and it used to be normal
This. This right here.
This. This right here.
I think this is somewhat of a more recent occurance, and possibly only GCP related. I've only had a couple GCP interactions now but all of them have gotten me to stay away from that specific portion of Google.
The early (invite-only) versions of gmail were fantastic, especially given the narrower pipes we were all surfing with in those days.
It seems lately that Google has just become Yet Another Large Software Firm, with everything that that implies.
It seems lately that Google has just become Yet Another Large Software Firm, with everything that that implies.
The one exception being any sort of chat app. Now they're going from crusty old Hangouts to Chat while plenty of other chat apps have been far more polished for a long time
Just like how YouTube has become a more open and free platform in their care. Or how search results have become more open and free since they dominated market share.
Your definition of 'open and free' smells a lot like 'built to favor commercial entities over information pages'
Most of my searches result in a wall of sales or product pages. Hardly 'open' when they turned it into glorified yellow pages
Most of my searches result in a wall of sales or product pages. Hardly 'open' when they turned it into glorified yellow pages
I think it was sarcasm.
Much like every other company, but at least I've see Google be mostly reasonable about it with a few exceptions. Much of the "deplatforming" isn't even do to Google per say but people abusing the copyright system on YouTube and many people not having adequate legal knowledge to defend themselves, or honestly just a lot of attention-seeking alt-right personality types constantly saying they are being deplatformed while they continue to use YouTube freely... Likely all one big part of a MCN pushing the same agenda.
Do you guys factor the deplatforming they do into this or are you not aware that they are heavily involved in censorship on their platforms
The person you're replying to was likely being sarcastic.
encryptluks2(2)
And Apple crippled the web on its locked-down as chastity iOS devices.
These companies -- all of them -- are fucking with each other. None of us matter in the end. It's all about which company can screw the other out of engagement and eyeballs.
Meanwhile Firefox, the open web, open source, right to repair, and digital ownership all wither away.
These companies -- all of them -- are fucking with each other. None of us matter in the end. It's all about which company can screw the other out of engagement and eyeballs.
Meanwhile Firefox, the open web, open source, right to repair, and digital ownership all wither away.
> It's all about which company can screw the other out of engagement and eyeballs.
Well that is kind of how media companies compete against each other, but the key question is: is it beneficial or harmful to the public?
You could argue that Apple is acquiring users who they then lock in, sell to advertisers and developers (for a 30% cut on the App store) and monetize with service subscriptions, but you can also argue that half of Apple's profit is still from hardware sales, that apps and services are a big reason for buying that hardware, so Apple is still beholden to its hardware customers to some extent.
And Google has https://wellbeing.google as well as associated features in Android, and Apple has also implemented "screen time" tracking and limits.
Well that is kind of how media companies compete against each other, but the key question is: is it beneficial or harmful to the public?
You could argue that Apple is acquiring users who they then lock in, sell to advertisers and developers (for a 30% cut on the App store) and monetize with service subscriptions, but you can also argue that half of Apple's profit is still from hardware sales, that apps and services are a big reason for buying that hardware, so Apple is still beholden to its hardware customers to some extent.
And Google has https://wellbeing.google as well as associated features in Android, and Apple has also implemented "screen time" tracking and limits.
To be fair, Pichai's quote is taken out of context. In his capacity as Alphabet CEO, he worries about neutrality of the interconnects. TFA goes:
> And, when I asked about whether the Chinese model of the internet - much more authoritarian, big on surveillance - is in the ascendant, Pichai said the free and open internet "is being attacked". Importantly, he didn't refer to China directly but he went on to say: "None of our major products and services are available in China."
Google does run at least one semi-independent group to tackle such censorship, disinformation, propaganda, and abuse https://jigsaw.google.com/
> And, when I asked about whether the Chinese model of the internet - much more authoritarian, big on surveillance - is in the ascendant, Pichai said the free and open internet "is being attacked". Importantly, he didn't refer to China directly but he went on to say: "None of our major products and services are available in China."
Google does run at least one semi-independent group to tackle such censorship, disinformation, propaganda, and abuse https://jigsaw.google.com/
Call me a cynic but I’m 99% sure that group of Google’s is probably just as ideologically progressive as Google and not independent in any substantial way. Everything from that link reads like progressive ad-copy.
Toxic language online silences important voices. We’re exploring how machine learning can reduce toxicity online and create more space for healthy conversation.
Throughout this report we use the term “toxicity,” defined as rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable language that is likely to make someone leave a discussion. We specifically use the term toxicity, as opposed to words like “abuse” or “hate speech” for both practical and scientific reasons.
https://jigsaw.google.com/the-current/toxicity/
Throughout this report we use the term “toxicity,” defined as rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable language that is likely to make someone leave a discussion. We specifically use the term toxicity, as opposed to words like “abuse” or “hate speech” for both practical and scientific reasons.
https://jigsaw.google.com/the-current/toxicity/
> “toxicity,” defined as rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable language that is likely to make someone leave a discussion. We specifically use the term toxicity, as opposed to words like “abuse” or “hate speech” for both practical and scientific reasons.
Scientific reasons? There's nothing scientific about a term so undefined that every person can have their own custom definition.
Scientific reasons? There's nothing scientific about a term so undefined that every person can have their own custom definition.
While «hate speech» is merely a convenient alias for «free speech we don't like». That figures.
These are the most predictable HN comments
The article is a fluff piece that's comically uncritical of Google. There's obvious hypocrisy for a company that's done all sorts of user-antagonistic things to internet users as Google has, from Google AMP stealing traffic, to PRISM actively violating the 4th amendment, to Dragonfly explicitly enabling censorship. Google's gotten away with the hypocrisy due to a relentless PR engine. Maybe if you don't like predictable Hacker News snark, downvote the PR "submarine" pieces from the front page, because there's nothing of value in this article and "predictable" critique is the best it deserves.
If you want to try on a positive spin for AMP, it was Google's awkward attempt to defend against Facebook Instant Articles (which the feature set of AMP almost at times felt like a direct rip-off of) in a world where people preferred to read news articles inside of the Facebook app instead of a browser; which, in comparison, AMP was massively more open than. The issue is that, in the end, Google always feels like they get to decide the response of the web--with their search engine and browser standing in somewhat for the walled garden social network and app of something like Facebook--and then it all gets twisted to benefit them in some unique way, which sucks :/.
> There's obvious hypocrisy for a company that's done all sorts of user-antagonistic things to internet user
Does this mean any article about Google that does not criticize Google deserves this snark? Fwiw the snark is annoying not because folks disagree with it, but that saying it again and again and doing nothing is a trite form of internet me-too-ing or signalling. That Google depends on an ethically dubious set of assumptions is obvious; now how do we fix it and why are we talking about this here?
Does this mean any article about Google that does not criticize Google deserves this snark? Fwiw the snark is annoying not because folks disagree with it, but that saying it again and again and doing nothing is a trite form of internet me-too-ing or signalling. That Google depends on an ethically dubious set of assumptions is obvious; now how do we fix it and why are we talking about this here?
Not any article, perhaps, but an article essentially praising Google for warning about $THING when Google is a contributor to the badness of $THING, definitely deserves a healthy dose of snark tossed at it.
This article isn't a fluff piece. It's the Google CEO giving conversation on many topics such as quantum computing or AI.
My understanding is that Google was a target of PRISM, not complicit in it.
PRISM was just the internal NSA source designation for data obtained under FISA warrants, which are not optional.
Please don't distort the meaning of words. PR "submarine" pieces are a very real thing, but they are exactly what the phrase suggests — an article put out by a corporate PR department for publication.
This was literally an interview by a real reporter, edited into an article. You might not like that the interviewer wasn't antagonistic (let's be real — most aren't!), but this is not a "PR submarine piece" by any sane definition of the phrase.
This was literally an interview by a real reporter, edited into an article. You might not like that the interviewer wasn't antagonistic (let's be real — most aren't!), but this is not a "PR submarine piece" by any sane definition of the phrase.
Reprinting a single person’s viewpoints without critique or counterpoint isn’t news or “real reporting.” It’s still just a PR piece.
That's true but parent is complaining about the use of "submarine", which I agree isn't an accurate description.
Would you argue that any interview without an interview of a contra opinion is also just a PR piece?
Unbalanced reporting is biased? Yes, it is.
Truth has a certain inevitability, doesn't it?
Google has actively replaced the free and open internet with one that is more convenient and brand flattering as soon as mass media started to fight against becoming a legacy product.
[deleted]
These are the most predictable HN comments
Ahead of all the regulation happy governments, the walled gardens, and spam/trolls making areas of the web that are not resourced largely unusable?
Governmental incompetence exceeds their ability to regulate. Google have the capacity to pull off a lot more than Governments.
Google would have a walled garden if they could afford to lose the users and manufacturers that would revolt against it.
Google would have a walled garden if they could afford to lose the users and manufacturers that would revolt against it.
Google's main product is letting people find stuff on the web. What benefit would a walled garden be to them unless everything was on Google infrastructure? They would need to control everything.
They lose the most if the internet balkanizes.
They lose the most if the internet balkanizes.
Google's main product is ads, not search. Search (and Mail, and Video) are just mechanisms for offering ads.
By balkanising the internet they can have a monopoly over offering ads to certain target groups that fall within their walled garden.
By balkanising the internet they can have a monopoly over offering ads to certain target groups that fall within their walled garden.
That isn't how this works, Google doesn't have good enough content to compete with other tech giants without the open web. If Google kills the web then Google kills itself. Most of their money comes from their search web page and not the ads from other sites, so people browsing the web is their main source of revenue. Their other sites are big, yes, but not big enough to make them one of the few most valuable companies in the world.
Anyway, Google works hard to make the open web competitive with all the walled gardens around. When they do that they put up some fences to make the experience a bit more like walled gardens, but the open web is still just a few seconds and a click away.
Anyway, Google works hard to make the open web competitive with all the walled gardens around. When they do that they put up some fences to make the experience a bit more like walled gardens, but the open web is still just a few seconds and a click away.
> If Google kills the web then Google kills itself
That's why Google instead reshapes the web as Google sees fit.
> Anyway, Google works hard to make the open web competitive with all the walled gardens around
No. It subsumes the web and replaces it with all things Google. It dominates all web-related standards bodies, pushes through half-baked Chrome-only APIs as "standards" and then presents them as fait accompli through Google-controlled properties like web.dev.
That's why Google instead reshapes the web as Google sees fit.
> Anyway, Google works hard to make the open web competitive with all the walled gardens around
No. It subsumes the web and replaces it with all things Google. It dominates all web-related standards bodies, pushes through half-baked Chrome-only APIs as "standards" and then presents them as fait accompli through Google-controlled properties like web.dev.
[deleted]
How so? It seems that a search engine would need the internet to have as much information out there in the open to index and give us the results upon searching..
Because they are so dominate they exercise outsized control, but there are still a few others.
Data behind paywalls/logins is useless to them.
Because they are so dominate they exercise outsized control, but there are still a few others.
Data behind paywalls/logins is useless to them.
Except of course Google is not a search engine company, Google is an advertising company
To this day I have no idea what that statement is supposed to express despite seeing it about a dozen times per week.
Google makes money selling ads yes, but their core product is search. Like a newspaper, which does journalism, and also has an ad department, or a TV show, with ad breaks, or a sports broadcast.
Do people think Google makes their search worse to... sell fewer ads?
Google makes money selling ads yes, but their core product is search. Like a newspaper, which does journalism, and also has an ad department, or a TV show, with ad breaks, or a sports broadcast.
Do people think Google makes their search worse to... sell fewer ads?
People say this to acknowledge out loud the perceived change in how Google makes product decisions. In the early days, the lead priority was an awesome, focused search experience. Today, the lead priority seems to be comportment with the revenue model.
This explains user-hostile deprecations like newsgroup search (a literal search engine they bought and abandoned), RSS Reader, etc.
In addition, the ever-decreasing visual distinction between organic search results and ads on Google SERPs is well documented. As is the ever-increasing encroachment of data collection into all their products. Look at how Chrome works with Google accounts now vs 5 or 10 years ago.
Google went from a search engine company who runs ads so they can afford to keep building cool things, to an ad company that runs a search engine because it provides provide data and inventory for its ad network.
This explains user-hostile deprecations like newsgroup search (a literal search engine they bought and abandoned), RSS Reader, etc.
In addition, the ever-decreasing visual distinction between organic search results and ads on Google SERPs is well documented. As is the ever-increasing encroachment of data collection into all their products. Look at how Chrome works with Google accounts now vs 5 or 10 years ago.
Google went from a search engine company who runs ads so they can afford to keep building cool things, to an ad company that runs a search engine because it provides provide data and inventory for its ad network.
No, they make their search worse to sell more ads. Just like they make YouTube worse to sell more ads.
It seems pretty clear that Google has made their search worse to sell more ads.
It properly calls attention to what google’s primary purpose is.
Its not search.
A newspaper’s primary purpose is to inform the public, and make money while doing so.
Googles primary purpose is not search, and to make money while doing so.
Googles primary purpose is collect and sell data, and make money while doing so.
Its not search.
A newspaper’s primary purpose is to inform the public, and make money while doing so.
Googles primary purpose is not search, and to make money while doing so.
Googles primary purpose is collect and sell data, and make money while doing so.
Google doesn’t sell data, and Google’s primary purpose is Search and organizing information, ads is just the way it’s funded.
If the primary purpose was ada, then it would stop all of the wasteful spending on engineering projects with no relation to, and no hope of, making ad money.
If the primary purpose was ada, then it would stop all of the wasteful spending on engineering projects with no relation to, and no hope of, making ad money.
You’re right on the not selling data directly. I should have been more precise.
Google is in the business of collecting data and selling advertising using that data. For the purpose of making money.
Search hasn’t been part of their purpose in decades.
Let me ask you this, has search gotten better or worse in the last 5 - 10 years? Has their data collection gotten more invasive or less over the last 5 - 10 years?
I think we both know what kind of company Google is once those questions are answered.
Google is in the business of collecting data and selling advertising using that data. For the purpose of making money.
Search hasn’t been part of their purpose in decades.
Let me ask you this, has search gotten better or worse in the last 5 - 10 years? Has their data collection gotten more invasive or less over the last 5 - 10 years?
I think we both know what kind of company Google is once those questions are answered.
Search hasn't gotten worse. If you have objective measures as opposed to subject personal anecdotes, present them.
Subjective personal anecdotes are 100% valid forms of data.
But since you asked: Compare Google search engine results over nearly two decades and a trend emerges: Results are filled with advertising and non-Google results are lower down. https://wapo.st/3dHj2Xf
But since you asked: Compare Google search engine results over nearly two decades and a trend emerges: Results are filled with advertising and non-Google results are lower down. https://wapo.st/3dHj2Xf
That's still N=1. He uses a single example, product search for t-shirts, but doesn't look at all the ways search actually got better. It's cherry picking.
There are firms which evaluate search quality by employing a huge corpus of queries and human raters. I trust those more than someone running a single query for a commercial search.
The reality is, the Web didn't stay static. If Google 2020 used the same exact search algorithm as Google of 2000, the results would be worse, because of all of the massive amount of noise and spam that's been added to the web since then, to say nothing of adversarial attacks. Google of 2020 is doing a hell of a lot to maintain freshness, index an exponentially bigger web, and defeat pretty much an army of blackhat SEO adversaries from spoiling it.
It's like saying Email spam is worse in Gmail or other clients. Compared to what? 30 years ago, there wasn't much spam being sent and spammers were unsophisticated. The fact that you see almost none these days, but still a few slip through, compared to standard IMAP in 1993 is irrelevent, because the email population was tiny back then.
I'll admit that the product search category in queries has over-the-top ads. But then again, this is the one area where even going back to 2000 era, Sergey and Larry justified ads by saying say that serving up keyword based ads is in a way, satisfying query intent. If I type in "toyota cars" and I get ads for 3 toyota car dealerships nearby, why is this completely wrong? It's very likely a strong buy signal.
Personally, when I'm doing product search, I go straight to Amazon, or I use Shopping.google.com (or Froogle back in the old days)
I can do my own cherry picking. For example, when looking for actual information, especially long tail information, Google search is way better than it was in the early 2000s, and unmatched by things like DDG.
Compare long-tail search vs DuckDuckGo. Try for example "the movie where a robot kid flies a spy plane". Google returns D.A.R.Y.L as top item. DDG doesn't even have it in the top 10. This is way bette than it was in 2000.
"who wrote the c64 game mule". DDG just gives me Wikipedia. Google gives me the Answer + Wikipedia plus related games to explore.
Or try "what is the moment of inertia of a disk", on DDG the snippet displayed in the first result is far less useful than the snippet Google displays. Plus Google shows actual diagrams in the results too.
Look, I'll be the first to admit they increased the # of ads for some queries (mostly product search, real estate, travel, etc) and are using questionable dark patterns that make ads harder to discern from non-ad content. But quite obviously to me, the non-ad query results have gotten ALOT better from 20 years ago, and it's just false memory nostalgia about how queries use to work on a much smaller, and non-commercial web, that thinks they were better.
I've been on the internet/web since the 80s. It was a marvelous time in the old days before commercialization, but also in many ways, it was far less useful and worse.
There are firms which evaluate search quality by employing a huge corpus of queries and human raters. I trust those more than someone running a single query for a commercial search.
The reality is, the Web didn't stay static. If Google 2020 used the same exact search algorithm as Google of 2000, the results would be worse, because of all of the massive amount of noise and spam that's been added to the web since then, to say nothing of adversarial attacks. Google of 2020 is doing a hell of a lot to maintain freshness, index an exponentially bigger web, and defeat pretty much an army of blackhat SEO adversaries from spoiling it.
It's like saying Email spam is worse in Gmail or other clients. Compared to what? 30 years ago, there wasn't much spam being sent and spammers were unsophisticated. The fact that you see almost none these days, but still a few slip through, compared to standard IMAP in 1993 is irrelevent, because the email population was tiny back then.
I'll admit that the product search category in queries has over-the-top ads. But then again, this is the one area where even going back to 2000 era, Sergey and Larry justified ads by saying say that serving up keyword based ads is in a way, satisfying query intent. If I type in "toyota cars" and I get ads for 3 toyota car dealerships nearby, why is this completely wrong? It's very likely a strong buy signal.
Personally, when I'm doing product search, I go straight to Amazon, or I use Shopping.google.com (or Froogle back in the old days)
I can do my own cherry picking. For example, when looking for actual information, especially long tail information, Google search is way better than it was in the early 2000s, and unmatched by things like DDG.
Compare long-tail search vs DuckDuckGo. Try for example "the movie where a robot kid flies a spy plane". Google returns D.A.R.Y.L as top item. DDG doesn't even have it in the top 10. This is way bette than it was in 2000.
"who wrote the c64 game mule". DDG just gives me Wikipedia. Google gives me the Answer + Wikipedia plus related games to explore.
Or try "what is the moment of inertia of a disk", on DDG the snippet displayed in the first result is far less useful than the snippet Google displays. Plus Google shows actual diagrams in the results too.
Look, I'll be the first to admit they increased the # of ads for some queries (mostly product search, real estate, travel, etc) and are using questionable dark patterns that make ads harder to discern from non-ad content. But quite obviously to me, the non-ad query results have gotten ALOT better from 20 years ago, and it's just false memory nostalgia about how queries use to work on a much smaller, and non-commercial web, that thinks they were better.
I've been on the internet/web since the 80s. It was a marvelous time in the old days before commercialization, but also in many ways, it was far less useful and worse.
Look, I wanted to keep this debate going, but your reference to MULE totally derailed my train of thought.
Damn you, now I’ve got to go find an emulator and see how bad the C64 days were all over again.
I’ve only been on the web since the mid-late 90s, but it has changed so much for the worse, perhaps not in usefulness, but in… Idealsim? I remember reading the hacker manifesto and it moving me. That crappy little text inspired so much in me. I just hope that in todays overly commercial, algorithmically driven, ML curated world, there is room for life changing chance encounters.
I’ve only been on the web since the mid-late 90s, but it has changed so much for the worse, perhaps not in usefulness, but in… Idealsim? I remember reading the hacker manifesto and it moving me. That crappy little text inspired so much in me. I just hope that in todays overly commercial, algorithmically driven, ML curated world, there is room for life changing chance encounters.
Lets just end this on a positive note, I can't argue with anyone who is a fellow M.U.L.E. lover. :)
When those projects are found to not lock users and customers in Google ecosystem and/or not to bring ad revenue, those are axed with no remorse.
This statement is as stupid as saying the New York Times isn’t a newspaper but an ad company because they make a substantial bit of their money on ads.
Yes, while the web may seem "open" due to its fragmented nature of hosting, Google wants all content to reside in their own walled garden so it can quickly kill competition. AMP was a major play towards that. Also, all (?) their money makers are closed source and proprietary - which is just fine by me, but Google should own up to what they really are instead of projecting a fake "open" image of themselves.
> Data behind paywalls/logins is useless to them.
Sites are often not behind a paywall if you reach them via google (and only google).
Sites are often not behind a paywall if you reach them via google (and only google).
When they hide data you're obviously and explicitly looking for they are making the internet less open.
Look at the google vs duckduckgo search results for this: "How a Convicted Terrorist used the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Website to Identify Targets"
Look at the google vs duckduckgo search results for this: "How a Convicted Terrorist used the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Website to Identify Targets"
jeffbee(3)
The biggest issue is that Google Search kills its own sources, which is shortsighted. Google constantly steals manually curated quality content, and regurgitates it in Knowledge Graph without attribution, such that the people who did all the work to develop and curate that information aren't compensated.
The end result: As the web Google stole from dies off, Google increasingly has worse, less accurate sources it has to draw from.
Journalists are at the forefront of this, and you can see several countries moving to charge Google for lifting news content to combat this. But there's a lot of other sources on the web that probably won't be so lucky.
The end result: As the web Google stole from dies off, Google increasingly has worse, less accurate sources it has to draw from.
Journalists are at the forefront of this, and you can see several countries moving to charge Google for lifting news content to combat this. But there's a lot of other sources on the web that probably won't be so lucky.
Agreed. The only reason he cares it’s because it cost more to sell their ads on proprietary services
I still believe arrest adtech made websites free for so many years. ( I mean literally not paying hard cash access it).
Not everyone in the world has equal financial power as a US citizen.
Not everyone in the world has equal financial power as a US citizen.
IMO it’s actually Twitter.
So, in theory, you have some metric that places Google up at #1. For that to be non-trivial, you must have more than one member of the set evaluated. And for it to be meaningful, maybe you have a top ten or you have evaluated less than ten.
All right, then, enlighten us with your top ten. And if you haven’t already, I’d like to see where on the top ten you’ve put regimes like the Chinese government and the US government.
All right, then, enlighten us with your top ten. And if you haven’t already, I’d like to see where on the top ten you’ve put regimes like the Chinese government and the US government.
As a casual website owner, I find Google is the main culprit. My original articles were buried under content farms full of copypastas.
Lots of my URLs were either "Discovered – currently not indexed" or "Crawled - currently not indexed", but spam sites are happily searchable with the exact same content. And I don't want spend to fight SEO.
Lots of my URLs were either "Discovered – currently not indexed" or "Crawled - currently not indexed", but spam sites are happily searchable with the exact same content. And I don't want spend to fight SEO.
But you blame Google, not the SEO spammers?
SEO spammers are exploiting a flawed system created by... Google.
Unless there is a flawless approach to stopping SEO that isn't something to blame them for as there would be literally nothing to do to stop SEO spammers!
Once a company is large and entrenched, regulation is how you stay in power.
You create enough Byzantine rules that basically only the largest company can hire the lawyers and comply. It’s an effective way to kill off competition.
Google is ready to start encouraging regulation.
You create enough Byzantine rules that basically only the largest company can hire the lawyers and comply. It’s an effective way to kill off competition.
Google is ready to start encouraging regulation.
Why is this being down voted? It's fairly standard practice for a large company isn't it?
Google might be taking this PR angle as a psyop to position themselves as a savior of open internet instead of the enemy of it. They clearly are the latter.
What is (was) the free and open internet?
I'd argue its people running their own servers - traditionally an x86 (plus RAM, disk, modem pipe and power) running a POSIX kernel running httpd, smptd, ftpd and maybe ircd. A static IPv4 address from ARIN (via an ISP) and a DNS name from ICANN (via a registrar).
These are the necessary ingredients you must have, as an individual or a group, to participate in the "free and open internet".
I'd argue that Facebook is just a natural extension of AWS, Digital Ocean or Github pages. Facebook takes away the DNS name, and they take away your content and put it behind an algorithm, which you can bribe to let your stuff through. I'd consider a difference of degree, not kind.
Even those who go to the trouble of running their own physical server still use services like Google Analytics, which violate the privacy of every data consumer. Maybe not as bad as putting your data behind someone else's paywall and then paying them to expose it, but it's pretty bad. Since we use the web for literally every application now, it's a particularly worrying trend.
My point is that if you want a 'free and open internet' then you need to make it easy for people own, understand and run ALL of these ingredients. Like, provide them by all by default for everyone's smartphone, and run servers on your smartphone! And give them reasonable defaults, with a first-year-free DNS name. A free static IPv6 address block. Default, svelte, little mobile friendly server daemons. Then let people make crazy HTML documents with their voice and self-publish them like in the old days!
All the components are there, we just need to DO it.
I'd argue its people running their own servers - traditionally an x86 (plus RAM, disk, modem pipe and power) running a POSIX kernel running httpd, smptd, ftpd and maybe ircd. A static IPv4 address from ARIN (via an ISP) and a DNS name from ICANN (via a registrar).
These are the necessary ingredients you must have, as an individual or a group, to participate in the "free and open internet".
I'd argue that Facebook is just a natural extension of AWS, Digital Ocean or Github pages. Facebook takes away the DNS name, and they take away your content and put it behind an algorithm, which you can bribe to let your stuff through. I'd consider a difference of degree, not kind.
Even those who go to the trouble of running their own physical server still use services like Google Analytics, which violate the privacy of every data consumer. Maybe not as bad as putting your data behind someone else's paywall and then paying them to expose it, but it's pretty bad. Since we use the web for literally every application now, it's a particularly worrying trend.
My point is that if you want a 'free and open internet' then you need to make it easy for people own, understand and run ALL of these ingredients. Like, provide them by all by default for everyone's smartphone, and run servers on your smartphone! And give them reasonable defaults, with a first-year-free DNS name. A free static IPv6 address block. Default, svelte, little mobile friendly server daemons. Then let people make crazy HTML documents with their voice and self-publish them like in the old days!
All the components are there, we just need to DO it.
I do hope that people read the article and comment on its contents rather than just getting stuck in a loop of "Google bad".
Haha where do you think you are
There're lots of things about HN that make it better than many other fora, but its collective wild-eyed, frothing reaction to literally the word Google is not one of them. You may as well be on 4chan for threads like these
There're lots of things about HN that make it better than many other fora, but its collective wild-eyed, frothing reaction to literally the word Google is not one of them. You may as well be on 4chan for threads like these
Why? The only reason Pichai's comments are important is because he works for a company that is dangerous for internet freedom. Their only use is in predicting Google's business strategies and defending against them.
This might as well be a place to talk about Google in general, or Pichai in general irt "internet freedom."
This might as well be a place to talk about Google in general, or Pichai in general irt "internet freedom."
[deleted]
Nobody likes to challenge their own beliefs - especially when it's a negative belief.
(I could provide links to studies, but I like to think the downvotes prove my point for me)
(I could provide links to studies, but I like to think the downvotes prove my point for me)
And upvotes would equally reinforce the validity of your claim for you. Since you're likely as reluctant to challenge your own beliefs as anyone else.
This is like inception for self fulfilling prophecy
For all my scathing criticism of Google I actually wish them well.
There is a whole lot of things they did right (and do right), only they are now often messing up even basics.
There is a whole lot of things they did right (and do right), only they are now often messing up even basics.
The criticism here is entirely self-serving and hypocritical. Why should Google be able to undemocratically decide which parts of the internet it allows, yet deride governments for doing the same thing? At least the governments ostensibly have the best interests of their people in mind. And even the worst "authoritarian" governments need to answer to their population enough to keep legitimacy.
There is no free and open internet, and Google is part of the group of corporations that help prop up the big tech cartel that help kill off each others' competitors, share employee blacklists, and intentionally sacrifice the quality of their product to push their Bay Area bourgeoisie politics around the globe.
There is no free and open internet, and Google is part of the group of corporations that help prop up the big tech cartel that help kill off each others' competitors, share employee blacklists, and intentionally sacrifice the quality of their product to push their Bay Area bourgeoisie politics around the globe.
as far as state actors are concerned, it's state propaganda that 's the greatest threat and big tech is actually facilitating this because it's structurally convenient for autocrats. For the rest, google is a company that can actually do things about the free internet, so actions are better than words here
Faciliating is a downright weasel word to insinuate complicity. Power lines facilitate power outages - without the transport there would be no power to out. And where the heck does the "Because it is structurally convenient to autocrats" conclusion come from and what the hell does that even mean?
On another note does anybody else notice the inherent contradiction and massive exploitability of the "state propaganda is a threat" line that is so common? Deciding what speech from foreign governments goes against their agenda and declaring it a threat is itself propaganda.
On another note does anybody else notice the inherent contradiction and massive exploitability of the "state propaganda is a threat" line that is so common? Deciding what speech from foreign governments goes against their agenda and declaring it a threat is itself propaganda.
> Faciliating is a downright weasel word to insinuate complicity.
That's not ruled out. Big tech employs thousands of people who may or may not be bought out to cover the tracks of authoritarians, even if we assume (absurdly) that their leadership are saints.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/13/facebook-...
> structurally convenient
Social media are centralized, have no direct interest in the stability of the country they operate in, are not in any control from the users of the target country, are perceived as neutral by said users, YET they are in control of the government where they operate in, and certain countries often run campaigns targetted against their own citizens. They generally don't investigate such actions until after the fact, and in fact i ve only seen facebook doing somewhat serious attempts to catch them in the act e.g. https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/removing-coordinated-inaut...
That's not ruled out. Big tech employs thousands of people who may or may not be bought out to cover the tracks of authoritarians, even if we assume (absurdly) that their leadership are saints.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/13/facebook-...
> structurally convenient
Social media are centralized, have no direct interest in the stability of the country they operate in, are not in any control from the users of the target country, are perceived as neutral by said users, YET they are in control of the government where they operate in, and certain countries often run campaigns targetted against their own citizens. They generally don't investigate such actions until after the fact, and in fact i ve only seen facebook doing somewhat serious attempts to catch them in the act e.g. https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/removing-coordinated-inaut...
This article feels like a rosy, uncritical review of Google under Pichai. Even the opening sentence here is full of tone deaf hypocrisy:
> [Sundar Pichai] says many countries are restricting the flow of information, and the model is often taken for granted.
Like when Google, with more influence than most countries, censors content on YouTube or the Google App Store? Google’s manipulation of information amounts to political propaganda to those who aren’t aligned with their prevailing views - naturally many countries will balk at letting that kind of foreign interference/control influence their own societies.
And I can’t help but view Pichai’s perspective on taxes as a form of convenient regulatory capture / barrier to competition:
> I put this to Pichai, who said that Google no longer uses this scheme, is one of the world's biggest taxpayers, and complies with tax laws in every country in which it operates.
The article also talks about the activist streak of Google and its employees but doesn’t challenge it:
> With more than 100,000 staff, many of them hugely opinionated on internal message boards, and activist in nature, this is just impossible to control. There is a tension between Google genuinely embracing cognitive diversity by having people of all persuasions among its global staff, and at the same time really standing up for particular issues as a company.
I don’t think this tension is actually present. Google is a dyed in the wool Bay Area tech company. I don’t think it has employees of “all persuasions” in any great numbers unless they are looking at only the left side of the American political spectrum.
> [Sundar Pichai] says many countries are restricting the flow of information, and the model is often taken for granted.
Like when Google, with more influence than most countries, censors content on YouTube or the Google App Store? Google’s manipulation of information amounts to political propaganda to those who aren’t aligned with their prevailing views - naturally many countries will balk at letting that kind of foreign interference/control influence their own societies.
And I can’t help but view Pichai’s perspective on taxes as a form of convenient regulatory capture / barrier to competition:
> I put this to Pichai, who said that Google no longer uses this scheme, is one of the world's biggest taxpayers, and complies with tax laws in every country in which it operates.
The article also talks about the activist streak of Google and its employees but doesn’t challenge it:
> With more than 100,000 staff, many of them hugely opinionated on internal message boards, and activist in nature, this is just impossible to control. There is a tension between Google genuinely embracing cognitive diversity by having people of all persuasions among its global staff, and at the same time really standing up for particular issues as a company.
I don’t think this tension is actually present. Google is a dyed in the wool Bay Area tech company. I don’t think it has employees of “all persuasions” in any great numbers unless they are looking at only the left side of the American political spectrum.
Google doesn't give interviews with executives to outlets that ask critical questions. (Neither does Apple, pretty famously.)
Executive interviews tend to lean more towards press releases than journalism.
Executive interviews tend to lean more towards press releases than journalism.
MKBHD can be very critical of Apple.
I fully expect that Google will someday require you to login before you do a search.
Disclaimer: I worked at Google for 12 years.
Disclaimer: I worked at Google for 12 years.
I fully expect Bing to implement it first by requiring you login to Edge to use search, and shortly before there will be some secret order requiring all search providers collect searches from everyone due to national security.
This is astroturfing. The biggest threat to internet freedom is the company that Mr. Pichai is in charge of.
My open letter to Sundar, in response to this interview, as a fellow search engine company CEO: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27819924
Any speech like this is always requires the reader to add the speaker to the list of threats.
Guy chiefly responsible for loss of internet freedom warns that his power is threatened.
"Warns" of threats is a great title, as that is all he does.
He's a great CEO. Has no outspoken opinion about anything yet maximizes financial results. It's what Google needs at this phase of its life cycle.
The article dares to even call him an idealist.
How so? He's too afraid to even directly mention the China issue, let alone take any responsibility for it. If you're too afraid to concretely even mention a human rights issue, how are you an idealist?
When mildly pressed for their tax misbehavior, the comeback is that they no longer use the double dutch construction. An idealist would apologize for even ever using it, and pay back what you dodged. Instead, we're supposed to be happy that they pay some bare minimum now, which...get this...is more than most companies.
How generous.
An idealist has principles, stands for something, and will defend doing the right thing at any and all costs. He's the opposite of an idealist.
He's a great CEO. Has no outspoken opinion about anything yet maximizes financial results. It's what Google needs at this phase of its life cycle.
The article dares to even call him an idealist.
How so? He's too afraid to even directly mention the China issue, let alone take any responsibility for it. If you're too afraid to concretely even mention a human rights issue, how are you an idealist?
When mildly pressed for their tax misbehavior, the comeback is that they no longer use the double dutch construction. An idealist would apologize for even ever using it, and pay back what you dodged. Instead, we're supposed to be happy that they pay some bare minimum now, which...get this...is more than most companies.
How generous.
An idealist has principles, stands for something, and will defend doing the right thing at any and all costs. He's the opposite of an idealist.
Combine this with "the coming war on general purpose computing"[0] , IME, DRM, difficulty to repair devices and computers that user has no control even on their car and soon we'll be living like on the dystopian essay "The right to read".
[0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Com...
[0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Com...
Should've interviewed the AI. It has more opinion than he could ever hope of having.
Funny position for a guy running a company doing a lot to restrict freedom of speech.
Just a minute ago I had found that a piece of controversial media I used to watch was scrubbed from all Google services (youtube, search etc.). Had to use Yandex and Baidu to find it. They all have their masters, Google is the one only bold faced enough to pretend they represent all of the internet.
…warns of threat of no longer having control over the internet
Google attacks the "free and open internet" globally far more than a backwater country that restricts its citizens internet usage along with a million other things.
Watched the interview and Sundar Pichai sounded so defensive and unauthentic. Why do they do these interviews? I gained absolutely nothing from it.
That is the position of many a CEO of a large company, akin to politicians in that they say lots without actually saying anything and by the time you realise that they have said nothing, they have gone.
For example "He says many countries are restricting the flow of information, and the model is often taken for granted." Shifts any blame elsewhere in a way that does not detail this model or outlines any of the issues that define the restrictions and how they effect Google. So for all we know, he could be on about data protection laws like GDPR or the like and paints them as bad without going into any details of the pro's or con's.
Remember some law/restriction that is bad for Google may actually be good for the users.
Also when I see the term "free internet" I do feel it is a misnomer in many ways, more so in the context it is used.
For example "He says many countries are restricting the flow of information, and the model is often taken for granted." Shifts any blame elsewhere in a way that does not detail this model or outlines any of the issues that define the restrictions and how they effect Google. So for all we know, he could be on about data protection laws like GDPR or the like and paints them as bad without going into any details of the pro's or con's.
Remember some law/restriction that is bad for Google may actually be good for the users.
Also when I see the term "free internet" I do feel it is a misnomer in many ways, more so in the context it is used.
Sundar Pichai warns of Sundar Pichai
Free Internet - An internet where Spamhaus forces everyone to use Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo or else not receive or send email reliably.
Nothingburger IMHO could find the same article written in the ‘70s. Where’s my self driving car?
did they fix google docs and drive yet? asking for a friend
threats to internet freedom brought on by his own company?
That's a laugh
oldgregg(1)
Pot, meet kettle.
Google itself is actively restricting the flow of information.
It is really quite sad how Google's formerly excellent search product, has morphed into a tool for censorship, and surveillance capitalism, and in the process, degraded its accuracy significantly.
It is really quite sad how Google's formerly excellent search product, has morphed into a tool for censorship, and surveillance capitalism, and in the process, degraded its accuracy significantly.
"... and our attack goes according to the plan." - he added.
We let too many morons on the net, now it's either give up freedom or give up democracy and the rule of law. Aside from an Internet "driving license" or tests before people are allowed to vote, I don't see how we can keep both. I liked a free Web too...
By not falling for the bullshit of anybody who says you need to give up freedom of information for security - they are lying to you from the start and plan only more lies and abuse of power.
An internet driver's license is a terrible technically illiterate idea trying to cast itself as something reasonable. Who can I run over with my internet connection? How the hell would anybody check who is behind a terminal in the privacy of their own home? It would require somehow embedding an actual identifier in every last packet and ensuring it is always valid and isn't susceptible to replay or known plaintext attacks.
An internet driver's license is a terrible technically illiterate idea trying to cast itself as something reasonable. Who can I run over with my internet connection? How the hell would anybody check who is behind a terminal in the privacy of their own home? It would require somehow embedding an actual identifier in every last packet and ensuring it is always valid and isn't susceptible to replay or known plaintext attacks.
I'd be happy to hear a third option. How do we have a working democracy if so many people believe fake news and we don't ban it?
Free and open internet isn't under attack because major corporations want it that, it's because people want it that way. The average computer user is a non-programmer. Why would they want things more complicated for themselves? So where does the money flow? To the path of least resistance. While many companies are willing to oblige that thought process, it unfortunately creates the system that strips "free and open internet" away from us.
Every single one of these predates Pichai, who only became CEO in 2015:
* Google Wave was already turned down in 2012
* Google Plus launched in 2011 and the writing was on the wall by 2015
* Google Glass consumer edition was discontinued in Jan 2015 before Pichai started
* Loon is the only arguable exception; it was started in 2011 but only promoted into an official Bet during Pichai's tenure in 2018. However, it was also an experiment from day 1, not "the next big thing" like Wave/Plus/Glass were supposed to be.