Something can be good for a corporation you don't like AND good for the world at the same time, without any implied tradeoffs or dichotomies.
Yes, Google is betting heavily on web-everything-all-the-time because they know how to monitise the web (and their competitor don't). Making the web better furthers this goal, but it also makes the web better, so there's that.
When we start seeing things that will break/degrade the web for apps and users that aren't in the Google (ad/tracking) garden, that's when we start to worry, but there's been very little, if any, of that.
Yeah, some people go so far as to directly claim that something is good because Google uses it. And when Google uses it, it probably IS good for solving Google's problems. But most people aren't Google and don't have Google's problems.
It seems like a lot of people who aren't in tech see all websites, even if they're useful, as somehow frivolous. As though working at Google (or Facebook or...) must be nice, but it's not helping the world in a serious way. The importance of Google's Superbowl ad, for me, is that it made the case to a mass audience that all this web stuff can be good. Like, morally good; it makes the world better. I think this is something that a lot of us who work on websites believe, but I've had trouble talking about it with, for example, friends who work at nonprofits. They would see what I was saying, but somehow remain skeptical, and I think the ad made a more convincing case than I ever did. So for all of us who are web developers, it's like the ad publicly legitimized our work to some degree. Not that we needed it, but it's nice, and I think it's an important effect of the ad. So thanks, Google.
> Try to remember that it's first and foremost a search engine with ad-revenue. Anything else is a product of a liberal work environment and driven employees.
But that's actually a really good reason to hesitate a bit before betting your own project's success on anything they put out that isn't directly related to the search engine or the ad products. It's not "playa hatin'" to recognize that things from Google that aren't strategic to them may get dropped some day, it's just being pragmatic.
Agreed. It's sometimes hard to distinguish the things Google does that contributes to its success from the things Google can get away with (waste, etc.) because of its success.
While Google is definitely nice and useful, I think that they, just like any company, are trying to "improve" their bottom line. And they seem to be doing just fine without also trying to do shady stuff: https://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlf45kijd/google/#10b28b8029...
I feel like you're assuming a false dichotomy between doing good and benefitting oneself. If Google organizes the world's information and makes it universally accessible and useful, and they put ads beside it, the latter part doesn't make the former untrue.
To engender the feeling that Google is a factory for big new ideas, making it the place every top-flight developer wants to work, and the tech company that everyone talks about when innovation is the subject. I'd say it's paid for itself, and I'd also suggest that it hasn't hurt them. Google has as much of the search market as ever, as far as I know, and the only dents have been due to non-technical factors (Microsoft, and others, modifying the search bar in browsers, ISPs making deals to push other engine, etc.).
Good for everyone, ...except Google shareholders maybe? (Maybe not though; it might earn more for them in marketing value, as Satya Nadella pointed out.)
It's not just about cost-effectiveness, it's about which company is making the Web a better place — and I see a lot of Google's activities actively moving in the wrong direction.
For me, it's more about the companies than the product (which, like I said, is probably an unsatisfactory criteria for most people).
You are right that Google is aggressively pushing the web forward, but it's debatable whether it's a good thing; if you look at recent initiatives like FLoC, Web Packaging and Manifest v3.
Your kind of skepticism is ultimately one of the few things that holds corporations in check, so I am not discouraging you from persistently aiming it at Google, Facebook, et al.
But that being said, I was a full-time dev there for 5 years, and I can say with a (however misguided) degree of certainty: all of those projects have one goal in mind - to make the experience of using the web better. Whatever else is true about the dangers of monoculture, Google's intentions are benign.
Their business model depends on users finding their search results useful. I think Google’s business is far more fragile than it looks. That’s why they’re doing all the things that are now in the crosshairs of regulators.
It may be, in part, Google's giant cash machine. It makes it possible to be altruistic. In a world of fierce/commoditized competition it is much harder to expend resources on 'side' projects.
It's not about belief really, it's about necessity. At google it basically rains ad money 24/7, that plus backbone internet traffic is where the vast majority of their money comes from, and it's a ton of money. For everything else it doesn't matter if it's successful as a business or not. In fact, the best case scenario is mediocrity and barely breaking even in terms of costs. Because that means there are no consequences, no bigger implications, no expectations for improvement, etc. Google is sitting on several enormous multi-billion dollar businesses (youtube and office tools, for example) but they don't care to actually develop them into such. Right now they can afford to not care, and all of the internal incentives are aligned to promote not caring.
Exactly, I don't see a downside in Google pouring money at futuristic projects. This is a good thing, their research and development only helps the computing industry. I guess people are just stuck in the mindframe that everything Google does is bad. Sure they seem to do some sketchy stuff sometimes with personal information, but that doesn't mean everything they do is a bad thing.
Yes, Google is betting heavily on web-everything-all-the-time because they know how to monitise the web (and their competitor don't). Making the web better furthers this goal, but it also makes the web better, so there's that.
When we start seeing things that will break/degrade the web for apps and users that aren't in the Google (ad/tracking) garden, that's when we start to worry, but there's been very little, if any, of that.
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