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Comment by snowwrestler | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> I don’t mean they oppose it,

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.

> 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.

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.

Right, there will be Google and Apple. Totally competition.

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