Losing hope in G+ very fast.
They're going to make the same mistakes that are killing Facebook. I'm also concerned about them selling data from G+, since Schmidt describes it as an identity service. It's a very evil concept.
They're going to make the same mistakes that are killing Facebook. I'm also concerned about them selling data from G+, since Schmidt describes it as an identity service. It's a very evil concept.
It's easy to say "Hey, if you want to be pseudonymous go elsewhere". I have no desire to be pseudonymous, but I certainly want to socialise with people who are. I can't be the only one.
HN good news: the field is still wide open for someone who wants to do it right.
Facebook's communication features, the 'social networking', in itself isn't anything special.
From that perspective, Google+ becomes much clearer. Google are attempting to use Facebook's poor social networking features to elbow in on their identity directory.
> Facebook's communication features, the 'social networking', in itself isn't anything special.
Throw away your cynical world view for a second and just go to your Facebook feed and see how people are interacting there, having fun, supporting each other, spreading a little bit of love in form of "likes" (even if it's a bit silly) and come back and say it ain't anything special and it's just a solution to an identity directory problem. It's much more.
Facebook is the closest thing to a chat at a bar with your friends that internet has to offer. Certainly, there are better bars already out there, but FB is a bar that your friends are willing to come to. It's still early days of internet and our virtual existence, so FB ain't that colourful and deep as an evening at a local pub can be, but painting it just as a identity directory is a fundamental misunderstanding of social internet.
As it became clearer that G+ was an attempt to harvest still more monetizable information I decided to bow out. I've now unplugged myself entirely from all Google services and I don't intend to ever again rely so heavily on any one company.
What other email platforms are you referring to?
I think people online often mistake a vocal minority pushing for privacy settings on this network as a reflection of the wishes of everyone. Truth be told, most people are indifferent to the matter.
The conceivable downsides of open participation in Facebook far outweigh the positives.
Add in social fatigue in the mass market as well, I suspect the trend has peaked.
Specifically, they can render their profiles invisible to people they don't know, disengage from people they come to dislike, remove their names from pictures they don't want to be tagged in, and easily limit any personal details (except birthdays) that they don't like sharing.
For an enormous number of people, that's just fine.
And I'm quite annoyed by claims that associate a real identity requirement with selling data or ad targeting and such, they can target well enough using interests, not sure your name improves much on it.
Also instead of speculating read the service's privacy policy and be certain about it.
As with 0x44, I've a name that's to the best of my knowledge unique in all the world. That's helpful when I wish to be known. When not, not so much.
And I've accumulated a (thankfully short) list of people I don't much care to advertise my goings-on to.
Having a distinctive pseudonym for certain roles is useful. Having a non-distinctive pseudonym (or several) for others, likewise. Sometimes, on the Internet, you really do want to be a dog.
Years ago Google was a disruption force towards existing controlling organisations. Now Google are trying to prevent disruptive technologies eroding their market share.
Hence they have joined the ranks of the old guard such as Microsoft, IBM, Apple etc... those desiring control, and hence arguably evil.
Just the nature of business, they don't really have a choice, and many respects are bound by law to become 'evil'.
I don't think control constitutes "profound immorality and wickedness" to be honest.
There's a modern corrolary: data corrupts, absolute data corrupts absolutely.
Google are well and truly headed down this path, it seems.
They take money from one industry and use it to crush/undermine competitors in other industries. Hence making a situation where no one can compete with them. IMO abusing market position i.e. they use advertising money to drive technology business out of business
They have also perpetuated a belief that you shouldn't pay for anything on the internet. You know that would be fine if we lived in some Marxist utopia, but we don't. Things are expensive to make and produce and Google is making it harder and harder on a daily basis to get returns off products.
They did what was needed, improved the world, but those days are gone.
No one owes you the ability to extract consumer surplus.
You may be able to get some customers with higher quality goods, but generally people go for the cheapest option. So its good for customers, up until competition and innovation dry up. Which is the normal out come of this situation (and then prices start to climb).
The clincher in the whole evil'ness about this is Google has set it up so the only way to compete with them is to buy ads off them. Total abuse of there monopoly IMO.
Yes I agree that after a company gains market power there is an incentive to raise prices but I dont think there are many (any?) examples of Google switching a free product to a paid one.
You missed the point, Google isn't evil. Yes they make it difficult to compete but thats what successful companies do. The difference is Google does it by making simple disruptive products and prices them at their marginal cost. Google isn't a monopoly by any definition. Google isnt the single seller in any of their markets, Google doesnt compete in a market with high barriers to entry and Google isnt a price maker. Users (advertisers and internet service consumers) can easily switch to competing products and avoid Google entirely.
Google is powerful yes, but they create value by helping their users keep their money. Google has never made any promise to anyone else other than their users.
Google has used the world "evil" a lot, internally and externally, for years. Of course it isn't demonic or something, but it at least used to have meaning to that company in that they would never do things that they considered "evil" by their own standards.
I don't think forcing real names only is "evil," but it can lead towards some evil things.
Who has access to our information and communications is going to be a looming issue for a while. It was probably silly for us to think Google would act differently.