Google has no faith in its ability to launch new products | Hacker News Reader

Google has no faith in its ability to launch new products

shkspr.mobi

12 pointsedent11 comments

I think Microsoft is suffering from the same thing (and probably most sizable tech companies), and why I'm moving off Windows. I'll probably bite that bullet this week.

Switching to Linux may actually make it easier to track you.

Your advertising cohort will be narrowed by 97% just by the simple fact that you use Linux.

Sure, but at least you won't get random ads showing up in your OS.

I've heard about this but I've yet to actually see one.

But I don't login using a Microsoft ID either.

There's "Suggested Apps" and recommended items, which might as well be ads. I've never logged in with a MS ID either, but I've seen them, and they're on by default (because of course they are).

https://techjourney.net/enable-or-disable-automatic-install-...

Possibly, but I take other steps to cover my tracks. At least the operating system itself isn't snitching via telemetry.

Your OS actually has access to very little exploitable info about your behavior that your browser doesn't.

Forcing people to use your product is disrespectful.

Since when does *respect* figure into it? Spying on people is equally disrespectful. Yet the entire business model of personalized advertising is built around it.

If Google was respectful of "users", they would be out of business

HINT: Obviously, this article's take on their business model is wrong. Advertisers are their only real *customers*. Users are the *product* they sell.

> In the end, we pre-installed it on every device we sold. Then we forcibly pushed it to every supported phone on our network. The backlash was incredible. As you might expect, people think of their phones as their own personal space. Having a new app shoved on there felt like an invasion. It took up memory space, true, but more importantly it took up psychological space. We had reminded customers that we thought of them as little more than cattle; a resource we controlled with an aim to extract value.

But what was the overall result of that decision? Did people put in the effort to remove it? Or did they come to use it? Did the mobile operator regret doing it?

Backlash is fleeting. How did the new app do?

Silicon Valley in general appears to be out of ideas.

SV has coalesced around one central concept:

    Personal information is the new currency.

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