dacoja

I wrote the first version before I had even heard of Brave. I recommend reading that one first and see if you still think that. (It's linked at the bottom of the article.)

I only added that part in the updated version a couple months ago because after learning everything I have about Brave since writing the article, I would feel remiss not mentioning it. What Brave is building truly feels to me like the best antidote to the adtech monstrosity Google and Facebook have created, and Brave is the only company I see with a clear vision on how to solve the problems for all parties (users, publishers, and advertisers).

If Brave was just another startup tackling a big problem, I wouldn't even think of mentioning it. But Brendan Eich is the one running this company, and he is undeniably one of the most influential people in the history of the web. He created the protocol that moved the web from 1.0 and 2.0, and then cofounded the company that took down the biggest browser of the time controlled by the monopolistic tech company of its day.

Who better to take down the biggest browser of today and create the protocol to move the web from 2.0 to 3.0?

—a guy betting on Brave

That's a fantastic idea!

That's actually the one I was thinking of as being awkward to activate :) I love the picker itself but the activation method is pretty clunky in my opinion.

I wish I could just hit one key instead of having to simultaneously press three. I've been using Rocket for awhile now (https://matthewpalmer.net/rocket/) which kind of takes the Slack style ":emoji_name" format to the whole computer, but it's still kind of awkward to activate and has a lot of false positive triggers. (It really makes you realize how often you type colons in everyday computer usage.)

Nice, didn't know about that! I have a PC desktop and a MacBook but lately my PC has been getting dusty, so I have to admit I'm not super familiar with the latest on Windows. Thanks for letting me know :)

That's a great idea! You've inspired me to try setting it to Delete, because it's a bit awkward to delete characters after the caret on Mac right now (FN + Delete is the only way I know how)

Hey, I'm the author :)

I realize it comes across like I'm super worked up over something no one cares about, but I don't hate the key, I just think it's a waste of space on modern keyboards, and that we should collectively reconsider its purpose. Considering the amount of time we all spend on our computers nowadays, any little efficiencies on their input devices could have a pretty large impact.

I'm also someone who gets really passionate about bad design in everyday life and I have strong feelings about the way I think everyday things should be designed.

On my old laptop, I remapped the key to a new kind of modifier key and made the JKLI keys behave like ←↓→↑ keys when Caps Lock was pressed down. It sped up my casual text input a ton, and that was the first time I started really thinking about it more deeply. I did an HCI study during my undergrad to try and prove that an alternate use for the key could help people input text more efficiently, but it was inconclusive.

I also want to make a Mac app that would turn Caps Lock into Emoji Lock, where it would toggle between normal input, and emoji input. Something like this: https://i.imgur.com/Z5dDVUn.png

I know a lot of people on this site probably don't use emojis very often, but a ton of Mac users do, and the existing methods for typing emojis on macOS (and Windows) are still super awkward and clunky. Unfortunately I don't know how to code macOS apps and I've got too much on my plate right now, but hopefully sometime in the future I'll get around to making that.

And if I'm being 100% honest, I partially wrote this article so that if Apple does indeed replace the key on future keyboards, it'd make me look really good at predicting the future ;)

Anyway, thanks for your feedback.

No worries, I do appreciate the feedback.

I definitely should have made the intended perspective clearer than I did.

Ouch. Harsh, but true. I'll keep practicing :)

Hi, I'm the author of the article :)

Honestly I just wrote this for fun to play devil's advocate and see how convincing an argument I could make. It was intended to be more creative writing than a serious market prediction. (The title used to be "How Google Collapsed" -- Startup Grind changed it and added the subtitle when they published it on their blog).

I don't think it's likely that Google is going to collapse any time soon. I just wanted to imagine a world where they had, and try to work backwards from there with current data.

It's my first article, and I'm only 21 so I definitely got a lot of things wrong and oversimplified/combined others. But I do have almost 2 years of work experience in online advertising, so I have /some/ idea of how things work.

I was honestly expecting 12 views and a mean comment about how stupid I was -- I didn't expect the article to pick up traction. The editor in chief of Startup Grind reached out to me and asked if I would like to have it published on their blog, and I said sure.

In response to a few of your points:

     > * Random claim that google lost a major portion of its audience already?

All the comments about losing an audience and revenue drying up are all in hypothetical retrospective :)

     > * Google already missed its chance to pivot" with literally no explanation or justification at all.

This point was about how if Google didn't have search, it would need to pivot. I was using AI as the example pivot, based on Sundar Pichai's comments about how he sees the future of computing.

     > * Alexa has clear monetization strategy, but google home doesn't?

There was a link in the article showing that investors were worried about Google Home's monetization strategy, and Sundar Pichai basically said "Don't worry about it." They also briefly tried to play audio ads with the Google Home, showing that they were at the very least unsure about how they were going to monetize it.

     > Come on guy, you can do better than this.

Thanks. You're right. I appreciate the criticisms :)