In Defense of Google
i've got a new book contract and have to do a ton of writing today ... i'm going to pace here a bit as a warm up.
you may think i'm just spouting off here, and you'd be right, but i used to get paid to write stuff almost exactly like this when the Internet bubble was growing.
***
I live and work in the Silicon Valley. Geographically speaking it's what's known as the "California peninsula," the 50 miles that run south of San Francisco and is home to the heart and soul of the world's computer industry. It's a certainty that much, if not all, of the software and hardware you are running this very second were either invented, or perfected, here. (Blogger was, for example.)
It's becoming popular, both in the sneering underlying geek culture of the Valley and in the popular press (written by people who talk about the computer industry, but actually haven't worked in it), to bash Google. They're too big. They're too evil. They're too dumb. They're too fat. Etcetera.
These people are wrong.
Google is a great corporation, and here's why:
They make the world's best search engine for both text and graphics. Period. (Everyone from the Product Manager, right on up to the CEO, at AltaVista should be clubbed with a jack handle for letting that title and concept slip out of their fingers.)
They don't beat you over the head with animation or stacks of un-navigable ads in their display screens. (Something Yahoo! should learn.)
They make the world's best Web-based email system.
They make the world's most sophisticated mapping system.
They also are a company that clearly has a conscience, they:
Dutch-auctioned their initial public offering (IPO) of stock. Giving more money to the company and less to the underwriters and "preferred customers" (people who are already multi-millionaires) who do nothing more than spin the stock on the first day it is offered.
Have refused the U.S. Government's request for aggregate search data saying that it's an over-extension of the government's hand and a breach of privacy. (Notably Yahoo! and Microsoft both quickly replied with the request.)
Are setting up large parts of San Francisco, Mountain View and Sunnyvale with broadband Internet access.
And, here's the important part, everything I've listed above (with the exception of the IPO) has been done for free to the user. If you're a common, normal, non-corporate human being their products haven't cost you a penny.
I have exactly one thing to say to Google detractors. You don't like 'em? Fine. Don't use 'em.
But you can bet that the refusal to comply with government request has officially put them on the Fed's radar. My brother (the world's best mechanical engineer) is right when he says they'll get an indictment about something from the U.S. Government in five years or less. They'll need friends when they do and one of them should be you.
you may think i'm just spouting off here, and you'd be right, but i used to get paid to write stuff almost exactly like this when the Internet bubble was growing.
***
I live and work in the Silicon Valley. Geographically speaking it's what's known as the "California peninsula," the 50 miles that run south of San Francisco and is home to the heart and soul of the world's computer industry. It's a certainty that much, if not all, of the software and hardware you are running this very second were either invented, or perfected, here. (Blogger was, for example.)
It's becoming popular, both in the sneering underlying geek culture of the Valley and in the popular press (written by people who talk about the computer industry, but actually haven't worked in it), to bash Google. They're too big. They're too evil. They're too dumb. They're too fat. Etcetera.
These people are wrong.
Google is a great corporation, and here's why:
They make the world's best search engine for both text and graphics. Period. (Everyone from the Product Manager, right on up to the CEO, at AltaVista should be clubbed with a jack handle for letting that title and concept slip out of their fingers.)
They don't beat you over the head with animation or stacks of un-navigable ads in their display screens. (Something Yahoo! should learn.)
They make the world's best Web-based email system.
They make the world's most sophisticated mapping system.
They also are a company that clearly has a conscience, they:
Dutch-auctioned their initial public offering (IPO) of stock. Giving more money to the company and less to the underwriters and "preferred customers" (people who are already multi-millionaires) who do nothing more than spin the stock on the first day it is offered.
Have refused the U.S. Government's request for aggregate search data saying that it's an over-extension of the government's hand and a breach of privacy. (Notably Yahoo! and Microsoft both quickly replied with the request.)
Are setting up large parts of San Francisco, Mountain View and Sunnyvale with broadband Internet access.
And, here's the important part, everything I've listed above (with the exception of the IPO) has been done for free to the user. If you're a common, normal, non-corporate human being their products haven't cost you a penny.
I have exactly one thing to say to Google detractors. You don't like 'em? Fine. Don't use 'em.
But you can bet that the refusal to comply with government request has officially put them on the Fed's radar. My brother (the world's best mechanical engineer) is right when he says they'll get an indictment about something from the U.S. Government in five years or less. They'll need friends when they do and one of them should be you.
posted by b1-66er at 10:13
4 Comments:
But what about this place where nothing happened as opposed to this other place where something did?
Helping a totalitarian state build a censorship system in order to make a buck is completely uncool if you ask me.
But hey, I use their fine product all the time.
that's too simplistic a view and you know it.
remember you heard it here first -- the internet will ultimately be to chinese information exactly as budapest was to the body politic of the soviet union. it is the slice in the peel that will ultimately prove the current ideal unsustainable and unravel.
and in less than 10 years.
start counting.
congratulations on the contract. this means I have to wait for that other book, doesn't it? (crap.)
I'll take that bet, sir.
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