Google hate is no longer reserved for conservatives.
Google’s story over the last two decades has been a tale as old as time: enshittification for growth. The once-beloved startup—with its unofficial “Don’t Be Evil” motto—has instead become a major Internet monopolist, as a federal judge ruled on Monday, dominating the market for online search. Google is also well-known for its data-harvesting practices, for constantly killing off products, and for facilitating the rise of brain-cell-destroying YouTubers who make me Fear for Today’s Youth. (Maybe that last one is just me?)
Google’s rapid rise from “scrappy search engine with doodles” to “dystopic mega-corporation” has been remarkable in many ways, especially when you consider just how much goodwill the company squandered so quickly. Along the way, though, Google has achieved one unexpected result: In a divided America, it offers just about everyone something to hate.
Here are just a few of the players hating Google today.
Well yeah, they superceded it in 2015 and eradicated it in 2018. They were doing evil before then too, of course, but I guess at that point they felt like they could just drop the mask.
Ive had some success with OSM+ but only if I supply the end point myself. Otherwise it had a really hard time getting a place like Home Depot or a local university, etc…etc…
Stock holders demand infinite growth. If the management doesn’t make money, they put in place new management. A company is only worth the value of the next stock buyback or dividend. It’s baked into the structure of corporations, especially publicly-owned corporations.
How about “monopolizing the ad industry, going all in on manipulative engagement farming, and making billions off of destroying the internet they helped create, and possibly democracy”
I think the headline proves most people don’t really understand how deeply Google has embedded themselves in, and farmed, well, everyone.
Google hasn’t just monopolised the ad industry, but is holding the internet itself in its clutches.
They own and control one of the biggest operating systems on the market, giving them control over peoples devices. They own and control the biggest browser engine on the market, giving them control over the internet standards; they can implement whatever the heck they want and essentially force it as a web standard. They own and control the biggest search engine on the market, giving them control over what information people can see and access.
For a lot of people, Google controls practically the entire internet access chain, and that should terrify anyone who cares about a free and open internet.
Google stopped being cool ages ago and Chrome marked the moment they turned evil. They no longer had an incentive to just throw money at problems, they wanted to completely drive the web ecosystem and they did. They had a browser.
Notice how Google Maps data hasn’t been improving, and if anything getting worse?
I worked for Cognizant, a contractor for Google maps at the Bothell office. I worked for a contractor that Google would fire every 5 years, contract it to another company and change the sign on the office building they owned…then rehire everyone. One of the benefits of this for them (one of the key benefits) was it made it much harder for workers to organize especially because Cognizant and Google can just play “go talk to the other parent I cant do anything” when workers ask for help because they were suffering/needed higher pay to survive/needed basic accomodations.
I worked for Google but Google didn’t want to pay me or my coworkers a living wage, so Google paid some lawyers to make it so they could pretend we didn’t work for Google.
Google is a trash company with absolutely zero idea how to move forward into the future, the company was absolutely chock full of intelligent interesting smart people but Google was so shortsighted that they forced my whole department back to the office for no good reason (literally everything was remote work too).
My experience after working for Google was that Google was most definitely going to collapse within the decade in terms of market power, at the very least in the realm of maps/spatial data.
What a shameful, pathetic company and the management should be ashamed of how stupid and out of touch they were.
Also, completely and utterly anti-worker.
(Cognizant is trash too but if you have ever heard of the company Cognizant you already know that).
A particular point of shame I want to level at the management above me at Cognizant and Google, most of our work was involved with prototyping google maps data editing and QC workflows… that could then be exported to India or somewhere else with cheap labor… except upper management was racist as fuck against Indian workers and would complain about their shoddy work indirectly all the time…
…and never bring up that they specifically wanted to hire Indians so they could pay them shit and treat them like shit. If you were a tech worker in India would you work as hard as I did for far far far far less pay and WAY worse treatment?
I actually led a training class on a workflow that was absolutely not suited for new workers to Google Maps gis data editing to… totally new entry level hires in India, and the Indians were frequently cheating or totally checking out… again because why the hell would they take this shit seriously?
To be clear most people were like most people, they just did the best job they could, but there were lots of people I was training that could see right through the bullshit of the entire system and I can ZERO percent blame them for not disrespecting themselves by treating Google like it was genuine in its offers of employment, stability and a career.
Management encouraged a culture where lowkey shitting on Indians for being lazy and dumb was basically accepted because it rationalized the cruelty, inefficiency and stupidity of the entire system.
I’ve started to try and move away from Google as much as possible, which I knew would be difficult, but it’s proving to be harder than I thought.
I can’t do anything about my work stuff, because our company uses Google for email and cloud storage. I set up an account on Proton Mail for my personal email and file storage. I currently have an android phone, but I don’t like iPhones so I don’t really know what I want to do there. I switched back to Firefox after 15 years of using Chrome. I actually started using Bing search more. I’m looking into alternatives for the Chromecast that Google doesn’t seem interested in supporting anyway, which might just end up being a small PC hooked up to the TV.
I’m just so tired of Google services either being shut down or slowly getting worse and worse until they’re nearly unusable.
On the android front, if you don’t mind using a pixel phone then Graphene OS would be worth checking out. It’s a foss non rooted alternative to base android with a focus on privacy and security. The no root requirement means a good amount of apps like banking work properly on it. It vastly expands the app permission system and removes the special privileges to Google system apps, allowing you to remove it or limit them. It also supports sandboxing of the play store and multiple profiles so you can effectively quarantine Google requiring apps.
It’s not as hard as you’d think. https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle - This has everything you need. Definitely use Firefox. Check out Nextcloud for personal cloud/documents replacement etc. Definitely try a small PC hooked to your TV and look in to plex. Don’t use Google/Bing, stick with DuckDuckGo and if you need to, use !g or !b in your searched on ddg to get bing and google results. It’s fun exploring all the alternatives in the list.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@lemmy.world
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
You either die a hero or less be long enough to become the villain.
Google’s motto in 2003: “Don’t be evil.”
They sure let that motto slide.
Well yeah, they superceded it in 2015 and eradicated it in 2018. They were doing evil before then too, of course, but I guess at that point they felt like they could just drop the mask.
Whats a good google maps alternative?
Ive had some success with OSM+ but only if I supply the end point myself. Otherwise it had a really hard time getting a place like Home Depot or a local university, etc…etc…
Try the Organic Maps app
Did not know that. Well. Stopped clock, blind squirrel, etc.
We demand infinite growth. Why? Because shareholders want to buy shares and sell them later for more.
Do anything it takes to make that transaction happen, cut people’s jobs en masse, whatever.
Forever.
Infinite growth in a closed and limited system.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with this.
edit
/s for the oblivious
WE don’t demand it.
Stock holders demand infinite growth. If the management doesn’t make money, they put in place new management. A company is only worth the value of the next stock buyback or dividend. It’s baked into the structure of corporations, especially publicly-owned corporations.
https://killedbygoogle.com/
everyone with common sense and the ability to pay attention has hated google for over a decade.
Sure thing, cool guy.
I’m not cool.
Cool guys sit there and get pissy about criticism of their dearest waifu company. Like you, Mr.Cool.
How about “monopolizing the ad industry, going all in on manipulative engagement farming, and making billions off of destroying the internet they helped create, and possibly democracy”
I think the headline proves most people don’t really understand how deeply Google has embedded themselves in, and farmed, well, everyone.
Google hasn’t just monopolised the ad industry, but is holding the internet itself in its clutches.
They own and control one of the biggest operating systems on the market, giving them control over peoples devices. They own and control the biggest browser engine on the market, giving them control over the internet standards; they can implement whatever the heck they want and essentially force it as a web standard. They own and control the biggest search engine on the market, giving them control over what information people can see and access.
For a lot of people, Google controls practically the entire internet access chain, and that should terrify anyone who cares about a free and open internet.
We’re way past that… right? They’ve already kinda destroyed the open web and are squeezing it for money.
Oh, but it can still get worse!
For the 113th time: YES
Google stopped being cool ages ago and Chrome marked the moment they turned evil. They no longer had an incentive to just throw money at problems, they wanted to completely drive the web ecosystem and they did. They had a browser.
dOn’T bE eViL
All my homies hate Google
Yes. I hate advertising companies.
They took down the Don’t Be Evil sign.
Reminds me of a cannibal in the Deltora series who has the sign “LIVE NO EVIL” on the wall, when it’s actually “LIVE ON EVIL” but mirrored.
faster just to x through the problematic bits.
That is more Elon’s thing 🤣
dude that’s funny but elon never started with don’t be evil, he just went full hog on the evil from the start.
Notice how Google Maps data hasn’t been improving, and if anything getting worse?
I worked for Cognizant, a contractor for Google maps at the Bothell office. I worked for a contractor that Google would fire every 5 years, contract it to another company and change the sign on the office building they owned…then rehire everyone. One of the benefits of this for them (one of the key benefits) was it made it much harder for workers to organize especially because Cognizant and Google can just play “go talk to the other parent I cant do anything” when workers ask for help because they were suffering/needed higher pay to survive/needed basic accomodations.
I worked for Google but Google didn’t want to pay me or my coworkers a living wage, so Google paid some lawyers to make it so they could pretend we didn’t work for Google.
Google is a trash company with absolutely zero idea how to move forward into the future, the company was absolutely chock full of intelligent interesting smart people but Google was so shortsighted that they forced my whole department back to the office for no good reason (literally everything was remote work too).
My experience after working for Google was that Google was most definitely going to collapse within the decade in terms of market power, at the very least in the realm of maps/spatial data.
What a shameful, pathetic company and the management should be ashamed of how stupid and out of touch they were.
Also, completely and utterly anti-worker.
(Cognizant is trash too but if you have ever heard of the company Cognizant you already know that).
A particular point of shame I want to level at the management above me at Cognizant and Google, most of our work was involved with prototyping google maps data editing and QC workflows… that could then be exported to India or somewhere else with cheap labor… except upper management was racist as fuck against Indian workers and would complain about their shoddy work indirectly all the time…
…and never bring up that they specifically wanted to hire Indians so they could pay them shit and treat them like shit. If you were a tech worker in India would you work as hard as I did for far far far far less pay and WAY worse treatment?
I actually led a training class on a workflow that was absolutely not suited for new workers to Google Maps gis data editing to… totally new entry level hires in India, and the Indians were frequently cheating or totally checking out… again because why the hell would they take this shit seriously? To be clear most people were like most people, they just did the best job they could, but there were lots of people I was training that could see right through the bullshit of the entire system and I can ZERO percent blame them for not disrespecting themselves by treating Google like it was genuine in its offers of employment, stability and a career.
Management encouraged a culture where lowkey shitting on Indians for being lazy and dumb was basically accepted because it rationalized the cruelty, inefficiency and stupidity of the entire system.
I hate Google.
I’ve started to try and move away from Google as much as possible, which I knew would be difficult, but it’s proving to be harder than I thought.
I can’t do anything about my work stuff, because our company uses Google for email and cloud storage. I set up an account on Proton Mail for my personal email and file storage. I currently have an android phone, but I don’t like iPhones so I don’t really know what I want to do there. I switched back to Firefox after 15 years of using Chrome. I actually started using Bing search more. I’m looking into alternatives for the Chromecast that Google doesn’t seem interested in supporting anyway, which might just end up being a small PC hooked up to the TV.
I’m just so tired of Google services either being shut down or slowly getting worse and worse until they’re nearly unusable.
On the android front, if you don’t mind using a pixel phone then Graphene OS would be worth checking out. It’s a foss non rooted alternative to base android with a focus on privacy and security. The no root requirement means a good amount of apps like banking work properly on it. It vastly expands the app permission system and removes the special privileges to Google system apps, allowing you to remove it or limit them. It also supports sandboxing of the play store and multiple profiles so you can effectively quarantine Google requiring apps.
It’s not as hard as you’d think. https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle - This has everything you need. Definitely use Firefox. Check out Nextcloud for personal cloud/documents replacement etc. Definitely try a small PC hooked to your TV and look in to plex. Don’t use Google/Bing, stick with DuckDuckGo and if you need to, use !g or !b in your searched on ddg to get bing and google results. It’s fun exploring all the alternatives in the list.