There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Does everyone hate Google now? | Google's story over the last two decades has been a tale as old as time: enshittification for growth

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.

A_Random_Idiot ,

everyone with common sense and the ability to pay attention has hated google for over a decade.

mriormro ,
@mriormro@lemmy.world avatar

Sure thing, cool guy.

A_Random_Idiot ,

I’m not cool.

Cool guys sit there and get pissy about criticism of their dearest waifu company. Like you, Mr.Cool.

Welt ,

wtf?

Unlocalhost ,

You either die a hero or less be long enough to become the villain.

Welt ,

Less be da villan

PanArab ,

Wait until you learn of their role in the apartheid and genocide in Palestine

sexy_peach ,
@sexy_peach@feddit.org avatar

How are they involved?

PanArab ,

aljazeera.com/…/what-is-project-nimbus-and-why-ar…

theintercept.com/…/google-photos-israel-gaza-faci…

time.com/…/exclusive-no-tech-for-apartheid-google…

I must ask though, why was it hard for you to just look it up yourself?

0ops ,

Would it have been just as hard for you to cite your sources in the first place?

PanArab ,

Yes

sexy_peach ,
@sexy_peach@feddit.org avatar

I must ask though, why was it hard for you to just look it up yourself?

I’m lazy and you seemed to know about it based on your comment

PanArab ,

I’m also lazy, I was on mobile and was having a complex and nuanced bowel movement at the time 😖

A_Random_Idiot ,

why was it so hard for you to just add your sources to back up your original comment when you made it?

Don’t get pissy about being asked and/or challenged if you don’t provide the proof you are clearly working from with your comments.

PanArab ,

Touché

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

for the same reason we hate apple. they put a pencil pusher with no direction other than higher stock price as ceo.

yamanii ,
@yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

I’m glad “The Man Who Killed Google Search” blew up.

yournamehere ,

LOL. a bit late. the story is: how lazy and selfrightious are people using alphabet, apple, microsoft or meta?

i feel they are to an extent of being immature. no matter if you are a majority, that doesnt make things right.

mlg ,
@mlg@lemmy.world avatar

killedbygoogle.com

RIPandTERROR ,
@RIPandTERROR@sh.itjust.works avatar

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/b3ef4319-4933-4cc5-887d-994f8a29b597.jpeg

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/02e15e89-0d95-4062-8af2-9934ceefa547.gif

mesamunefire ,

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…

2xsaiko ,
@2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

In terms of map data, as far as I know there’s pretty much only OSM, Google Maps and Apple Maps (which is getting a beta browser version)*.

OSM map data is usually excellent, search can be very hit or miss though. You might want to try some of the apps that use OSM data like Organic Maps to see if you get better search results using that. Personally I use both Apple Maps and Organic Maps.

  • I also know of Mapquest but it’s lacking a lot of POIs and even ways from what I can see, at least in the two cities I’ve checked.
ccdfa ,

Maybe if you’re in a big city, or maybe Europe. I recently moved back to the US from Asia and found OSM data to be really bad in the small city that I come from.

Scrollone ,

Be the change you want to see :)

2xsaiko ,
@2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

That’s fair, when I was in the middle of nowhere in Finland a couple of years ago, the map was often very barebones, that’s also probably where I did the most edits to date. That’s kinda the downside of a community project where people usually map the area they live in or visit, when fewer people live somewhere there’s fewer people to improve the map. And yeah, I feel like OSM is more popular in Europe in general.

skeezix ,

Try the Organic Maps app

StormWalker ,

I use Organic Maps. But it does not YET have traffic data. So if it’s an area with traffic jams, I use Google maps. But most of the time organic maps is great

Tick_Dracy ,
@Tick_Dracy@lemm.ee avatar

Try Magic Earth. It’s a good alternative.

lvxferre ,
@lvxferre@mander.xyz avatar

Despite the convenience of some of its tools, the hardcore tech set increasingly prefers tech companies like Signal or even Apple, which is currently running expensive TV ads about how other browsers (read: Google’s Chrome) spy on you.

One important thing to be mentioned is that, while Apple is correct when highlighting that Chrome is a privacy nightmare, Apple and Google are cut from the same cloth and they’re both user-hostile when it comes to privacy, monopoly enforcement, censorship, etc. Both deserve the hate that they get. (Alongside Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft.)

Modva ,

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.

profdc9 ,

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.

PhAzE ,

Stock holders can sue the company if there’s a loss, too. That shouldn’t be a thing, but here we are.

JovialMicrobial ,

Whoever passed that bullshit is responsible for so much of what’s wrong with our economy.

AutomaticUpdates , (edited )
@AutomaticUpdates@monero.town avatar

*Capitalism demands infinite growth. Because the goal of Capitalism first and foremost isn’t providing a good product or upholding moral values, but making money.

Potatisen ,

WE don’t demand it.

jerkface ,
@jerkface@lemmy.ca avatar

By context “we” refers to google.

Potatisen ,

Derp, of course. Re-reading it now, so obvious.

A_Random_Idiot ,

Infinite growth in a closed and limited system.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with this.

edit

/s for the oblivious

homesweethomeMrL ,

On August 5, 2024, Trump asked his supporters to stop using Google.

Did not know that. Well. Stopped clock, blind squirrel, etc.

OpenStars ,
@OpenStars@discuss.online avatar

A lot of people still don’t know.

Some people don’t even know what Reddit is.

Now, Reddit is charging Google for priority access to its posts (article - only Google and Brave will show those results in the near future).

Perhaps Google will start charging money to use it also.

btaf45 ,

Now, Reddit is charging Google for priority access to its posts

If the idiots at Google hadn’t shut down DejaNews they would have already owned a discussion forum more popular than reddit.

OpenStars ,
@OpenStars@discuss.online avatar

Always innovating, never maintaining - what could possibly ever go wrong with that model? 🙄

Bishma ,
@Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Hopefully DeGoogleing will go a bit like the cable “Cord Cutters” did in terms of headlines over time:

  1. Is cutting cable feasible?
  2. Some are are finding solutions to lower their cable bills.
  3. Industry denies cord cutters are impacting profit.
  4. Providers cling to sports broadcasts as a way to short-circut cord cutters.
  5. Are young people the “never-cable” generation?
  6. Here’s where to watch the Olympics online.

Of course, streaming is worse than cable now… so lets learn from that.

Donjuanme ,

“streaming is worse than cable now” is it though?

I stream for weeks on end without a single ad, watching only what I want. I go to an older person’s house and I hear the same friggin commercial jingles, the same canned studio laughter, and shows that are designed for the stupidest common denominator.

I grew up in the era of Saturday morning cartoons. My brain was liquidified on cereal commercials. I won’t allow cable into my house under any circumstances.

But I do agree that we should learn from too easily replacing the working with the next big thing without any regulations on how the next big thing is allowed to operate

sugar_in_your_tea ,

I stream for weeks on end without a single ad

But that’s now changing. The bottom tiers of many (most?) streaming apps include ads, and it’s not a stretch to think that they’ll include ads on the higher tiers eventually, or just increase prices until people downgrade to ad-supported tiers. Yeah, you can use an ad-blocker, but you could also use a DVR for cable that also filters out ads.

I’m bailing on both and just buying physical media again. I hope that doesn’t die out, but I’m done with paying for subscriptions. We don’t watch a ton, so I’m probably going to save money this way.

I wish we had a streaming equivalent of a DVR, then I might actually want streaming again.

TeoTwawki ,
@TeoTwawki@lemmy.world avatar

Its worse in that to see the content I want I need MULTIPLE subscriptions that add up to more than cables cost …or I can sail the high seas once more. I’ve cancellled everything except amazon because I save enough on shipping to justify it (mostly heavy items)

David_Eight ,

“streaming is worse than cable now”

Ironically, pirating has never been easier lol

Scrollone ,

Between private torrent trackers and Usenet, pirating has never been easier. I love it!

maccentric ,

I haven’t had a Usenet provider in over a decade, got any recommendations?

Scrollone ,

I’m not an expert, but I’ve recently used BulkNews and Fast Usenet and I liked them both. You’ll also need an indexer, personally I like DrunkenSlug, NZBGeek and NinjaCentral, but not all of them have open signups.

sunzu ,

Hate Google ain't enough, plebs need to deny Google profit.

That's how you hurt a parasite.

cobysev ,

I’m currently de-Googling my life. Moving all my services over to Proton, testing other search engines, etc. Trying to slowly cut out/replace all services that Google provides me.

Oh, and I’m sticking with Firefox with Ublock Origin, to ensure Google can’t ever advertise to me, even incidentally.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/568c78e7-2d91-46a0-8b8d-e7f9bac46b10.gif

shalafi ,

I finally gave up on Edge with the coming ad-blocker changes. Moving back to Firefox after a decade+ was super easy, hardly a blip in my day.

Tinks ,

I’m not fully de-Googling, however I have been migrating things that Google does badly over to other services. Kagi for search was the latest, and admittedly hardest mentally for me to do. Not because the search engine itself isn’t fantastic (it is), but I’ve been using Google since its inception when I stopped asking Jeeves or Hotbot. Just feels weird to jump ship, but I’m so tired of how bad and enshitified their search has become that I just can’t do it anymore.

I actually have a Proton acct already but only use the VPN. Sounds like it’s time to look further into the other offerings.

cobysev ,

AskJeeves and Hotbot! Man, that takes me back. I also enjoyed Excite and Infoseek back in the pre-Google days.

Proton’s top tier service for individuals (Proton Unlimited) is only $7.99/month if you pay for 2 years of service. Gives you full access to all their services.

Proton just announced last month that they’re turning the company into a nonprofit organization, because security is more important to them than making money. That’s why their services are dirt-cheap; they want to ensure it’s affordable for everyone, and the only reason they collect money at all is to keep the servers online.

Scrollone ,

ProtonMail is not bad at all!

Rai ,

GOOD WORK SOLDIER

I haven’t used any Google produces or services for the better part of a decade now and my life has been fine. I haven’t used Facebook or any non-forum-type social media either and my life has been BETTER!

endofline ,

I stopped using protonmail as moving thr data out and exporting / archiving old emails is nightmare. I use simple mailbox.org and it’s fine. I use on desktop pop3 and imap on mobile. I remove my emails automatically from servers older than 30 days

Sanctus ,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Why only deny Google? Attack them all with a blow to the stock market. The further it ticks down the more they bleed.

sunzu ,

yes, there are many ways to do this. once you ID corpo as a bad faith actor, deny them engagement/profit.

this is the the crux of the strat. however it only works for discretionary spending category. rent, food etc is hard to avoid but there are still some choices.

vote with that wallet folks, it is the ol' reliable of them all

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Strange, they don’t seem to hate it enough to stop using it.

sunzu ,

Work in progress

Quill7513 ,

The lesson is never trust any corporation ever. A lot of people fell for their schtick and feel stuck now. The cohort of users on this fediverse platform are gonna trend towards more anti-corporate and more tech savvy. The best thing we can be right now is gracious towards those realizing a titch too late how fucked everything is

tabular ,
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

Sadly a lot of content is only on YouTube, and you only live once.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

It’s only on YouTube because people only upload it there.

tabular ,
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

People do upload to other sites, especially when YouTube won’t host it, but sadly sometimes it’s banned for a good reason.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

I hope either Grayjay will take off or something like it will, because lowering the barrier to getting users to switch platforms is the right way forward. If enough creators upload to multiple sites, users can choose the site they like the most.

mesamunefire ,

I wish more people used Peertube, but the monetization issue needs to be “solved” somehow.

tabular , (edited )
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

For situations like encouraging authors of works where I lack specific solution to the issue then I fall back on old reliable: universal basic income. When people work as a matter of getting money for a better life, rather than survival, then people are able to take bigger risks when it comes to creative works.

explodicle ,

I know, let’s add crypto somehow!

lvxferre ,
@lvxferre@mander.xyz avatar

Cody Doctorow talks about this. I won’t quote the link because the whole text is basically that, why people stick to hostile platforms.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I really don’t need it explained. I know why they do it.

lvxferre ,
@lvxferre@mander.xyz avatar

Sorry - I posted this link as further info for anyone who’s reading this. I didn’t want to convey that you need it; if someone else does want/need it, great.

explodicle ,

That’s the nasty thing about monopolies…

originalucifer ,
@originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com avatar

its a human flaw... insatiable greed.

we distilled this greed and removed all actual responsibility creating an entity, 'the stock market'. this well of irresponsible greed has reached a singularity.... a point of no return. we are all too dependent on this terrible thing and so it cant be removed.

the majority of us just get to suffer while being told 'theres no other way'

we cant have nice things because humans are just so fucking greedy and incapable of controlling that greed.

gravitas_deficiency ,

No, it’s a capitalist flaw. Capitalism is not an intrinsic trait of humanity. We can create systems that have effective self-regulation and appropriate feedback loops. It’s just that most countries, for one reason or another, haven’t really tried.

Kroxx ,

I disagree, I think it is basic human/biologic that drives us to grab up resources and hoard them to ensure survival/reproduction/future generations. Capitalism is just a vehicle in which we are capable of expressing that biological greed on a global scale.

AnarchistArtificer ,

I’d argue that capitalism is unnatural because even if we work from the assumption that resource hoarding is natural, it’s also necessary to take into account the fact that evolutionarily, humans got to where we are via traits like altruism, cooperation and forming communities. Capitalism is far from natural — it’s an insidious subversion of human nature

WhatAmLemmy ,

Cooperation and community are not altruistic. You literally can’t do 99.9999999% of the work required to build a civilization — nobody can — so cooperation benefits ME, until greed benefits ME more!

I’m not saying that cooperation and community are not the most beneficial for humanity; just that selfishness is an evolutionary trait that stretches back hundreds of millions of years longer than community, or rearing our young.

AnarchistArtificer ,

I agree that there’s a strong incentive for even entirely self-interested people to cooperate. I was listing altruism as one of many pro-social behaviours, not as a subset or requirement for cooperation

namingthingsiseasy ,

All negative basic human instincts are like this though, but it’s greed that we allow to grow unfettered. Anger is considered socially acceptable until you go berserk and start killing people and breaking things. Lust/sex is fine, until you start humping everyone and everything you see in the street. Greed has no upper bound like these though. And it’s high time that we started imposing some sort of control to stop this growth.

z00s ,

for one reason or another

Greed, mostly lol

namingthingsiseasy ,

we cant have nice things because humans are just so fucking greedy and incapable of controlling that greed.

That’s not completely true though! One thing that a lot of people forget about Google is that they didn’t have to become a publicly traded for-profit company. A lot of people around 2002-2004-ish saw Google’s meteoric rise and wondered what path they were going to take. Some speculated/hoped that they would go the Wikipedia route and become a service that existed for the public good instead of a for-profit venture.

We all know what happened after. The pursuit of profit inevitably leads all companies to becoming sociopathic and evil. They didn’t have to be this way. And this is true for lots of tech startups. I wish we had seen more of them become wikipedias instead of googles.

It’s also worth pointing out that the original founders did want to make a company that was good and not evil. They tried to succeed by creating legitimately good products, and not screwing over their users. They did make mistakes along the way, but their intentions were at least good. The major problems started (as they usually do), when the second CEO took charge of the company, and it was evident that he had not clue whatsoever how to create a product. All Sundar Pichai knows how to do is suck as much blood as he can out of a stone. But Google’s founders are not blameless here: they were the ones that set the corporate structure up this way, and they were the ones that got bored and decided to fuck off. And they cheated on their taxes the way all corporations do, so no matter how good their intentions were, they were still pretty awful people.

madcaesar ,

The market is a fantastic concept for companies to get capital and grow.

The problem is that it too got enshitified with day trading and derivatives.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •