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A Googler who just resigned after 18 years reflects on the decline of the company he loved (ln.hixie.ch)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Lost me completely at

Much of the criticism Google received around Chrome and Search, especially around supposed conflicts of interest with Ads, was way off base

Both are ad delivery services that sometimes do something slightly resembling benefiting the end user.

If not for near-monopoly market share and therefore everything being integrated with and "optimised" for both, nobody who cares enough to know would use that crap willingly.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If not for near-monopoly market share and therefore everything being integrated with and “optimised” for both, nobody who cares enough to know would use that crap willingly.

Chrome built its market share on desktop up over many many years.

I also think you're underestimating the number of people who couldn't care less if a company harvests their data for ad personalisation - by this point the majority of people understand Facebook's business strategy, but they still have over a billion users. The preferences of us terminally online folks are not the preferences of the population at large.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Chrome built its market share on desktop up over many many years.

Yes, by making the best product. Then once they'd achieved the market donination necessary to not lose everyone, they changed that product from optimised for best user experience to optimised for maximum ad revenue.

I also think you're underestimating the number of people who couldn't care less

No, I am aware that they're sadly the majority. Hence why I specifically said "anyone who cares enough to know better"

preferences of us terminally online folks are not the preferences of the population at large.

You don't have to be "terminally online" (which is a slur invented by the wilfully ignorant to denigrate people with different interests and priorities than them, no matter how much you try to reclaim it) to care about basic privacy rights, but yeah, that sentence is otherwise correct, as I said earlier.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

No, I am aware that they’re sadly the majority. Hence why I specifically said “anyone who cares enough to know better”

I see, I thought you meant by that "anyone who knows about what Google is doing with personal data".

“terminally online” (which is a slur invented by the wilfully ignorant to denigrate people with different interests and priorities than them, no matter how much you try to reclaim it)

I use it self-deprecatingly. Calling it a "slur" is overblowing it, and even though it's used as an insult - I don't care. To be insulted by someone I have to value the person's opinion.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Yeah, I wouldn't take him as a completely reliable narrator, but still an interesting inside perspective