I would put it simply: Apple is a hardware company, Microsoft is a software company, and Google is an ad company. Because that's what these companies sell to keep themselves alive.

Imagine what would happen if they all joined forces. Thin (less powerful than rpi) Macbook running Windows with Google ads in the OS!

Yeah the worst of all three worlds.

I'm convinced that Microsoft will soon offer a "free" version of Windows 10, supported by explicit tracking, advertising, and promotions (q.v., Candy Crush). I think it will be quite successful.

actually you can use windows 10 indefinitely for free. It has a little watermark but otherwise few restrictions

there's not even a watermark for me. i downloaded from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...

i skipped the part during installation where it says to enter a key. after install, it says windows is activated, no watermark, no countdown. i don't use it, though. i just don't trust free shit anymore.

Did you install Win10 previously on the machine? It recognizes the license from the hardware ID it generates.

Yeah, it'd be interesting to get a definitive answer here...

oh, uh, maybe. i bought the system off craigslist a few years back.

So, like the one there is already that you have to pay for?

But it would be free (or very cheap)!

At the cost of everything.

"free"

You dropped the /s.

It's a bit late.

Apple build advanced products with vertical integration (taking risks, but with a high profit margin). Microsoft sells "cheap" software (historically using nasty commercial tactics). Google is an AI company. By luck, trying to give meaning to web pages and search requests brings a lot of money from ads. Google tries to get knowledge about every aspects of our lives (mail, contact, documents, travel, interests) in order to build smarter IA (like Alphago). The main risk of Google is to be broken in pieces for monopoly. Google is implied in politic to protect itself and gain military contracts. IMHO, the future of Google is about building skynet (and terminator). Earning money is a side effect.

To be fair to Google (and I say that as a massive skeptic), they are diversifying their business model, most notably by offering cloud services and developer tools. At one point 98% of their revenue was from advertising, and probably they saw the writing on the wall that it was time to diversify. Google Cloud seems to be doing well. I’m not sure what the revenue breakdown is now, but also not sure we can entirely call them an advertising company anymore.

Roughly 84% of their revenue is coming through ads. I think it’s fair to call them an advertising company

https://martechtoday.com/google-posts-31-1b-in-total-revenue...

And I'd say that a significant portion of the remaining 16% is a byproduct of platforms for selling ads (e.g. Android) or just monetizing infrastructure Google had anyhow to serve ad related services (GCS, Google Drive).

The one thing coming to mind which is not designed to boost advertising is their Pixel line (after they killed the rest of their hardware, of course) but even that is not as much of a standalone activity as it is a way to effectively steer the future of the Android ecosystem.

Ask yourself this: Which Google products or services would have justification as standalone P&L units, without collecting user data and sending it to the mothership? Not too many.

Android

Cloud

X

Waymo

Play (the non-admob parts: app hosting/monetization, licensed content providing (music, movies/tv).

ChromeOS / Classroom

The entire Hardware division (which now includes Nest)

An awful lot of the Geo/Maps org is oriented away from direct advertising.

FWIW, you didn't ask, and my answer didn't include, other significant pieces of Google investment that are not remotely ad driven, like Deepmind & the entire RMI (Research & Machine Intelligence) organizations.

Once upon a time, Google was known for those low-distraction text-only banners...

What I am trying to say: The whole online advertising business would not be that creepy if Google and Facebook wouldn't compete on who can track more out of the web users. The reason why we call them an advertising company, is that their core actions are driven by their advertising business. Otherwise, you would consider calling them a search company ;-)

> Everything they're doing is designed to give developers better tools on whatever platform they choose

This is what people said about Google too a few years back.

The reality is: Everything they're doing is designed to increase the company value for their shareholders.

Obviously, but what are the means to that end? All public companies are in the quest of increasing shareholder value - some of them do this by selling tobacco, others by monetizing user data (in other words, ad services) and others by providing developer tools and platforms.

And? Vanguard does things to increase the return for their shareholders. Should I not invest with them?

Actually no. Vanguard has a different arrangement from pretty much any company in that it is owned by the funds it manages. As such any return vanguard earns for shareholders is money they charged the shareholders in the first place. At best it is a zero sum game, and more likely it is inefficient.

Your statement is true and completely uninteresting. We’re talking about how companies pursue this goal.

But that is an obvious observation. Almost a tautology. The question is how they choose to go about doing it. One company plans to keep selling me off to advertisers. Another plans to provide me with software.

> One company plans to keep selling me off to advertisers. Another plans to provide me with software.

That's not exactly true. Both companies have shown that they _will_ switch to selling something different when they believe they can make more money that way.

Also, both these companies spy on you while using their products, and both sell that data to their advertisers. It's not just Google.

You should use both their products as you want, when they help you. My point is mainly not to trust that the company behind the developer products is some kind of a good actor. They will sell you out when it fits them.

Microsoft tracks you for advertising purposes as well.

Sadly it became a user hostile company at the same it became developer friendly. So while the tools (.net Core, VS Code, Xamarin) are a pleasure to use, I hardly boot Windows 10 anymore except for VS. The UI inconstancies, the productivity-nerfed start menu, the pervasive ads, etc. all contribute to gave that negative sentiment.

Also while MS is good to integrate third party open source projects, it also fails at the same time to address some core concerns of developpers from its own platform. For years people have wanted a portable UI framework for .net but the idea is always dismissed by the higher management. So, I think Microsoft is actually a developer-second, hype-first company.

I don't believe Microsoft has changed at all, they've just gotten better at marketing.

Modern Microsoft and Google are both now trying to make their millions by aggregating and selling customer data. Windows 10 is mostly spyware.

That doesn't even make sense. Google is the ad company. If they "sold your data" as claimed, they'd be giving away their biggest advantage to their competitors.

Isn't that just selling user data with extra steps?

It's using data to their advantage, but no it's not being sold.

Using data to target ads is still data exfiltration.

Because the destination knows the targeting and the IPs.

No, in the same way that selling wheat isn't selling land with extra steps.