> But I wouldn't generalize my case nor should you generalize yours.

The way I read statements that you replied to is with a silent prefix "based on the experience of folks I work/talk with". If one disagrees (i.e., sees different views prevalent), chime in and say so. There must be a way to express opinions that are between "that's my personal view" and "statistically significant, peer reviewed validation at this link".

As a personal data point, I see the same thing (around me) as the parent: opinions of Google tanked. 10 years ago an employee leaving for Google would be discussed with "wow" and "best of luck" feeling, while today it is mostly "well, at least he will be well paid" and " I am not yet ready to sell my soul". Just my 2c.

I want to jump in to underline your point in a couple of ways. One has to be able to make by-and-large generalizations from experiences and guesstimations. We should already know when we read that kind of thing that by-and-large means there are going to be one-off exceptions. So we don't need to hear about those exceptions unless they're intended to dispute the bigger point.

Every time I hear the contrarian anecdote in the form of: "well, I personally don't include myself in that generalization" my first question is whether that's intended merely as a report of a one-off experience, or if it's intended to be treated as evidence in favor of a different generalization. Virtually every time I see this type of Contrarian Comment, it's mute on this most important question and just confuses everybody.

But secondly I think the assessment of Google's reputation going negative is, by and large, a valid one. Though I might say the seeds of that started with the closure of Google Reader and the turn away from supporting RSS, which signaled turning away from open protocols more generally.

That's exactly how you have to read things to take posts in good faith, which is one of the few rules 'round these parts.

Similarly, I'm trying to eliminate the "I think" prefix from writing. It shouldn't be necessary to write "I think Google is evil". Of course the writer thinks that. They wouldn't have written it if they didn't. They can very safely just write "Google is evil".

If I write "I think Google is evil", I mean: "I think Google is evil, but I acknowledge that it's possible for other fairly reasonable people to have a different opinion."

If I write "Google is evil", I mean: "I think Google is evil, and I consider this an established fact that reasonable people shouldn't be disputing."

These are different propositions, and I might want to say either of them.

A policy of not using qualifiers like "I think" because of-course-it's-my-opinion makes it harder to make that distinction. I don't think the advantage of punchier prose is worth that loss.

(Note the "I don't think" at the end; other people might reasonably see the tradeoffs differently. Note the absence of "I think" elsewhere; I don't see much doubt that there is such a tradeoff being made.)

A reasonable lesson should already think it's possible for other reasonable people to hold different opinions, and not feel threatened by them. It's only in this bullshit really of the internet that we decided to start interpreting the things other people say as "potential facts in need of disputing" rather than just "the utterances of peers". The former mode implies a level of deference that we don't take on in public, face-to-face conversations.

I was more concerned about his usage of 'the tech people' terms.

Like you, I think when someone saying 'Google is evil' he implies 'I think Google is evil'.

But someone saying 'back then Google was still admired by the tech people" or "Losing our support" is more ambiguous. Like if all 'tech people' or a majority of them think like him which or he represents the majority.

tl;dr: I'm fine with him saying 'Google is evil' but not with him saying 'the tech people think Google is evil'.

Yes, the implicit "I think" still applies. "I think the tech people think Google is evil".

I don't know how to say this lightly, but taking personal affront to statements of opinion is not a sign of the insult of the opinion of the speaker, but a sign of the insecurity the listener has in their own opinions.

In other words, relax.

People who think carefully then call Google 'evil' may as well be the same people who used to call it 'good'. Corporations aren't good or evil. They are powerful.

Being good is many things, but a key part of that is restraining the self from acting improperly. Corporations can't do that, they will sooner or later do whatever makes money. Or they get replaced sooner or later by a corporation that will. At best, there are stylistic differences around the edges that are simultaneously important but minor in the grand scheme of things. Sooner or later a corporation will be thinking primarily in terms of 'profitable' and 'not profitable'.

Calling Google 'evil' is trying to articulate something else - Google are powerful and dangerous. Any entity harvesting and directing the flow of information at that scale is. They have an unprecedented capability to cause harm; and sooner or later it will get used by someone to do exactly that.

But Google ten years ago seemed good, full stop. All of their behaviour seemed to be a net positive for the rest of the world, even when done in self interest.

Now, it's easy to see some behaviour which are not.

Even assuming there is a slide toward evil for corporations, and I'm not sure there is, it still seems correct to say that a company is at a given state of "goodness" in a certain time.

How about insidious? It's the banal sort of evil that doesn't realize the harm it's causing, or doesn't see a way to survive without causing that harm.

Well, maybe, but that's the human condition also. All of our actions — even the most well intentioned ones — can have unexpected and even disastrous consequences.

> Corporations aren't good or evil. They are powerful

That meant to imply that google is neutral? The strong nuclear force is powerful that doesn’t mean anything on its own. It can be harvested for good electricity or bad bombs. Of course the consensus on this is almost universal, the consensus on google is much more ambivalent. Corporations may well be good or evil

Yes, Google is not neutral, it definitely have a clear, intentional agenda. But it's non-moral (not imoral, or evil) as are all corporations. It just uses it's power as a way to complete it's objectives. This is way different from being neutral.

In a republic, the government - representing the people - is supposed to have the biggest stick. Huge companies with their own agendas are throwing a spanner in the works. And they basically only care about money. So the bigger they are, the more inherently evil they are. And it becomes even worse with transnational companies whose headquarters are basically out of reach.

Objectives can be evil

Certainly, what I mean is that it's actions can be also be seen as good under certain moral code.

when ppl say google is evil they mean its leadership

The thing about Google is they have a monopoly on search. The risk for them doing good at the expense of additional profit is much lower than almost any other business. They won't be easily replaced. They could choose to be good but they don't.

> DDG/Bing/Yandex will list the exact same pages that Google gives as a search result most of the time, and sometimes better ones.

I've switched to DDG about a year ago, and this just doesn't match my experience. Results are frequently worse. It's worth it to me but makes it hard to recommend to everyone still.

There's probably a wide range of how people use search; works for you doesn't mean works for everyone. As an example, your recommendation to use stackoverflow directly for programming queries works for you and is nonsense to me -- I basically never land on stackoverflow from my programming searches. The most privacy-conscious person I know continues to use google news search to his own dismay because he doesn't find anything else comes close for keeping tabs on what people are saying about products he works on. And my wife claims DDG is basically non-functional for her search needs, which have very little overlap with mine.

"Losing our support" means a process, it doesn't mean everybody hates Google now, of course it's not the case.

> I always question the agenda of people promoting this.

My only agenda is my growing frustration with using Google Search and the lack of competition. Web pages can be excluded now for not using any of Google's plugins for example. I see how Search is increasingly becoming a tool for plain old profit maximization. It is generally up to Google to do whatever they desire with their own products, however the belief that Search is fair and "democratic" is lost now. No matter how technically competent, Google is lost for me as a company I can trust.

So, where is my fair, convenient and comprehensive search of information on the Web? There's none on the horizon. This is very worrying.

As an anecdote, I installed Vivaldi on a new laptop recently. It uses Bing as the default search engine. Previously I would always change this to Google, but this time I thought, "Hah, Google has been shit for a while now, why not give Bing a try?"

Comprehensive means centralized. This provably cannot be fair. We can’t have everything. I use bing for difficult searches (google can only understand 1 or 2 words it seems) and yandex for image search. Not bad

Does it, though? The Internet is pretty "comprehensive"...

> I want to believe most tech people are mature and educated enough to not treat Google as a single block, hate everything they do or love everything they do.

Unfortunately, as long as it is a single economic entity, it is a single block. All of its parts strengthen and finance the same entity.

If the different parts want to be treated separately, they must become separated.

I consider it basic logic that if you do not want something to be under a control of a single entity, you shouldn't continue fuelling an entity whose growing power will ensure exactly that. Isn't this far less judging and more nuanced than "Google is evil"? The motto is basically just a catchy shorthand for that.

> I want to believe most tech people are mature and educated enough to not treat Google as a single block, hate everything they do or love everything they do.

They weren't mature enough to do that for Microsoft or IBM back in their days of dominance, why would you expect that level of maturity now?

"1. for the money, 2. for the..." is how i understand the "no evil" thing. just like people used to write micro$oft. it's funny i have not seen that one in a while. but yea, the most important factor is perhaps money.

>But I wouldn't generalize my case nor should you generalize yours.

That's fine, but there also exist general sentiments in any group...

Google has attempted to build products suiting a regime that murders people for organs and operates concentration camps for over a million people. Evil enough? They have barely, supposedly, engaged in a very small climbdown thanks to the laudable efforts of some insiders, clearly against the leadership's desires.

Imagine if they scrubbed search results for child immigrant detention camps, or My Lai, etc. in the US

So, you don't happen to work at Google, do you?

The typical Googler would have a more cynical view of Google.