All that to create a privacy destroying, massively fraudulent ad tech moat. Yeah, admirable...

tell us how you __really__ feel

Technologically impressive is maybe a better way of putting it. I.e. a Death Star would be very technologically impressive.

It could be worse (Oracle)

Or Apple, who shares more user data with the CCP than most American tech companies: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce...

All FAANG are suspect these days

> Apple, who shares more user data with the CCP than most American tech companies

Whether intentionally or not, your comment is very misleading due to omitting the fact that it only applies to chinese customers of Apple in China (which the linked article mentions in the very beginning). Apple doesn't share user data of people outside of China with the CCP.

Also, this is literally a legal requirement to be able to operate there, it isn't like Apple just decided to do it on their own. And Apple's actions regarding this weren't really a secret either.

Nothing I said is intentionally misleading, it's right there in the source I linked. Apple Chinese users are still Apple users.

Google employees rejected that same requirement to operate in China, showing that Google cares more about user privacy than Apple does. Apple has shown they care more about profits than privacy, which is the point.

We have no idea what Apple and Google share unofficially. Remember the Apple China bribery scandal? No? Of course not, it was barely a blip in the news.

> We have no idea what Apple and Google share unofficially

There is a phrase that describes "we have no evidence of them doing this, but they might be doing it, because there is no proof of them not doing it" pretty succinctly - baseless speculation.

> Remember the Apple China bribery scandal? No? Of course not, it was barely a blip in the news.

Are you referencing a Foxconn employee getting hit with allegations of bribing some of the Foxconn suppliers back in 2013[0]? If yes, then I remember it. However, I don't see how one can in full seriousness refer to it as "Apple bribery scandal", given that Apple wasn't aware of it happening, and none of the people involved were Apple employees.

0. https://qz.com/42409/why-apple-is-probably-in-the-clear-over...

Nope I'm talking about Tim Apple's $275 billion deal.

Nothing I said is intentionally misleading, it's right there in the source I linked. Apple Chinese users are still Apple users.

Google employees rejected that same requirement to operate in China, showing that Google cares more about user privacy than Apple does. Apple has shown they care more about profits than privacy, which is the point.

What’s the worst thing Oracle has done aside egregious enterprise pricing?

their API lawsuit?

It's not because it could be worse that we should accept things as they stand.

And with all the admiration to Google, I do hope Google could fix Google Docs. I miss Quip's amazing support of embedded spreadsheet and formulas, beautiful math equations, and rich-text in comments, and ability to link to any line or any spot on a diagram.

There is a latex-ish math plugin for Google docs

Yeah, unfortunately not every company allows that plugin. And I wish Google Docs would adopt the editing style of Obsidian: when in focus, the formula is editing mode. Out of focus, the formula is rendered.

After wrestling with Google Ads for a year my admiration went to zero.

Google is a mainly running a scam these days with completely blackboxed systems that absolutely fleece the little guy when not doing outright criminal auction price manipulation.

I don't know why this hasn't gotten more media attention. Probably because of stockholm syndrome in the publishing sphere.

Yes they pioneered amazing things but where they earn their money now, is through a labyrinth of dark designs and obfuscated systems in the borderlands of legality.

Advertising is like finance; there are entire teams of people whose full time jobs it is to make money using complex markets. SMBs are not going to be able to casually compete.

Also if it wasn't a black box, then scammers would be fleecing everyone.

Good points. The problem though is that the barrier to entry now is so high that only the wealthiest are allowed to compete, the ones with a huge trustfund or lots of VC money or institutional backing.

Most smaller players are getting eaten or drowned, with the way Google Ads has implemented their changes. It was not like this 3 or or even 10 years ago, especially in the tech sphere.

So yes the state of Google could be a black mirror to the rising Gini Coefficients, HFT, armies of lawyers and private wealth management that create systems so complex that no - even upper middleclass person - will be able to enter or stay in the market.

AI is probably going to make this exponential. The ones with the money will be able to hire the tech and wealth expertise to grow while the barrier to entry just keeps rising.

Or is there a less dark outlook for the smaller or just midsized entrepreneurial endeavours?

This is why the ends should never justify the means.

This is what happens to all companies. It's a natural progression. Some new companies will wow us in the way Google did in the mid-aught's.

Definitely. Bell, DEC, Sun, Intel, IBM... Google feels refreshingly different probably because she was a later generation. It's actually good for the US to have such a lively natural progression. It's like a forest springs forth with life anew in front of a sick tree's fading frame.