In terms of Google holding up their end of the bargain, the reason you shouldn't trust them is simple: it is the CEO and board's fiduciary duty to the shareholders to make the most of Google's immense market power. The legal requirements governing their behaviour are such that they have to ensure that of all the participants in a transaction, they win biggest and most often.

See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary

So you shouldn't pay at a grocery store also? At any other big company shop? Because as you said so eloquently:

"The reason you shouldn't trust them is simple: it is the CEO and board's fiduciary duty to the shareholders to make the most of any company's immense market power. The legal requirements governing their behaviour are such that they have to ensure that of all the participants in a transaction, they win biggest and most often."

Dunno about you but the (only) local grocery store in the small W.Australian town where I live is owned in majority by the local community who hold shares and see the books - the employees and store manager (all locals) get paid well and money is set aside for growth and infrastructure investment after which everything goes back to keeping prices low and supporting local farmers | business.

That sounds lovely and idyllic - things like that rock and there should be more of them.

There's a lot of that here, it's a large state (3x size of Texas) with a low population (not much over 2 million) so a great deal of infrastructure is "socialised" from pooled money.

Grain pools for farmers, state electricity, education structured to reach all, etc.

It's a hybrid economy with elected representatives expected to represent those that elected them - and hasn't quite broken with scale yet.

We've also pooled a lot of the CDN mirrors that serve an isolated state with enough local oversight to be sure many internet services ride over any disconnects from cables being ripped up.

I'm in favour of locally robust networks - internet, food, reources, etc.

Grocery stores don't have a monopoly on selling food, so they can't arbitrarily raise prices.

When Alphabet stops holding up their end of the bargain, I'll stop paying them money. A pretty standard business/customer relationship.

> The legal requirements governing their behaviour are such that they have to ensure that of all the participants in a transaction, they win biggest and most often.

This always makes me laugh. They may be the minority, but public companies like Costco and Target who prioritize employees and company longevity do exist.

>public companies like Costco and Target who prioritize employees and company longevity do exist.

I spent a few years working at Target and a few at a Walmart. I'd take the Walmart every day of the week, though of course some of this is the particular people in charge at the store level, etc. I found Target to treat its employees pretty terribly in comparison.

There’s also a bit of a big fish in a small pond that can happen - a normal target employee may very well be an absolutely top tier Walmart employee - and being too tier is always nice.

Respectfully, this anecdote does nothing to refute the point.

There are an uncountable number of variables which could have resulted in your experience that have nothing to do with Target's (or Walmart's) high level corporate strategies.

That said, I am sorry that it was your experience. Working for bad bosses sucks big time.

They don't have to short term maximize. They can totally decide that they want to maximize their position 100 years from now by making less money crowding out competitors and all shareholders can do is sell the stock.

Heck, just yesterday, the Delaware courts ruled that it was okay for Jack Dorsey to spend $306MM of shareholder money so he could drink with Jay-Z. (It was to buy Tidal, but Tidal was obviously a bad purchase).

This is a very naive take on that duty. Executives have enormous leeway in deciding what is best for their shareholders. The idea that they are bound to every lousy "makes a penny today damn the consequences" decision put in front of them is absurd.

Do business lie for money? Sure. But fiduciary duties don't compel that behavior.

Dang. Could've fooled me!

It is a myth that fiduciary duty means maximising profit above all else. Let's see what that wiki page says:

    > A fiduciary is someone who has undertaken to act for and on behalf of another in a particular matter in circumstances which give rise to a relationship of trust and confidence.

Under Delaware law, fiduciary duty splits into 3 parts: the duty of care, the duty of loyalty and the duty of good faith. Fiduciary duty to shareholders means being a faithful representative of their interests, not putting your own personal interests first, exercising care and good judgement. It absolutely does not mean maximising profits above ethics.