I remember a time when users had a great deal more control over their computers. Big tech companies are the ones who used their power to take that control away. You, my friend are the insincere one.

If you’re young enough not to remember a time before forced automatic updates that break things, locked devices unable to run software other than that blessed by megacorps, etc. it would do you well to seek out a history lesson.

For some context, this is the a long time Googler who's feats include major contributions to GoLang and Co-creating UTF-8.

To call him the Oppenheimer of Gemini would be overly dramatic. But he definitely had access to the Manhattan project.

>What power do big tech companies have and why do you have a problem with

Do you want the gist of the last 20 years or so, or are you just being rhetorical? im sure there will be much literature over time that will dissect such a question to its atoms. Whether it be a cautionary tale or a retrospective of how a part is society fell? Well, we still have time to write that story.

Rob Pike is not a 'Googler' by birth or fame or identity. He was at Bell Labs and was on the team that created Unix, led the team creating Plan 9, co-created UTF-8, and did a bunch more - all long before Google existed. He was a legend before he deigned to join them and lend them his credibility.

Eh, and it was arguably a mistake to let him force Go on the rest of the organisation by way of starpower.

"force" seems a bit strong, as I remember it.

Yeah, I remember it being a fourth option alongside the others but I quit just before Google lost its serifs and its soul

I was gonna say! Working at Bell Labs is a LOT more prestigious (and less humiliating) than working for Google, an advertising company.

It's like the old joke from Mad Magazine:

The Beatles? Weren't they Paul McCartney's backup band before Wings?

In fairness, was Bell Labs, part of (or funded by) AT&T, a phone monopoly, any less corporate than Google's home for genius engineers?

Telephony is much more important to society than advertisement.

I know where they make money, but calling them an advertising company is just a jab. Ha ha, but that doesn't describe Google, like them or not.

I wonder where AT&T made profits and where, like any business, they broke even or had loss leaders. IIRC consumer telephone service was not profitable.

By this logic there is no corporation or entity that provides anything other than basic food, shelter and medical care that could be criticized - they're all just providing something you don't need and don't have access to without them right?

Just to note: these companies control infrastructure (cloud, app stores, platforms, hardware certification, etc.). That’s a form of structural power, independent of whether the services are useful. People can disagree about how concerning that is, but it’s not accurate to say there’s no power dynamic here.

> What power do big tech companies have

Aftermarket control, for one. You buy an Android/iPhone or Mac/Windows device and get a "free" OS along with it. Then, your attention subsidizes the device through advertising, bundled services and cartel-style anti-competitive price fixing. OEMs have no motivation not to harm the market in this way, and users aren't entitled to a solution besides deluding themselves into thinking the grass really is greener on the other side.

What power did Microsoft wield against Netscape? They could alter the deal, and make Netscape pray it wasn't altered further.

Umm are you being serious? just look of the tech company titans in this photo in this trump inauguration - they are literally a stand in for putins oligarchs at this point

https://www.livenowfox.com/news/billionaires-trump-inaugurat...