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Re:The Elephant in the Room: Google Monoculture by raganwald on Monday February 09, 2009 @11:15AM (#473630)
On Paul's disagreement scale this comment is right down in the sewer, but please pardon me while I vent:

How come Jeff is always grumbling about Apple's "Monopoly" on music and now Google's "Monopoly" on search but he never grumbles about Microsoft's actual monopoly on desktop operating systems and office back ends?

In this post he even calls out the people who grumble about Miscosoft and asks them to grumble about Google. But somehow, he never makes the connection that perhaps people who grumble about Apple and Google might want to do a little grumbling about Microsoft?

> I find that talent is far less important than enthusiasm.

--Jeff Atwood

Re:The Elephant in the Room: Google Monoculture by prospero on Monday February 09, 2009 @11:58AM (#473715)
I think his stance is that there's (more than?) sufficient grumbling about Microsoft, and insufficient grumbling about Apple and Google. There's an obvious bias to his writing, inasmuch as he just takes this as a given and moves on, but that doesn't mean he's totally wrong.
Re:The Elephant in the Room: Google Monoculture by raganwald on Monday February 09, 2009 @12:58PM (#473845)
There's an obvious bias to his writing, inasmuch as he just takes this as a given and moves on, but that doesn't mean he's totally wrong.

Solid gold, thank you. Putting Jeff aside, I prefer blogs that have a healthy amount of bias. Writing that tries to be judicious, dispassionate and balanced often ends up being dry and comes off with a pseudo-academic tone.

A little bias adds passion and fire. As long as they aren't totally wrong, that's a good thing. A while back all the big companies were "diversifying" so that their stock would become immune to the vagaries of any one market or business unit.

This was almost always a failure, because professional managers want to achieve diversification through their portfolio selection, where they can pursue their own mix and make changes by trading in the market, not through having business managers engage in lengthy and expensive M&A activity.

Blogs are a little like that: If I want a balanced read I'd rather read several different posts about the same subject than try to find one person who tries to present the centrist view.

Re:The Elephant in the Room: Google Monoculture by rbanffy on Monday February 09, 2009 @03:52PM (#474154)
The fact Microsoft can still get away with their abuse of monopoly is sufficient proof there is not nearly enough grumbling about Microsoft.
Re:The Elephant in the Room: Google Monoculture by prospero on Monday February 09, 2009 @04:55PM (#474229)
Grumbling doesn't effect change. I'd say that there's more than enough grumbling, and precious little else.
Re:The Elephant in the Room: Google Monoculture by rbanffy on Monday February 09, 2009 @07:50PM (#474488)
Grumbling is one of the few ways grumblers can make the people who can effect change take some action. Be patient. Action will come.
Re:The Elephant in the Room: Google Monoculture by jhawk28 on Monday February 09, 2009 @01:46PM (#473941)
Wait till he complains that StackOverFlow has the monopoly on question/answer sites. Based on the numbers that they are seeing, they are well on their way.