I disagree. Massively.
After Elon Musk, and possibly partly inspired by him, Page has driven Google to be, by far, the most ambitious tech titan in the game right now.
Looking past G+ and its nonsense (which is an ugly thing, granted.): - Loon is in motion, and in conjunction with recent drone acquisitions, will likely bring internet to currently unconnected billions. - Self-driving cars are actually happening. - The smart contact lens for glucose monitoring will change the lives of diabetics. - Investments and acquisitions in AI and Robotics speak to a MASSIVE ambition in that sphere. - The recent announcements in their consumer lines with TV, Nest, Auto, and wearables are extremely competitive.
And these are just the things we know about.
Compare all this to Apple (which I love, but a Beats acquisition, a bigger iPhone, and a watch coming? Woop-de-doo.), and Facebook (how's Slingshot doing?), it's not even the same game anymore.
To say that Google is an ugly place, or that they're "beholden to the advertising agency", is naive to the bigger picture.
Yes, it's true that one or more of Google's "moon shot" projects might become massive successes. But it's also true that they might not.
Elon Musk, like Apple, focuses on products that actually ship and sell. Tesla sells great cars with great efficiency. SpaceX flies great rockets, for pay, with great efficiency. Musk came up with the Hyperloop, but (unlike Google) he's not spending any time or money on it.
They're aiming high. That's all I'm saying. It's hard to argue against that.
It's easy to forget that Tesla and SpaceX weren't always the great cars and great rockets with great efficiency they are today. Just 3-4 years ago they were both on the brink of collapse.
In one of my undergraduate business classes in 2009, one of my professors literally used Elon Musk and Tesla/SpaceX as a case study in poor management.
Like SpaceX and Tesla, Google X's moonshots deserve time to evolve.
I thought Facebook was the seedy version of Facebook. Or has everyone already forgotten about Facebook apps, shitty viral games, the ever-shifting Facebook platform, fake likes, bogus ad impressions and all of the other shady shit?
Those at least are a problem with your friendlist. Handle facebook like mail and block spammers and you don't get any of that.
The problem, the biggest problem with the NSA is that any US company can be coerced into whatever the NSA wants, without you or me ever finding out about it, even if the company in question wants to act in good faith and protect the privacy of its customers.
If Apple was or is coerced by the NSA to install backdoors into OS X or iOS, do you think you'll find out about it? And given the popularity of Apple's operating systems, I would be surprised if that didn't happen already.
Heck, it's not even open-source we're talking about. At least then you'd be able to inspect the source and compile and deploy your own binaries. And interestingly, I find Android to be better for the privacy/security conscious, even though it was born out of Google's desires for their ads to remain relevant in a mobile world - not because I trust Google, because I don't, but because it has less restrictions on what you can do with it, it's more transparent and it allows for forks (YMMV).
On the Real Names policy, I also hope it's a fad that is dying. What a stupid policy to begin with. I also had high hopes for G+, too bad it didn't happen.
Apple and others have positioned itself as privacy friendly as well, which is a double whammy.
I'd love to see G+ be the seedy version of Facebook. Fake names, nudity, etc. You can't beat facebook by being facebook.
Hopefully, "real names everywhere" is a fad that is dying. The search engines and employers of the world don't need to know my every political thought or see my every vacation photo. Zuckerberg's idea of the internet exists only because its profitable for him. In every other respect its insane.