For about the last 4 years, I’ve been hearing more and more people say they’re trying to “wean” themselves off Google. It makes you wonder how a company whose logo had been “Do no evil” would make so many people want to wean themselves off it.
I think I know why. Google stopped being a company about offering a great service to its users years ago and turned into a company whose focus was on its customers. If you do Google…but do NOT buy Google ads, you are NOT a customer. The thing is, Google has it made. Those guys got a taste of big cash, and they wanted more. They justified it by being able to lure talented people away from big companies with that money. They installed sushi bars, hired top bands to play music for them, paid top dollar to consultants to design luxurious workspaces…and that kind of treatment generally makes you put the customer ahead of the user.
The customer wants their ads to be SEEN. By everyone. Or they feel they’ve wasted their money. Some users…well, most users…don’t want to see those ads clutter up their screen. They’re distracting. The targeted ads make people think “gee, how did they know that’s what I’ve been emailing my mom about lately?” If you check their legal agreements, and you have any sense of modesty about your personal information, you’ll blush like a 17 year old virgin on prom night.
They want those ads to be seen on EVERYTHING. On computers, phones, kiosks. You name it. They are owned, wholly, by the customer and the user…well, that’s the price they pay for using that service. But it’s sneaky. See, it’s straightforward when you pay for something up front and get access to a product. That makes sense to people. But when you have your buddies sending you “invites” to use a product, sometimes you trust your buddies and accept. You hand that email address or messager ID or whatever out…and then when you realize that this service is taking your personal information, even if you delete it, and squarreling it away somewhere so they can hit you with ads…you feel like you can’t get out because those are the emails you gave out to your buddies.
It’s annoying and creepy and sneaky. People don’t read legal agreements. Their only purpose is for lawyers to defend their companies from lawsuits. The company knows all that, but they create a business model that works along those lines anyway. That’s a sneaky kind of evil. Charging someone for a service and being honest and forward is fair. Hiding things in legalese is sneaky and deceitful. They know it. I know it. I’ve worked for companies who did that. (Keyword there is “worked”)
Craigslist doesn’t do that. They’re a model of “good computing”, in my opinion. They don’t charge their users because they know their users are what drive their business. They charge various companies who are making transactions a cut so they can pay their people. They make reasonably average wages, they don’t have sushi bars, they don’t spend extravagantly. They just provide a quality, free service uncluttered by greedy attempts to get you to buy crap for people who need it. And they’re successful. Nothing can knock them off the pile, and a whole lot of people have tried. Because they do things right. They don’t need to be beholden to shareholders or bloat their operation so far that they end up wasting huge amounts of money because they think the money is endless. They operate the way a company should on the web.
This is why Google is perceived as evil. They DO charge you for their service and they do it because their customer means more to them than the user. But they do it in a sneaky, back door kind of way: by inundating you with advertising and hoarding your personal information. You may not think that’s money out of your pocket, but it can cost you time and be a nuisance in that way.
And yes, I know that “well, if you don’t like it, then use something else” line. The problem is that Google is doing it’s damnedest to put “something else” out of business. It’s doing that by half-baking software apps that “get the job done”, putting them out there for free, then compiling data on all the users who think that their privacy isn’t such a big deal and are perfectly willing to let Google archive their private emails to their girlfriends wherever they feel like putting it (and generally using it to the extent of the law). The companies trying to compete by building “complete” and secure tools and charging a reasonable price for them are going out of business.
But the one company that is Luke Skywalker to Google’s Darth Vader is Craigslist. That business model…if it can be applied to other businesses, is the key to the real future of the net: keep it simple, keep it free and open, and make it so that companies will want to pay you just enough to make the business keep going because they absolutely have to compete with their competitors on your forum. Force the customers to buy in by drawing their users by giving them the simplest and most straightforward experience.
You don’t need a tech company with its own coffee bar and sushi bar. You don’t need to compete in every single market. You don’t need to go public and be a dog for the shareholders. You don’t need to make revenue through shady means with “targeted ads” and spam. Craigslist proved there’s a way out of that trap. Harvesting personal information and targeting ads…isn’t that really just a combination of spyware and adware? Don’t most people hate that? Then why wouldn’t they hate Google, too? After all, their business model is really no different than most of those spyware companies that everyone loves to hate…maybe with a slightly less aggressive angle, but it’s all the same concept.
THAT is why Google is evil. It’s essentially become a spyware company dressed up in nice, trustworthy looking clothing. Even a murderer, when cleaned up and put in a nice suit, can blend in at a party.