It seems like everyone forgot the meaning of words like "negotiation", "compromise" and "unbinding-agreement", other tech companies weren't fighting with Google for net neutrality, in fact they left them to handle the teleco fury on their own, and now that they have got some sort of agreement on the subject people are ignoring the good bits and feel that Google owes them something, which is ridiculous.
But on top of that there's the fact that Google has always described himself as being more ethical than your average company. Hence when they break that trust people get more angry than your average company.
Apple or Microsoft don't claim to be doing things out of the goodness of their heart: they are companies and they want to make money. Google pretended they were playing a different game and now that it looks like they aren't, people feel betrayed.
First Google attempts seems to have been half-hearted to say the least. Google is not a start up: they have a lot of power, a lot of money, and a lot of connections. If they wanted to put real pressure they could.
Second it was Google that put itself on the pedestal. They did not use half measures in the past: net neutrality was really really important. And they have tried to portrayed themselves as the customer's white knight.
Just as two examples (with reference to Apple, but I am sure there are many more) remember how Google spoke of Apple and Apple's future with the iPhone: draconian, big-brother, etc... That was another case where they tried to speak the language of morality, not of business. Same thing here (the arstechnica article is very eloquent in that).
Another example of how companies can push when they want take Apple who (allegedly) went to Verizon first but since Verizon didn't want to give up its privileges (their power over the phone) Apple went to AT&T. That probably meant less money for Apple and less market share. But Steve Jobs is so obsessive about these things that Apple can be quite blind in these cases (though that's something its fans like).
And mind you: I am not saying Apple is any better than Google. These are just two examples of how Google tends to speak in moral terms, and how other companies have used their power.
Basically Google is being accused of having been one huge hypocrite.
Half-hearted? people seem to forget about their bid for spectrum 3 years ago, also you don't know what happens behind closed doors, the telecos lobbing budget is many times that of Google.
3-years ago was a whole different situation. THAT's the whole point people are talking about. When people argue of an old Google and a new Google, taking an example from 3 years ago to as a point in favour of the new Google is a bit deceptive.
I agree btw, that the bid for spectrum was a good move. But then if you believe that and therefore you believe in net neutrality for wireless, how can you justify Google's current behaviour if not as giving in?
The spectrum bid was about openness, not net neutrality. The four openness conditions of this were: open applications, open devices, open services, and open networks.
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/07/our-commitmen...
If you're starting a new company, stay the hell away from any hint that you will try to do the right thing. It just opens you up to people looking at every turn for opportunities to prove that you did evil, that you've sold out, etc. because it validates their self-fulfilling prophecy that corporations must be profit-seeking automatons that would off their own sister for a quick buck.
I guess you want the 90s back, where Microsoft was the behemoth who unabashedly crushed any possible competitors with shady OEM deals, embrace-and-extend, the halloween documents, etc. Maybe you want your closed-source OS's and browsers back, along with their proprietary APIs and platform lock-in. Maybe the next behemoth after Google will do away with any attempts at this openness crap, and you'll be happier because at least they didn't pretend they were going to try to do what's best for end users.
Also if you believe that Google didn't get any advantage out of painting itself the defender of the netizen I think you are being naive. Google played the "we are more ethical than your profit-seeking corporation" and got a large group of followers because of that. Hence why those people now feel betrayed. You can't have your cake and eat it too. :)
And please, don't turn this into a false dichotomy. I am fine with Google doing whatever they want to do: whatever they did now was not illegal, just morally dubious. I don't need to be in favour of Microsoft or lock-ins just because I am against Google acting hypocritically. So stop bring out the boogeyman.
Let me get this straight: you're the one disappointed that Google doesn't have some kind of magic want to make all the carriers agree to absolute net neutrality and I'm the one who's being naive?
> I don't need to be in favour of Microsoft or lock-ins just because I am against Google acting hypocritically.
So what are you in favor of then?
What tech company do you feel better about than Google?
Google got Verizon to agree to Net Neutrality on wireline connections. Who else has done that for you lately?
If you boycott Google into the ground to show them just how very betrayed you feel, who is going to be your next powerful ally? Who is going to push a net neutrality agenda then?
Wtf? What should we be teaching them if when they do "publicly hold themselves to a standard of responsible behavior" they just break it anyway?
>If you're starting a new company, stay the hell away from any hint that you will try to do the right thing.
I have a better idea: be an ethical company, don't lie about putting your principles first when you know that's not how it works.
Thus I fall back on my grandma's old adage; a good compromise leaves nobody happy.
Ahoy, our mobile OS is outselling others? Look over there, stuff with wires is still open.
They're no worse than most other companies in terms of what they're doing, but they branded themselves heroes to the internet; now that it's in their best interests to go against their previous stance people feel like they've been sold a bill of goods.