90% of people won't care / aren't able to understand the issue.
That's were google is heading its efforts :)
That's were google is heading its efforts :)
IMHO the vast majority are not interested in understanding in the technology, they just want their stuff to work.
80 years ago if you had a car then generally you'd need some understanding, 30 years ago spark plugs needed changing every 5k miles, points needed cleaning etc etc. Now anyone can hop in a car and without doing anything the first problem you'd probably have is the tyres wearing out.
People don't want to know how or why, they just want it to be reliable and easy to use.
I actually really like this feature and find it really convenient for my usage habits.
I also don't really care that Google is tracking me, I give them my data and in return they provide some really useful services for me. They only thing that bothers me about the privacy issue is the off-chance that an individual will be able to browse my personal data but as long as it's mixed with everything else I don't really care (I understand it's a slippery slope though).
We geeks love to complain about Google invading our privacy yet we eagerly devour their services (search, maps etc...) which are very much as good as they are because of all of the data Google has. If privacy advocates want to keep the moral upper hand they should avoid using Google services altogether (logged-in or not) because at the moment we, the "ignorant masses", are helping Google improve those services with our data.
No, but they _are_ able to better catch spam, categorize your emails for you, highlight the emails that are most important to you, suggest pre-written responses for you, and more -- by incorporating your data into the service.
>Google doesnt need to track me 24/7 to tell me where XYZ restaurant is on the map.
No, but they _are_ able to suggest restaurants you'd probably like, compare them to other places you've been/rated, warn you about traffic on your commute, show you photographic places you might be interested in, and more -- by incorporating your data into the service.
I don't think anyone is arguing that Google _could_ provide these services without using your data. Obviously, they could. I think the debate stems from whether those services are worth the data they depend on.
I wouldn't (and don't: see Google Apps) use any Google service that costs $5/month. In the same vein, if the features of those services got gutted in the name of "we won't use your data anymore", I wouldn't use the services either (assuming I could find a competitor that provides a better service... probably with my data).
I want personalized search. I want the ads I'm forced to see to be things I'm actually interested in. I want Chrome to log me into everything automatically. I want my data synced across all my devices. I want technology to just work for _me_.
The people who fix your computers or help you over the phone are the family friends who are geeks/programmers. Once the geek herd has moved on to something else, then the mass follows whatever they're currently using, because they're the ones that advocate the change. It will take a few years, but once Google has lost the geek vote, they will die a slow death like Microsoft did. At this point my money is on Microsoft taking the geek mindshare back.
This looks exactly like what happened when Chrome started killing IE.
For something like Chrome, one price of alienating devs is, among other things, that everyone who thinks "damn, I wish I had an extension for X, I guess I'll make one!" develops it for Firefox instead.