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I sympathize much with your stance on Facebook. However, I'm curious, what keeps Google from being an adversary in your perspective?

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Google products and services tend to provide immediate and obvious value. Unlike the "connections" businesses where "value" is poorly defined and prone to change.

>what keeps Google from being an adversary in your perspective?

If you visit a country where you don't speak the native language, Google maps will help navigate through the country or city. Even help with public transport. Youtube helps with DIY videos or programming talks. I wouldn't have discovered Khan academy without google. And before you say DuckDuckGo is an alternative, i have DuckDuckGo installed and i prefix my query with "!g" around 90% of the time.

I guess you've never been to South Korea, where Google Maps is crippled by law. You have to use a domestic app like Navier if you want to get around.

I guess you haven't been to Prague or Berlin or Toronto or NYC or Chicago where it works perfectly. Sure, It doesn't work everywhere but chances are it will work in a given city and if it doesn't, you can fall back on some domestic app. Would Navier work in Toronto?

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