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Comment by nsomaru | Hacker News Reader

I was the biggest Google fan ever. I recommended all their products to everyone I know.

Gone are those days. I now trust Microsoft (heh! M!cr0$0ft, anyone?) more than Google which is strange given I grew up rebelling against MS’s technical desktop hegemony.

I wonder when Google decided “doing evil” was okay. I wonder how the SWE’s and other senior people in this thread feel about working for a company that many now consider scum. All their excuses and retorts can honestly take a hike: It is my honest opinion that if you still work for Google you’re selling us all out.

After years of serving malware through ads and doing nothing to stop it, they’re now trying to stop us blocking ads?! That’s just the last of many strikes that set me down this road.

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I wonder how the SWE’s and other senior people in this thread feel about working for a company that many now consider scum. All their excuses and retorts can honestly take a hike: It is my honest opinion that if you still work for Google you’re selling us all out.

Googler here, I understand why you may think Google is evil now and I'm not going to say they are a perfect company. But I think you should consider that it is a large company working on many different products. Not everyone is working on Ads or various "evil" things. Many of us work on things that people like and improve our lives.

If parts of the company is doing bad things, it doesn't make all of us sell outs in my opinion. Just like how every American that pays taxes isn't a sell out for all the bad things the US might do.

As far as I understand, the penalty for not paying taxes is incarceration or heavy fines.

The penalty for not working for Google is effectively having to find work somewhere else. Not exactly oranges to oranges.

I appreciate that you may be working on things that improve people’s lives. How is that work funded? What would happen to those projects when they are deemed not profitable enough or endanger the evil stuff?

I didn’t write that post lightly, but with a heavy heart and a bitter taste in my mouth from a former #1 fan.

I agree its not a perfect analogy but you could argue that you can go live somewhere else too.

And yes, a lot of the work is funded by the "evil stuff" but Google is trying to expand their enterprise offerings and their hardware business is growing as well. I expect those to be profitable one day if not already.

Moving countries is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible. The US is one of the easiest countries to immigrate to and we only have 14.4% of our population having changes countries (coming in at least) [0]. This LinkedIn article citing BLS stats says the average person will have 12-15 jobs in their lifetime [1].

So I don’t think it’s very comparable to say “you can just change countries.” The vast majority of people are stuck with their country, and the vast majority of people change jobs.

It must feel bad to work at Google. Making odd comparisons might be a symptom of explaining how positive things that are cool are still funded by ads that are at least annoying, but seem to be turning out to be anticompetitive and fraudulent even.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat... [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-jobs-average-person-...

> The US is one of the easiest countries to immigrate to and we only have 14.4% of our population having changes countries

Just to follow this tangent briefly - I'd be surprised if that first statement is true by most definitions (I'd almost say the opposite), and the implication that 14.4% of the population is therefore a high level certainly isn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... has some detailed numbers. In short, although the US has the most immigrants in the world in total, many major nations have double or much higher percentages of foreign-born residents compared to the US. E.g. Singapore (43%), Switzerland (29%), Australia (33%), and that's ignoring the tiny countries with 50+%, or the middle eastern states with large migrant worker/refugee populations, like UAE at 84%, Qatar at 74%, Jordan at 40%, etc etc.

I don't really disagree with your main point - changing countries isn't _that_ hard as a US software developer, but changing jobs is certainly easier - but I keep seeing the US portrayed like this, and it's not really true.

Australia does NOT have real highest percentage of foreign born and is a very hard country to immigrate to.

Their foreign born are mostly from neighbors NZ and UK.

It's not the highest by a long shot, and their process certainly isn't easy (and I agree biased to friendly English-speaking nations), but 33% of the population is still a lot more than the US.

Or do you mean that that number isn't correct somehow? It's based on a UN report, but I have no idea where their data comes from.

Out of 33% majority of them are from UK and NZ. I think around 90% of them.

Both of them can stay as long as they want in Australia but they are always counted as "foreign born/citizens"

Interesting how no one was born in Vatican City. Well, maybe Jesus was reborn there (har har).

I think it’s important to compare citizens rather than residents because that is a closer number to people who have immigrated. Many of the countries you site have really high foreign-born residents because of guest workers. I suspect these workers would love to stay and become citizens but that’s not possible in Switzerland or Qatar.

That being said, I’m sure there are other countries higher than the US, but 15% is pretty high and certainly amongst the highest. I tried finding a good list that ranked countries but couldn’t easily find an apples to apples comparison like the US’ BLS. But I like your link because it’s helpful for comparison. I wish I had found it.

I'm not a googler and I don't think their revenue model is funded by "evil stuff". At least you can choose not to use Google.

For broadband ISPs, on the other hand, you have one option. It's pricey and the service is not what it should be.

If people told me to feel badly about working for Google I'd tell them something not nice. There are real monopolies in the tech world, and Google isn't one of them.

>Many of us work on things that people like and improve our lives.

Why is it that the things that Google creates that might actually "improve our lives" only last long enough to get people hooked into the G before said product is end of lifed?

I do not use a broad brush and paint 100% of Google employees as doing evil. However, I always think of the Grisham novel The Firm when thinking about Google. They lure very young, bright, talented employees in with the lure of very large pay checks. By the time said employees become aware of what the company actually represents, they are too entrenched into the lifestyles to "which they have become accustomed". At the same time, the users are lured in with free apps/tools/services that seem quite useful. Whether these apps/tools/services remain long term or not is a crap shoot, but G has you now

> Many of us work on things that people like and improve our lives.

Like what? Services that support the ads monetization, lock in users and strengthen control over the ecosystem?

I feel quite a bit of the same as nsomaru; I've gone from being a naive Google fan to cautiously optimistic about Microsoft.

Unlike a bunch of others I never think I despised the majority of people working at neither Microsoft or Google.

But for the Chrome team; aren't they now actively undermining and weakening a major part of the Internet infrastructure by nerfing one of the most used clients to make sure it stops acting on behalf of its users?

If it wasn't for ad revenue, do you think you would be able to work on these things that people like and are supposed improvements to people's lives? That there would be funding for such work?

Your position is arguably worse than selling out: Others do the dirty work – 'Ads or various "evil" things' – so you can do the nice stuff and claim a clean conscience.

It's a valid point, but to be completely honest, the same point applies to all the rich countries. The only reason we can have the life style we have, i.e. drive a car that costs only 20k, wear clothes that cost 20 usd, have a smartphone for 150 usd and oay for gas only 3 usd us because if slave labor in third world countries and the American military forces make sure to preserve this state of things. Otherwise we'd pay 40 usd for gas, 200k for Mazda 3, 5000 usd for a smartphone and 50 usd for a coffee.

Your work is funded by ads. Ads are effectively making life worse.

Honest question: do you want to see Google broken up or heavily regulated? If I were lucky enough to work at Google, I think I'd be cheering for regulation so I could enjoy all the sweet comp and meaningful work without feeling conflicted about the truly dark parts of the company. Isn't that Google a much better Google to work for?

> If parts of the company is doing bad things, it doesn't make all of us sell outs in my opinion.

You’re either lying to yourself or you’re naive. Either way it’s not an excuse to dismiss agency.

But all salaries at google come basically from its ad business that does have some taint.

You can't take a cut of that and clean your slate because you work on defensible projects.

Just take the hit: say you do value Google's work conditions in spite of the questionable things they do. It's honest and acceptable: there are no clean hands in this world.

>If parts of the company is doing bad things, it doesn't make all of us sell outs in my opinion.

That's textbook selling out. As is using compartmentalization as rationalization.

> I now trust Microsoft more than Google

What's so good about Microsoft? They filled their OS with spyware and adware and they seem to be incompetent as a tech company - remember their recent Windows update that deleted user data even though early testers have reported the issue.

Lesser of two evils? That's how I interpreted the comment you replied to, anyway.

> They filled their OS with spyware and adware

But only after Google, et. al. proved how willing we all are to trade our data for free stuff. This is just the new reality of SaaS, at least as targeted to the general public who now expect free updates for life, isn't it?

Sure if you wanna accept it as a foregone conclusion then that will certainly become the new reality. I paid for windows, including those updates, by the way. I dont need to be mined and packaged for all my information’s worth on top of that without any sufficient choice in the matter.

Microsoft != Windows. Windows isn't its own division anymore. There is a lot more to MS than Windows. Do we judge other companies as a whole based on one product or service they offer rather than looking at the whole?

The "spyware and adware" is added by those who sell the computers (i.e. the hardware manufacturers) rather than by Microsoft. It's been a way for them to make money with the slimming of the profit margins from the hardware. This isn't on Microsoft.

I find MS to be more trustworthy because of their income models. They are far less reliant on surveillance. Their market share isn't as dominant. And, they aim to be a platform rather than an aggregator (see the Bill Gates line).

> The "spyware and adware" is added by those who sell the computers (i.e. the hardware manufacturers) rather than by Microsoft.

Hmm? What about the surveillance tech that was added in Windows 8 through a Windows Update that sends pretty much all your activity to Microsoft? Am I missing something about this?

They serve ads in the start menu and on the lock screen, including some fairly pushy ones (Edge! Edge! You must use Edge!). The telemetry is controversial but does not appear to be used in the same ways that Google uses all of their data. Plus, you can disable 99% of the telemetry.

I would prefer it if I did not have to rely on semblance in this case. If not surveillance, then what is the purpose of such extensive telemetry?

IMO Facebook is the real modern evil. Google is exhibiting the woes of a company that's become too big for its own good; it controls too much. However it continues to provide very high value services, especially to businesses. Facebook on the other hand is converging toward pure evil. The little value it was providing to the world has turned fully negative, a succubus in everyone's life.

Facebook has the messenger app, that is pretty useful. Otherwise I don't use facebook much.

> After years of serving malware through ads and doing nothing to stop it,

I occasionally see articles to that effect. But I have never been effected by such malware. And that includes 20+ years on the web, including the seedier corners, and without ever taking special measures like anti-virus.

As far as I can tell, this 'ad-distributed malware' are a few cases far between, completely blown out of proportions to justify peoples' use of ad blockers.

Agreed... Google has lost its mind. The removal of ad-block was the final straw for me. There's no rational explanation why that would be needed.

Removal of ad-block is just talk, not actually implemented and live yet, correct?

That’s what was said when this plan first started last year. However, it’s been consistently progressing over the months. When it’s progressing, it’s no longer just talk. They’re clearly adamant about making this a reality.

Who stands to gain when Google is weakened? Conspiracy time. Maybe there was a concerted efforts by media conglomerates and other tech firms (Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, Tencent, etc.) to bombard Google with bad PR for the last 5 years.

Oracle is fighting to stay relevant. Tencent/Baidu will dominate AI if Google gets nerfed. Microsoft and Amazon will take over all of western tech once Google/FB is out of the way.

/tinfoil

I hope you’re only marginally more trusting of Microsoft. Open sourcing stuff and embracing linux has given them a lot of tech brownie points (effectively, good PR) but just like with what google was vs what it has become, it’s important to be cautious in taking this all at face value when it’s unclear what their endgame is, besides trying to exploit its position as the dominant OS to catch up to google on data mining and selling their customers. They could very well do the same with .NET (Core), and I fully expect that to be true in some fashion. We’ve already seen signs of it with default “telemetry” in the .net core sdk.

> I wonder when Google decided “doing evil” was okay

The moment they incorporated, at the latest. Really. When people go to such lengths to tell you "we're not evil, honest!" -- you should know where it's going.

Would it make you feel better if I told you Google pays really well and offers nice perks for SWEs? It’s worth it to a lot of people to have a path to early retirement, even if it means the destruction of the open internet.

I think you're being downvoted because your post is too nuanced.

I think it’s probably because perks offered to google employees are meaningless to 99% of people. The damage and potential damage google is doing to the public is far worse than the fat salaries they pay their employees. If Google and Facebook paid the same wages as any other other tech company, people wouldn’t be as eager to join them and throw their ethics out the window.

> If Google and Facebook paid the same wages as any other other tech company, people wouldn’t be as eager to join them and throw their ethics out the window.

On that note, if unethical business practices weren't so profitable, Google and Facebook wouldn't be able to offer higher wages than other tech companies.

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