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The dual pattern is a variant on what used to be called a "Joe Job"[0]: Falsely directing the platform's harsh automated bots against your competitor or enemy. This has become quite prevalent on Amazon [1] and I've seen several indirect instances of it on HN recently, where an Android developer tries to defend against shadowy competitors stealing their app by putting resources in nonstandard places, which then results in Google banning the original developer rather than the true guilty party. If Google (or Amazon or anybody else) is going to use zero-tolerance bots to police itself, they need to be designed such that people can't turn them into weapons. Designing such bots is not at all easy and it requires a very high level of skill.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job [1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketpl...

Automated bureaucracy without a means for recourse is nightmare fuel.

You should read Philip K Dick.

Interesting, seems like a worthwhile read in this context. Any particular suggestions?

Sounds more Kafkaesque to me, but the GP's comment brought to mind Autofac, a short story about an automated manufacturing and distribution system that continues producing and delivering product to humam settlements long after the apocalypse, while monopolizing resources, effectively preventing the humans from rebuilding.

Dramatized in an episode of Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams.

I saw and didn't really care for the dramatization. Without giving too much away, they changed the ending significantly in a way that was particularly non-PKDian. The original has a strong theme of human struggle against a force that is vast, unstoppable, inhuman, and that gets lost in the adaptation.

Also Kafka.

I knew I was forgetting a big one but couldn't bring it to mind. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

It is rather chilling to see that even though the world-wide web started open, so much centralization can have quite the chilling effect on competition.

What can we do about it? If I were king of the world, it would be P2P decentralized content provided over mesh-network-powered-by-cognitive-frequency-hopping-radio but since I'm not, what are solutions prospective officials could leverage?

Split Alphabet from YouTube, then split YouTube in half between user-posted content and business-posted content?

The only way forward is p2p.

Inet in current form is too susceptible to governments and bad actors like Google who only work for their shareholders.

Has google released anything worthwhile the last several years?

What has happened to the culture of innovation at Google? We still know them for gmail, maps, and search but what have they done lately? They seem bland by comparison to the Google of the late 90s and 2000s.

Why has Google become the new Microsoft?

Rather, they are becoming the old Microsoft. Are you sure they aren't becoming the new Yahoo? Also, what new thing is the new Microsoft?

Microsoft is the new Microsoft lol. It's back on top as the largest market cap just like it was in its heyday

Nadella's Microsoft is the new Microsoft. Before Nadella, Microsoft looked doomed to a slow demise behind the increasing irrelevance of Windows, with revenue from (local-only) Microsoft Office as the only future source of income.

Nadella has changed the course of that staid ship by changing the underlying culture, no small feat! Some specific actions: Microsoft Office on iPad and Android, going all in on cloud (Azure has 22% of the market, ahead of GCP's 7%, at the start of 2019), being friendly with Linux (Windows Subsystem for Linux - WSL, exFAT specs were released a few days ago), given up Windows Mobile (he “did not get why the world needed the third ecosystem in phones”).

https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-...

https://qz.com/work/1539071/how-microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-...

Windows default products have also been improving in quality, like the mail and calender client. The calendar one is quite good actually. Typescript is also a pleasurable experience (as a new web dev, great timing!) vscode is nice to use too.

I'd rather they just go all in on the Outlook desktop app instead.

> Why has Google become the new Microsoft?

Google hasn't changed, their actions have acquired increased consequences and attention. You'd have to go back to their early days to find a truly different Google, nearly two decades into the past.

Gates for example was always ruthless in business, even in the early days, it's just that few people cared about Microsoft's behavior until they became powerful. The same is true of Google and most any corporation. Google is behaving pretty much as you would expect a company in their position to, it's entirely predictable.

Amusing Gary Reback quote (he was notorious in those days for opposing Microsoft in Silicon Valley) from the 1990s Microsoft era:

"The only thing J. D. Rockefeller did that Bill Gates hasn't done," Reback would wail, "is use dynamite against his competitors!"

Wired, Nov 1, 2000

The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth

https://outline.com/2DKmtw

Here's a pretty long article detailing some of Google's recent history and culture clashes:

https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery...

Google the company shifted towards being purely profit oriented long ago, but google the employees didn't see it that way, and resisted quite a lot, until recently.

> The only way forward is p2p.

Then we as the tech community need to figure out tooling so that grandma and grandpa can use p2p / mesh networks. We have several challenges in that way that I'd like to see solved, but don't know how to make that happen.

2 immediate challenges is that If you can't get today's iweather over ipfs or bittorrent (with a better UI clearly, not everything has to be file transfer), p2p can't fully replace HTTP. Email is arguably pretty federated if not quite p2p, but the spam problem is real.

The below example is an account of my grandma's attempt to get p2p chat going. Grandma doesn't even know what a p2p / mesh network is, but we will assume she read about it in the paper from the HK protests and being the enterprising unafraid-to-try-new-tech-things user most users aren't, she tries it out.

She is in a large concrete gym, no cell service unless she stepped out of the building for a moment. Remembering the paper article, she decided to try the Bridgefy app so she can text with someone else. How do you spell Bridgefy? Oh right, I have the paper here, let me painstakingly hunt and peck to find the name of the app in the Play Store, ah there it is. She stepped out of the gym, got signal, installed the app on both devices, then stepped back in and opened the app.

Her friend gave her her own phone so she could install both at once so they can be apart, yet chat.

Being forewarned by her techie grandson, she managed a feat denied to nearly all the cell-phone using public and skip the dark patterns of denying Bridgefy contacts, reluctantly giving it location access 'for Bluetooth', and attempting to stop it reading her phone number. Already, 95% of users would be long stopped by now. But she persisted.

The app would not move forward, giving error toast messages of error 7::0 cannot do that. She had to step back outside where she had signal for it to work for an unknown reason.

She got back in the gym, was not able to get either phone to talk to each other, either in 'public broadcast mode' or by trying to add a contact straight from the app. She uninstalled both copies and moved on without having p2p messaging, not because our devices' bluetooth radios couldn't handle ad hoc communication, but because the client doesn't exist that doesn't want to surveil or otherwise profile you.

PS -> that user was not an enterprising Grandma, but myself. If someone knows how to get Bridgefy / a p2p mesh chat app going without selling the privacy farm, I'd love to hear it.

Was astonished by your grandma's technical proficiency until the end

> Then we as the tech community need to figure out tooling so that grandma and grandpa can use p2p / mesh networks.

It seems that the grandma/grandpa use case always comes up in technical discussions. I've never really seen the need to cater to those who aren't willing to learn how to use the tools they have.

Could a person born after 2000 figure out how to use a VCR? Set the timer so that it records the correct program? What about a rotary dial phone? Do they know how to make a collect call? What about directory assistance? Could they figure out how to use an 8 track player?

They probably wouldn't, but the motivated ones would avail themselves of the resources at hand and figure it out.

The same thing applies to current technology.

> I've never really seen the need to cater to those who aren't willing to learn how to use the tools they have

For tools that depends on network effects to provide value (such as P2P), the on-boarding process and learning curve are quite important to reaching the required levels of adoption.

This is especially true when you are competing uphill against alternate tools with established networks that provide more network effect value.

> For tools that depends on network effects to provide value (such as P2P), the on-boarding process and learning curve are quite important to reaching the required levels of adoption.

Yet all the examples I gave (rotary dial phones, 8 track players, VCRs) had very high rates of adoption. But I'm sure that there were people from generations once or twice removed from the introduction of such technologies that never really learned how to use them.

> rotary dial phones, 8 track players, VCRs

None of those products are close to as dependent on network effects to provide value. Rotary telephone didn't depend on other rotary telephone users, just the existence of automatic exchanges. 8 track and VCR didn't depend on other users of the format, but on the availability of content in that format. While they all gain advantages in pricing / availability from networks effects, the core functionality of these products does not depend directly on the network.

The rotary dial phone had no real competition.

8 track player adoption was largely driven by large automakers offering 8 track players as factory and dealer installed options (and thus simplifying the on-boarding process). Once 8-track's portable niche was taken over by the easier to use cassette tapes, it declined fairly quickly.

VCRs did not face an 'uphill' competition against a competitor with an existing network effect advantage. It can even be argued that Betamax lost (despite having a product that was percieved to be better) because its higher cost relative to VCRs hampered its on-boarding process.

There will (almost) always be people willing to cope with a worse on-boarding process and/or steep learning curve. (This is far more true for a product that has functionality not otherwise available.)

However, if your product is dependent on network effects and you are competing uphill against a similar product with a well established network, then your on-boarding process and learning curve will be critical (but not the only factor to) your success.

It is hard to find a group of products that is more dependent on network effects than P2P software (besides centralized messaging platforms).

VCRs had high rates of adoption but how many homes did you go in and see the flashing 12:00? In the grand scheme of things, not many used it for setting a recording for shows they didn’t want to miss.

Because of the people that they hire and the culture they promote.

>The only way forward is p2p.

This is the tech utopia's cop-out. What does p2p even mean? How is the current internet as it is not p2p? p2p doesn't solve discovery.

Google started down the evil path when they had their IPO. Before that their incentives were aligned with those of every citizen of the net. After that they were only incentivized to make money and grow, by whatever means necessary.

It may be possible for them to change, but I doubt they'll do it on their own. The real driver that changes a company's culture is competition. And that's why I applaud this antitrust investigation.

Likely focusing on government contracts/DARPA programs... :/

A centralized system may be susceptible to large bad actors such as Google but a p2p decentralized system is susceptible to large numbers of small bad actors. We simply haven't cracked the hard problem of trust and so we're stuck delegating to large authorities.

In some ways this is reminiscent of the history of civilization, where people band together for protection against marauders. In exchange for protection, we become vulnerable to tyranny.

> We simply haven't cracked the hard problem of trust and so we're stuck delegating to large authorities.

Just to clarify- what sort of trust are you referring to in the context of a service like YouTube?

Moderation. YouTube filters out all manner of content which we would prefer not to see (extreme violence, child abuse) and it presents both recommendations as well as search results we rely on to help us find the videos we're interested in.

These problems, moderation and search (and some would say curation), are just two examples manifested by the hard problem of trust in decentralized systems.

Both make sense, thanks. Curious if you've run across good writing or research that explores this problem in depth, definitely interested in reading more.

I wish I had, I would definitely share it with you. I've only been able to say what I said as a result of accumulated observations over the years. I've seen many decentralized systems wax and wane in that time.

I tried to find some pieces but it's honestly very difficult these days, due to the sheer quantity of garbage on the internet. My trust in centralized search engines is collapsing under the weight of so much spam. I'm legitimately worried there will be nothing to replace them.

The rise of the vendor contractor...

This is what happens when you develop an entire industry to avoid claiming the true number of employees your company has.

In the process you stifle creativity and innovation.

But hey, if your big enough you can just buy potential disrupters.

I don't see how breaking up Google is going to help us decentralize the internet though. But I don't like how they selective demonetize certain groups of people and mess with small businesses with zero transparency.

Regarding the pattern you described:

> On July 27, Tulsi Now Inc. filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the internet technology company suspended the campaign's Google Ads account without reason and that the company had treated the campaign's mail differently than it treated other campaigns' mail. The lawsuit seeks "an injunction against Google from further meddling in the election and damages of at least $50 million."[50]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard_2020_presidentia...

Interview about it, from yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gy797D3cAY

Won't be in the 3rd debate, so that it's for her:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_presiden...

She can still qualify the fourth debate - the thresholds remain the same. Tom Steyer just qualified for it despite not qualifying for the third one.

An anti-war candidate like Tulsi will never be allowed to be the final presidential candidate by the DNC. Google and the party work in lock step to make her go away. And they will. You'll get a candidate like Biden or the other awful woman who will do what they're told.

> Those who can control virality can modulate most of the loudest voices on the Internet. That's basically the power to relegate the ideas you don't like to relative near silence.

If you wonder why HN exists, this is it.

If HN went down tomorrow, I could hop to slashdot to find the old-timers, lobste.rs for the hip, reddit.com/r/sysadmin | r/selfhosted | many, many more tech subreddits, and more tech watering holes.

If Google went down tomorrow, we have what, Bing? Yahoo, DDG, and others are all powered by Bing. Otherwise we are trapped with the likes of Yandex/Baidu.

> If Google went down tomorrow, we have what, Bing?

If it's down for a day, Bing is fine. If it's down forever, we have access to $100 billion per year in venture capital to chase one of the greatest economic opportunities in world history. It'd be an extraordinary gold rush that would draw in dozens of start-ups.

Europe would also produce several dozen new search start-ups attempting to take a piece of Google's former market position. It'd be a fun time with a lot of experimentation. Would we end up doing New Search mostly the same way we do Google Search today, just with more competition (or only until there's another winner takes all)?

I was focused on a short term argument, but I get and agree with your point regarding long term opportunity.

I've been using Bing primarily and it seems fine. It's stronger in a few areas like image search, customization, and weather. Translation is roughly equal. For code and paper search it's somewhat worse than google but not WAY worse. I'd highly recommend making it your default search engine if only to help create a more multipolar internet power system.

The point isn't about whether HN goes down. It's about the community you can shape and cultivate.

> Someone achieves virality through controversy. They are promptly de-monetized, deleted, or frozen with no reason given.

In my mind the simplest explanation is not something nefarious by Google, but simply that advertisers don't want to be associated with controversial videos.

simply that advertisers don't want to be associated with controversial videos.

Then why would the re-monetization and restorations happen? It makes more sense that the timing of denial is the key thing. Also, it's an article of faith for implementers of large systems, that if something can be exploited, it will be exploited. This applies as much to attention and political power as it does to monetary gain. In the case of the 1st two, the exploitation is probably done by low level employees for outside interests.

If that was the case Google AD hell would simply realocate the space for the next high bidder of that space.

This is millions of “spaces” we’re talking about. Advertisers can’t vet that many videos, and neither can Google. So they demonetize.

>A recurring pattern with Google and YouTube: Someone achieves virality through controversy. They are promptly de-monetized, deleted, or frozen with no reason given. When the period of viral opportunity has passed, typically in about a day or two, the account/monetization is reinstated with no reason given.

Tulsi Gabbard is suing Google for exactly this:

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2019/07/25/hawaii-news/hawaii...

Exhibit A should be Eric Schmidt's book 'The New Digital Age' in which he explains his view that because Google is rich, they should therefore take the reigns of global culture and decide the moral and social norms of society. He is not terribly secretive about the fact that he believes he is inherently Better than the masses and should be a large player in herding the public 'for their own protection.' Of course that just so happens to amount to ossifying global culture in the exact state it was in when Google rose to prominence in the early 2000s but I'm sure that's a total coincidence.

Can you give some citation on Michael Swaine's story. Not challenging you, I'm just interested about it. I couldn't find anything when I searched 'Michael Swaine parking tickets'

> * A recurring pattern with Google and YouTube: Someone achieves virality through controversy. They are promptly de-monetized, deleted, or frozen with no reason given. When the period of viral opportunity has passed, typically in about a day or two, the account/monetization is reinstated with no reason given.*

Do we have a partial list of videos that followed this specific pattern? I'm curious what the agenda(s) might be.

This happens a lot in political commentary videos. Almost none of them receive ads anymore.

Also because a lot of marketers were royally taken to task for letting their ads appear on political videos. Part of it might also not be that Google demonetised them directly, but allowed us the tools to opt out of having our ads shown on those types of videos altogether.

We now have a load of hoops to jump through to justify spend on YouTube advertising - and political videos are a strict no-go area.

Can I ask why advertisers care? You do realise everybody understands that YouTube videos are tailored to them and not an endorsement of the content, right? It's having the horrible side effect of destroying independent journalism which has nowhere else to go but YouTube (and neither does anyone else).

Hm. Is that to suppress a particular set of ideas, do you think, or just cynically pandering to controversy-phobic advertisers? Not that either one is good, but that latter at least seems even-handed, I guess.

The latter.

> Basically, these sorts of shenanigans are like Michael Swaine's story from decades back about deleting his own parking tickets in South Carolina. He was supposed to have parking so he could work on the city's mainframe, but the bureaucracy dropped the ball.

Do you have a link with more details? A quick Google didn't seem to turn up anything.

>Basically, these sorts of shenanigans are like Michael Swaine's story from decades back about deleting his own parking tickets in South Carolina

I can't find anything on this. Do you have a reference? Sounds interesting.