Comment by old-gregg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by old-gregg | Hacker News Reader

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You are making a good point, and yet...

> For those who are customers of AT&T - how do you like your service? Is it as good as Google?

Since you asked... AT&T is way better, here in Oakland and also in Austin (fiber). It's always up and there's actually decent customer support you can call. Their cellular service has been great too. Meanwhile, Google's search has turned into a content marketing delivery machine, and Google Drive web UI still cannot catch up to Windows 95 File Explorer features&performance.

But if you asked me which company can ruin my life or my company's future due to a glitch in an algorithm, the answer will be Google, not AT&T. I worry that Google is allowed to control both the search and the web browser everyone uses. I also worry that as Youtube is becoming increasingly more important for video, they'll control the "future of TV" as well. I am less worried about "dumb pipes" which is what AT&T is to me, especially with the latest migration to encryption for everything, even DNS.

> AT&T is way better

Seconded.

I can also call AT&T and, eventually, reach someone. If I'm angry enough, I can ask to be routed to cancellation. (They fix things quicker.) If things go awry, I can threaten, and act on the threat, to escalate matters to my state regulator.

None of these are options with Google.

That is actually false. You have to pay for AT&T. If you pay for G Suite then you have access to live support.

Paying for G-Suite is no guarantee your files won’t suddenly go missing with no backups: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17115643

I pay for G-Suite for a side-project I inherited (I use Office 365 as my daily-driver) and while there is human support available, they don’t make it easy to get to. With Office 365 the phone support contact details are 2 clicks away from any screen.

Live support for what though, your YouTube account?

Any service that is covered under G Suite.

Based on purely anecdotal data points, it seems to me that YouTube is the lagging incumbent in online streaming these days. The creators that make their platform valuable are slowly either leaving the service, or diversifying their content streams to other services.

Twitch, Patreon, Curiosity Stream, etc are all taking the parts of the pie that YouTube could have had if they invested in understanding the communities that built themselves on top of their platform. But instead, smaller, more agile (the verb not the noun) companies are responding to the demand while YouTube's advertising revenue streams are starting to dry up.

Legally, they were "dumb pipes" until the rollback of net national neutrality laws and common carrier status for ISPs.

Agreed, that's why I said that game_the0ry is making some good points, monopoly for content delivery is not good (it leads to control, not just delivery).

I am just not comfortable with seeing Google as a lesser threat.

Where I'm at, you can't get ATT gigabit fiber without allowing them to do ad injection.

How does an ISP do ad injection? Where are the ads shown that originate from the ISP?

Probably an obnoxious https mitm certificate that adds banners to your web browsing, along with a complete recording of your browsing history to sell to advertisers, like comcast does.

You're saying you can't visit any https sites without adding this certificate to your device's trusted certificates?

If you mistype a hostname in the browser and DNS lookup fails, they return a valid IP for a landing page with an ad. AT&T doesn't do it for my service, but at some point I had it with Time Warner cable, IIRC. You fix it by setting your DNS to (haha) Google's.

Try 9.9.9.9 and 1.1.1.1. There are many other external DNS services that don't break AD and eDirectory. You can also run your own but I'll grant you that isn't for everyone.

It does a yahoo search for me which includes ads if I use their dns servers.

But yes, this is why you use the DNS service of your choice instead of whatever dhcp returns.

I don't have uverse, so I don't know how they implemented it. I'm guessing it's done by violating DNS specifications.

AT&T was just an example. How about the cost of insulin?

If Google's algorithm can ruin your life or your business, then I would suggest you figure out how to decouple Google's influence on your life and business. I am sure it wont be easy, but I am also sure it can be done.

Yes, Google is the new TV. And when we are old, we will be telling our children that Youtube "rots your brain," just like our parents did.

Adapting your habits is easier to control than breaking up Google and Youtube.

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