Walter Cronkite impeached Nixon, Pulitzer and Hearst started the Spanish-American war, and FAANG companies, directly or indirectly, nudge the needle on elections. I don't see how Google is unique or notable in this regard.
Also, comparing the relative power of newspaper men to Google doesn't make much sense.
Yes. Any group that controls information distribution controls what we know about the world. By controlling what we know about the world, they control politics completely. This is axiomatic, there is no way around it, you can't personally observe everything that happens therefore you must have it reported to you. The person or people doing that reporting control your worldview. Google isn't bad for playing a role in that information economy.
>Also, comparing the relative power of newspaper men to Google doesn't make much sense.
You're right, the newspaper and television men of yore were far more powerful than Google is or ever will be. More Americans watched Cronkite than watch all evening network news combined today, and 70% of the people who watched him trusted that his was factual reporting.
No news source in the world today has that kind of trust, definitely not Google.
I agree, so I want to deny as much information and power to powerful institutions as possible and diversify my relationships with them such that it becomes less likely that any one could become the Kingmaker.
My personal thing with Google and "convenience" is that the convenience is with just a low barrier to entry. Once you set up your own workflow with "Google alternatives", the convenience factor disappears.