Google is not a tech company
davidlemayian.com
davidlemayian.com
Yep, it's a tech company.
There are many different ways to cut up how Google operate to present the idea that it is more of an ad company or more of a tech company - the fact that both of these are possible leans further into calling it an advertising and tech company. For example by looking at profit Google's ability to operate and exist comes from ads, on the other hand most staff at Google are from STEM fields and Google's aspirations are clearly tech driven, even if it uses ads as the means to an end.
I feel the expression "Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler" applies here. Labelling Google as tech-only is as provably false, as is labelling it as an ad-only company.
My point being, their capital structure is focused around the IP they own which is mostly tech stuff rather than ad stuff. When they don't build the stack themselves they acquire it, not merely purchase products, like some tv/radio network would do to create content and broadcast it. On the other hand when they spend on improving their ad monetization it's an expense, not an investment, which to me kind of proves my point.
Tech is certainly something Google puts a lot of investment into, but it isn't the company's primary focus or interest.
Facebook is a scrapbooking company that uses technology. Uber is a taxi company that uses technology. Amazon is a flea market that uses technology.
It is an old and boring trope.
talk all you want about it's an ad company and da did da, in the end the whole LLM revolution is built on their tech
fact still remains that Google came up with an impressive and transformative piece of technology
that some of the elements came out of somewhere else doesn't change the fact that Google came up with an impressive and game-changing piece of tech
They mostly can't figure how to get people to pay, or people are unwilling to create a dozen or a hundred payment accounts, a problem that still is unsolved after decades, despite efforts by tech giants to monopolize the payment market.
The chances of any one account's data being hacked are too high, and each new one adds more risk.
Without doubt Google has created a lot of impressive tech and it's still using a lot of tech. I used them for search between 1998 and 2021. I used gmail since the beta and I still have a couple of accounts, although mostly as dump grounds for various purposes, I have not sent anything for years. At work we use paid Google office. It's not excellent, but certainly better than what Microsoft and others have to offer.
That does not hinder that it has become too big for functioning market economy a long time ago. I am not interested in the advertisement market at all, but I am pretty sure it is seriously disturbed by Google's dominance.
The mobile phone market is completely sick. Apple's products are not bad by all measures. But on one hand I prefer cheaper choices in many cases and often don't pay for premium products. And as a tinkerer or hacker I would certainly not pay extra to get into a walled garden. So the only "choice" I would have is to prostitute my privacy and let Google track my whole life. Sorry, but I can't help it: Google is evil and needs to be broken up.
P.S. I still can live 98% without Android. But it gets tighter all the time. Soon there might be no bank or at least no decent choice. I understand travelling in the US might a serious pain because getting taxi-type service without an app controlled by the duopoly can he very difficult. But luckily I have stopped travelling to the US anyway, since the creation of Homeland security and the Snowden revelations it's not a place I as a foreigner want to visit anymore.
The relevant question for me is: Is Google bad for humanity or not? And I think my answer has become more than clear.
I've recently purchased a Pixel 7a and installed GrapheneOS on it. That's been working out for me pretty well for me. They're on sale at the Google Store for $374 right now.
Although buying the hardware from the devil doesn't feel like the most comfortable thing...
I mean, if you want to get religious about this, okay. But at $374 I doubt Google is making much money from the hardware itself. They're likely counting on the value of getting/keeping you in their ecosystem. By installing a privacy-focused ROM you're beating them at their own game, if that makes you feel any better.
Common price for the Pixel 7a is 549 EUR ($599) here, Black Friday 449 EUR.
Considering 24% sales tax, which is included in my quotes but probably not in yours the difference is not that high.
Probably Google charges some extra to cover for the millions of GDPR fines they regularly get here ;)
Technology is simply about defending the monopoly, not promoting technology frontiers.
Similarly in the open source world corporate sponsership is very helpful in allowing people to dedicate large chunks of time to things by employing them to work on open source (because its hard to do good work quickly on evenings and weekends) but corporations are usually bad if they try to control the development. That's why projects like the Linux Kernel do so well because corporations pay for hundreds to a few thousand developers but don't get to stick their oar in on technical decisions.
Let's start with a simple question: Is this article clickbait? The answer is obviously yes. But if you get right down to it seems like they are trying to get people to go to their website and they are using clickbait to do it. So it really is a website popularization page, not clickbait. It just happens that they use clickbait to do it.
Change was driven by new technologies, such as sharing files between computers, or HID research.
Whether they are now an ad company is debatable, but it is certainly where they want to be. Even their new features used to be technical driven (Use IE to get ActiveX), now they are trying to get more eyeballs on adverts (use Edge or we will subject you to more pop-ups!).
Oh dear...