Sergey Brin's Clarification On Guardian article
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How long would it take until they abused their power?
If someone is dominating the web it's Google and looking at their power and how much traffic they move—their actions feel balanced and neutral compared to any other player.
The more they consolidate their power, the less they seem constrained by this. I don't see anything that fundamentally distinguishes google from these other companies other than their present strategic position.
You can be successful with your product on the WWW without employing any Google services, being totally independent. If people and other sites like you and link back to you your traffic will quickly skyrocket—which feels natural. You are not obliged to use any Google service like GA. Just use the Internet and its open standards and you are ready to go because Google left the Internet's core like it is and didn't build a walled garden around it. That's the great thing about the web: it's decentralized and everybody can contribute, Google haven't tried to change this. That's why I don't like the native app trend with the appstore, all the innovation the Internet brought us are vanished by one central and strict entity and nobody cares, Android at least tries to emulate some parts of the net (i.e. by using intents, allowing multiple appstores, with the open nature of Android, etc.), Google is regarding their marketplace Play much more relaxed than Apple.
Looking at the Appstore or the Facebook API, there are so many rules which don't follow any of the core principles of the Internet. You have to play by these rules otherwise you are banned or completely and utterly dependent of one single entities. Moreover, if you then play by Apple's or Facebook's rules you still do not get the impact as from Google traffic-wise.
Ultimately, Google haven't entered the Chinese Market which shows the company's values. Every larger western corporation have build joint venture based branches in China—every corporation, except Google—and that's distinguishes Google.
The reason Google hasn't built a walled garden around the internet because they simply don't yet have the power to do that.
You talk as if it was something they could easily have done but have chosen not to. I disagree. They just aren't in a position to do it.
It makes no sense at all to say that innovation on the web has vanished because of the Appstore. We are in in a boom time for internet startups, and we have healthy browser competition leading to web standards advancing much faster than at any time in the past.
There is room for both the open web, and for more controlled environments like the app store or Facebook to coexist and compete with one another. Each offers different tradeoffs.
The existence of different kinds of environment is a good thing. It provides a variety of different economic opportunities, and choices for consumers.
Google would naturally like to have more influence and control, but the reality is that they exist in a competitive environment.
The commenter I was replying to claimed that Google chose not to build a walled garden around the internet because of their good character.
If they were able to do this, they'd be able to limit the threat of Facebook and other advertising based competitors.
They haven't done it simply because they can't. Not because it wouldn't be to their advantage.
Google could do this—there are multiple options to silently wallgarden the user. Just check how much traffic Google moves. If they want they could arbitrarily redirect traffic and subtly punish user's not using their tools.
But that's not their culture. Just look at their products, how far they pushing the boundaries and still stay open, give back and contribute to the community. Look at V8, Dart, Go—all open, all free, all top-notch, all following the Internet's principles and look at Apple, FB—I see no groundbreaking innovation that's free or not protecting their walled garden. Even if Google has some hidden agenda with their products (like with Chrome) the products are always best-of-breed and never deadlock the user.
The point is: Google benefits of an open Internet, their business model is fully based on an open Internet. Therefore they will do everything to keep the Internet neutral, free and decentralized. In contrast, the bizmodels of Apple and FB do not rely on these values, they need walled gardens. Enough reasons to trust them less.
RE-EDIT: Took out later added passages as wished.
Please don't rewrite your original comment after I've responded, not cool.
Thrift[1] and Cassandra[2] as well, FWIW.
As I said, they don't have the power to close the internet that you attribute to them. This has nothing to do with their culture, however great you might think it is.
This is the first time I've heard anyone make this claim.
Google has more power than many others who have built walled gardens in the past.
Google was not the #1 search engine in China. This is also a fact.
Whether they 'got their ass handed to them' is another story, which could be supported by numbers, though it's somewhat subjective.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-bows...
Google's penetration in China was very low (we've had native Chinese speakers living with us for the last three years and they had hardly heard of Google).
Not only is Google's share in China low, it's falling.
http://thenextweb.com/asia/2012/02/23/sizing-up-two-internet...
It is often more difficult to be successful on the internet without devoting significant resources to Google specific SEO. Doing so without the benefit of Google search would be orders of magnitude more difficult, and Google is under no obligation to return any particular website in their results (e.g. Safe Search).
Google is a company just like any other, only, perhaps, more so.
If you build a really great web based product you don't need to do any single SEO activity to get strong traffic. No white or black hat or anything needed. People will come anyway.
It's all about the product. If it's good people will tell and Google will notice. And Google is so smart that every crappy site powered by 100,000 system generated backlinks blasts will stay inferior.
Assuming a really great web based product begs the question a bit. It's a pretty select group.
Ebay and Amazon are more typical of large consumer facing companies.
Facebook does a great deal of SEO - it's how they compete with Linkedin for eyeballs.
There is I think a difference in company culture. Sure, it is not something you can measure like market capitalization or dividends, but that doesn't make it insignificant.
It is common for people to say that all big companies are equivalent in that they just look for the best strategy to maximize shareholder value, which they have to do by law. I don't think that's the complete picture: there are humans behind every company, behind every decision they make. If Larry Page and Sergey Brin believe in an open Internet, that will strongly influence what strategy among many they choose to maximize shareholder value. Well, as long as they have a controlling stake, which might be for a long time seeing the recently announced stock split.
But it's not only board members who determine how open a company is. For example, developers have their say in what technology or protocol will be used for a particular project. What they propose might depend on their personal views, and what passes as a valid argument (e.g. openness or standard compliance) depends on company culture. Personal views and company culture obviously depend on who gets hired, and that's a matter where anyone (developer, HR, etc.) might have a say. If Google employees have a bias towards hiring people who embrace open technologies, that will have an effect. And if Google's image tends to attract job applications from people who believe in an open Internet, that will also have an effect. This culture thing is probably more stable than a strategic position.
I agree that culture is not irrelevant. I don't even dispute that Google attracts people who have a certain ideology. I just don't think that Google's ideology is all that clear or meaningful.
When they use words like "openness" or "freedom" these become a rorschach onto which people project their own hopes.
I would like to see Google succeed by proving the competitive advantage of openness, not by moralizing about others who are choosing to test another theory of how to provide value.
Imagine Facebook or Google controlled the mobile phone market like Apple do.
Imagine Apple or Google controlled social interaction like Facebook do.
Imagine Apple, Google or Facebook controlled desktops like Microsoft do.
Verizon and AT&T control the mobile phone market, all the new money tech cos wish they had that kind of government-granted monopoly.
There are distinct business models at play here and that should be noted before arriving at a conclusion that Google is a benevolent corporate actor. The fact that Google (or any company for that matter) can dominate and observe traffic patterns and content should be a matter of concern to the democratically [in the contemporary sense] minded individuals.
What concrete action would you suggest to make the internet more democratic?
I am personally remiss in this matter as I thought deeply about all this when ICQ came out in mid 90s (and even filed a PPA on April 1st 1997 with USPTO on my take on the solution) but did not advocate effectively enough for the (obvious) architectural remedies. Frankly it bugs me to this day and weighs on me like a still born child.
Yes, there is need for user agents running on the user's devices. Your chrome browser transparently maintains a https connection to mother ship (last I checked). I don't think that part of it is really an issue.
i2p, tor, and dht all rely on some sort of centralized node for bootstrapping. e.g. a fresh install, or when the client has been disconnected from the internet for years.
Would it work to use multiple orthogonal bootstrap methods? i.e. try in a random order any of the following until the client can join the swarm:
• DNS records, http pages, etc. (a straightforward approach like i2p, tor, and dht do)
• "user content," i.e. comments on news sites, blogs, image sharing sites, pastebin, github, etc. that contain the information, hidden using steganography or encryption. A simple google search should not find this user content - the bootstrap method would need to crawl a large number of pages looking for the "signal in the noise," which would make it difficult to find and eliminate all the places the data was hidden.
• "data broadcast," i.e. the bootstrap client listens on random TCP or UDP ports within a certain range. Active swarm peers do "port knocking" in this port range, subdividing the IPv4 space among them so that they visit every IP address within about 24 hours. The range is chosen so as not to incriminate the peers doing the knocking. The waiting bootstrap node will eventually be reached, and the active peer can then transmit the needed data. (IPv4 address blacklists are a must, i.e. do not "port knock" in government address ranges or other sensitive targets.)
By attempting all the methods at random, any that get shut down can be detected and the status updates pushed out to all clients.
Unless I am badly mistaken, you propose we tell people: "abandon all the services you've grown to like about the internet. Let's reboot the internet within the confines of this new secure service."
No sarcasm intended - a new service, with real security, would still lack a "killer app."
I'm guessing I don't understand the email service, but if I assume it's separate from the current SMTP world, then...
• gmail is currently "good enough" most people wouldn't see 100% spam blocking as a big improvement
• no address for inbound email; can't post "my address" online
• friction to get the service set up, because an email client is included already on my machine, my phone, etc.
• might cost extra to be able to read my email anywhere (i.e. "cloud email storage")
Ok, so if it's so hard to replace email, how can it be done? Instinct tells me that until gmail loses some of its shine, nothing is going to happen. But gmail is more vulnerable than people think, and having a workable alternative when the time comes would go a long way toward getting people to switch. And if gmail fails, it's not going to be Yahoo Mail that steps up to fill in - gmail is the peak of traditional email services. I don't see how, from a technical standpoint, you could do any better than gmail without abandoning SMTP email altogether. (And I mean gmail along with all the accessory programs to make it perfect, i.e. iPhone integration, google apps for your domain, etc.)
Good to know. I'm wondering if kickstarter is the way to go, but all that has to wait as I need to first pay the rent :-) [My email is in my profile.]
For me they can keep the benevolence as a priority only if they become more something like a great worldwide university paid by some ads in a search engine.
The article brought to my mind a presentation Roger McNamee (Elevation Partners) has been circulating -"10 Hypothesis for Technology Investing."
A number of the points in the presentation illustrate a challenging future for Google:
- Index Search has peaked: Google's position of dominance on the web is fading, due largely in part to their own success.
- Apple's App Model Threatens the World Wide Web: a walled garden, un-indexable
- Rise of Social. Facebook owns. Again, a walled garden, un-indexable
- Lack of searches on mobile
Similar arguments were made in Wired's "The Web is Dead" feature, and they all point towards Google's core business going downhill.
The Guardian article made Sergey seem... well... butthurt. As if recognizing his lousy position, but instead of owning it, whining about it. I've always thought of Sergey as smarter than that. He's always seemed much more pragmatic than The Guardian article made him out to be. It didn't feel like the Sergey I [don't actually] know.
Certainly Sergey has gripes with Apple and Facebook, and certainly he has self-preserving motivations for responding as he did. But I feel like giving him more of the benefit of the doubt here and calling slight nanz on The Guardian for rabble-rousing as press outlets do.
Also - kudos to Sergey for his extremely diplomatic clarification there. We've all seen much less tactful responses to press spins.
10 Hypothesis Slides: http://read.bi/GMHoYQ
10 Hypothesis Video: http://bit.ly/w0qpeh
I agree with almost all his points, insiders are very bullish on Apple, the feeling's that %600 is nowhere near the peak, it'll be more like $1K. On the other hand, Google has started to give off the "has-peaked" vibe: the silly badmouthing of rivals, huge reorgs, half-thought out failed projects, not being clear of where to go next and milking the usual cow, etc.
One important point that he makes that I think is important to reiterate is how open the mobile area is, since non of the big guys currently have good extensions. So I think we'll see more of the Instagram-type successes (probably not on the $1B level, though).
Takeaways if you're an up and coming, young (or otherwise) developer: Learn the Apple stack (70% of your time) and learn HTML5/JS (20%).
I feel strongly about pushing it and getting it out there though. What's the etiquette on resubmissions?
I think a key issue here is that powerful incumbent corporations have always challenged the economic freedoms of smaller players and individuals operating in their space.
In the heyday that Brin refers to, those powerful corporations hadn't yet emerged. Now they have. The biggest challenge to starting a new eBay today is eBay. The biggest challenge to starting a new Google today is Google.
Going forward, what matters is the extent that a platform economically empowers its participants to create additional value. Ideological openness is just one dimension in that.
Facebook, Apple, and Google all do empower their participants in different ways and with different tradeoffs, as do startups like Square and Kickstarter.
On large companies... If individuals have issues with large companies they can simply go to an alternative. However government should intervene to ensure "internet" companies comply with the same laws as "non internet".
If a company is compliant then it is up to government to intervene and change laws. However law change should apply to all entities, on or off line.
Though after the scandel with the Met and News International maybe it RIPA sould be amended so that the Police dont have access without a warrent and leave just the SS and SIS.
Oh and remove any ability of local govenment from RIPA
Online store: You'd be paying for adwords, probably.
One of them being Google.