Then stop using their products. Switch to bing, switch to Internet Explorer, get an iPhone and shut up about it.
No, google has not "overstayed the web's welcome", google has overstayed the welcome of a few entitled silicon valley golddiggers who will continue feeling wronged for the next 10 minutes until they realize what wonderful things google has created in the world for them to use.
And who exactly are you to tell him to "shut up about it"? He made his case. You might disagree. State your case and let the discussion continue. Anything else --like telling him to "shup up"-- should be beneath HN standards.
For one, people do use alternative products. It's not as if Chrome is the ultimate browser. It's not like Android is the ultimate phone OS. The only real Google stronghold is search. Even there, Bing has come a long way, lots of geeks prefer DuckDuckGo, and 1.3 Billion Chinese could not care less about Google Search for example. More than that, people would be really happy to see a real contender in the search space in the West too.
And, more importantly, one market leading service does not justify taking abuse from the company that offers it -- or putting up with their other mediocre offerings.
Actually, come to think of it, nothing justifies taking abuse from any company or putting up with BS schemes they make. Even if they are the only ones selling water in Sahara.
The fact that such a contentless diatribe is at #1 is depressing. That too should be beneath HN's standards.
I quite clearly stated this in my post. Everything that isn't research-based, or what is user-oriented, like Google+, YouTube, etc. has been milked to death and ruined in the process.
Other things, like how they consistently buy off startups and kill them, also annoy the hell out of me.
> The fact that such a contentless diatribe is at #1 is depressing. That too should be beneath HN's standards.
Obviously opinions, while mixed, account for half of reasoning. Opinions seem to be in the favor that Google has lost its way.
The guy that replied to you is right, and hopefully I'll start following that advice too, because I'm not a big fan of Google practices these days either. For me it started with Schmidt's comments about privacy. There's some comments that clown has said, which should have gotten him fired immediately.
Shouldn't we be citing sources, so that readers can learn and decide for themselves?
Sorry.
Youtube, in fact, is much better in 2013 than what it was in 2007. eg. I have seamless integration with other products I use (eg. uploading a video from my android phone) or I can purchase/rent content which I couldn't earlier. Can you explain how Youtube has been "ruined"?
> like how they consistently buy off startups and kill them, also annoy the hell out of me.
Then do you also hate the founders who sell their companies to Google (or any other big company)?
I can.
For one, being able to purchase/rent is irrelevant to the original YouTube idea. It wasn't a movie marketplace -- it was about sharing videos. People can purchase/rent content from 10000 sources, it's not what made YT useful originally.
Second, it has been ruined by:
1) Constant ads, from "skip in 4 seconds" to "you have to watch all 30s, sucka".
2) Taking off videos, or taking off their audio content, when some media company decides the music is theirs.
3) Forced G+ integration.
Correct, but now I can do all my online-video-related activities in one place. How is "going to 10000 different sources" better than that? Google already has my credit card info. Ability to purchase content on YT means I don't have to give my CC details to yet another website. How is that not a good thing for the user?
> 1) Constant ads, from "skip in 4 seconds" to "you have to watch all 30s, sucka".
I prefer that experience over alternatives which have even more intrusive ads.
>2) Taking off videos, or taking off their audio content, when some media company decides the music is theirs.
This can happen to any website. Google is just complying with the law. Are you proposing that Google should violate the law?
> 3) Forced G+ integration. I agree, its bad. But saying YT is "ruined" because of that is hyperbole.
I've experimented with switching away from Google products and I found search easiest to replace (I went with DuckDuckGo personally). YouTube, Gmail and Google Talk are what I've had difficulties replacing.
1) There are tons of decent email services out there.
2) GoogleTalk, who uses that?
3) YouTube I agree. Though that's an acquired company, so it's not all to Google's credit. If it was up to Google, we'd only have the shitty Google Video.
Honestly, no, not really. It's especially not true if you want to avoid one of the main problems with Google products (ad targeting). Gmail itself is actually pretty poor IMHO as it is, though. The UI drives me crazy sometimes. So I may eventually go to a cheap paid service and also get rid of ads too.
> 2) GoogleTalk, who uses that?
Me and a number of my close friends.
Everyone I know. It's the only person-to-person (ie not irc) chat protocol I use. OTOH, at least it's jabber, which is federated. So yeah.
I use Yahoo (flame me all you want), I use Firefox, and I do own an iPhone.
But I am not going to shut up about it, because Google is forcing me away even though they're the best at what they do.
I hate them because I care.
I am sorry but I can't understand your rationale. Please elaborate? What do you care about and what do you hate? Do you care about Google as a publicly shared company and hate the lack of focus in the growing company? Do you care about the web and hate the growth of walled gardens?
>Google is forcing me away even though they're the best at what they do
What specifically bothers you? If there is one thing I have learned from the Internet, it is that I am never first and I am never unique. Perhaps, someone else has found workarounds for the problems you face?
I don't know why anyone would choose to use Y! Search but Firefox is a great web browser and the iPhone is a great app phone (not that you needed my validation). In any case, wish you all the best. :)
As long as they continue to diversify and innovate they will have supporters... even if they often break their "don't be evil" motto.
they are still smart enough not to screw their search. The very second you have to be logged in to search, they are dead.
but for everything else... want to leave a review in googleAppstore? enable g+.
Want to thumbs up a video on youtube? enable g+.
Want to do something in picasa? enable g+ (i don't even know which feature i was using, because i never was able to use the product enough to remember)
well, for all those, I've switched to something better.
vimeo now wins my content. I'm back at flickr pro. and amazon app store I'd use you if i didn't installed all my APKs after compiling them from source.
(for your point of using internet explorer? what are you? twelve?)
... typed on Opera. with Firefox being used for work underneath
I've enabled G+ long time ago without Google asking me to, so I'm genuinely asking. I'm too lazy to create an account just to check it out.
I wonder how many bloggers have their real names and pics appear alongside their blog posts in google search because of this.
Not sure a new account helps, G+ could be enabled from the start.
I also like firefox and opera. But again, I am at this moment using chrome. I dont know how it happens.
Like.... search? That's all they made that I used. Every other product of theirs I used wasn't theirs when I started using it. They bought it and often fucked it up.
In another post you go on about how we should be so excited by google cars and google glass. I am excited such things have been made but I'm very disappointed that they come from google. If I ride in a google car am I going to get to recover that wasted travel time by reading a book or working on my laptop? Or will I be unable to do anything because some shitty ad is blasted at me the whole way (or, worse, at regular annoying intervals)? Same thing with google glass, this could add so much but will it? Or is this going to end up as a way for google to blast more shitty ads at me?
They anonymize your search data and then send it off to Google search.
I tried DDG a few times, and as much as I want to like it, their search results weren't as good as Google's.
That doesn't mean that people don't have a right to criticize the google that exists today.
Is the web a bunch of people posting pictures of their cats, and commenting on "news" stories; or the people who are building it?