[liquid_thyme]

I really don't know how they got nerds to think scummy advertising is cool. If you think about it, the thing they make money on - no user actually wants ads or wants to see them, ever. Somehow Google has some sort of nerd cult that people think its cool to join such an unethical company.

[jazzyjackson]

Turns out it's cool to make lots of money

[CobrastanJorji]

If you ask, the leaders in that area of Google will tell you something like "we're actually HELPING users because we're giving them targeted ads that are for the things they're looking for at the time they're looking for it, which only makes things for the user better." Then you show them a picture of YouTube ads or something and it transitions to "well, look, we gotta pay for this somehow, and at least's it's free, and isn't free information for all really great?"

[chrneu]

unfortunately nobody wants to sacrifice anything nowadays so everyone will keep using google, and microsoft, and tiktok and meta and blah blah

[LinXitoW]

It's super simple. Check out all the Fediverse alternatives. How many people that talk a big game actually financially support those services? 2% maybe, on the high end.

Things cost money, and at a large scale, there's either capitalism, or communism.

[account42]

> there's either capitalism, or communism

Can you point them out on the map?

[fHr]

Absolutely fuck Google

[jacquesm]

Google's services, especially their free services, are never really free. It's just that the price tag is so well hidden that ordinary users really believe this. But the HN audience is more technical than that and they see through the smokescreen.

Except for those that are making money off adds directly or indirectly, and who believe in their god given right to my attention and my data.

> I'm increasingly blown away by takes on here that are so dramatic and militant about things that barely even register to most people.

Things 'barely even registering to most people' is not as strong a position as you may think it is. Oxygen barely registers to most people. But take it away and they register it just fine (for a short while). The 'regular' people that you know have been steadily conditioned to an ever worsening experience to the point that they barely recognize the websites they visit when seeing the web with an adblocker for the first time.

[liquid_thyme]

They created the largest spying instrument in the world that creates hidden profiles (that can never be deleted) documenting web activity, psychological state, medications, etc, etc for billions of people - and have been caught multiple times sharing data with governments (they're probably compromised internally anyway). I would categorize that as unethical. But yeah, you can cheer for the scraps they throw out.

>about things that barely even register to most people.

News flash: This whole website is about things that don't register to most people. It's called hacker news FFS.

In any case, I think a trillion dollar company probably doesn't need defending. They can easily tweak their algorithm to bury this type of stuff; after all this opinion is probably not "relevant" or "useful" to most people.

[nicce]

On this day, only Google Maps does not have real competitor on Android. Otherwise, it is possible to drop Google and even get better services. Brands are difficult to compete.

[AuthAuth]

You're right but I hate that you're right. The only part I disagree with is

>I think they all are pretty happy with the deal and would not switch to a paid ad-free version.

If they were given a low friction option to pay the advertise price for these services I think a lot would choose it. Advertisement pays almost nothing per person. Almost every person could pay more than the cost to serve them an ad. To use a service ad free for a year would cost less than $1 per user. This differs on the platform obviously with stuff like youtube being far more expensive but for day to day stuff the cost is low.