Re: [PLUG] do no evil

Under our current economic system (which shall remain nameless), service providers have to walk the line between generating revenue and providing useful services. It is also strategic to defer revenue in favor of vacuuming up market share, building a user base, developing infrastructure etc. Many of the majors seems to have been in this biz-dev mode for the last ten or fifteen years. At this point, it seems pretty clear who the winners are. Youtube, for instance has very recently decided to do much more aggressive advertising. I have to watch a 15 second add for every three minutes of content that I watch. My guess is that these choices are related to a recognition that they have a functional monopoly over large swaths of content (jazz tunes for instance). If the gap between them and their competitors is large enough, they can afford to piss off their customers. I have no doubt that Google, Apple, et. al.constantly perform this calculus: how much can we get away with before our market share (and profits, present or deferred) begin to slow. Given their massive monopolies, I don't see that unorganized consumers, competitors, or even governments (such as they are) have much leverage.</rant>

On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net> wrote:

On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 9:51 AM, TD <delrue.thomas@gmail.com> wrote:
> No, you are wrong, Google will steer you towards those companies that
> generate /them/ the most revenue, not those that will solve your problem.
>

Sure, but if they're completely useless, that won't generate them a
lot of revenue.

They could have had search results that were primary ad-driven for a
LONG time if they wanted to. Instead they deliver results that are
useful. I'm sure ads influence which of the useful results gets the
highest priority, but they won't keep their place in the internet food
chain by making their software less useful.

No argument that there is a slippery slope here, and given another
generation or two of executive leadership Google may start to slide
down it, but at the moment they seem to be doing fairly well.
Hopefully by the time they do have their fall privacy will be such a
forgotten concept that it will be a moot point.

--
Rich

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