this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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Google's story over the last two decades has been a tale as old as time: enshittification for growth. The once-beloved startup—with its unofficial "Don't Be Evil" motto—has instead become a major Internet monopolist, as a federal judge ruled on Monday, dominating the market for online search. Google is also well-known for its data-harvesting practices, for constantly killing off products, and for facilitating the rise of brain-cell-destroying YouTubers who make me Fear for Today's Youth. (Maybe that last one is just me?)

Google's rapid rise from "scrappy search engine with doodles" to "dystopic mega-corporation" has been remarkable in many ways, especially when you consider just how much goodwill the company squandered so quickly. Along the way, though, Google has achieved one unexpected result: In a divided America, it offers just about everyone something to hate.

Here are just a few of the players hating Google today.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

I don't use Google anymore except for Google maps in my car. :) I guess they can spy on where I'm driving. But no search history.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago (7 children)

I've started to try and move away from Google as much as possible, which I knew would be difficult, but it's proving to be harder than I thought.

I can't do anything about my work stuff, because our company uses Google for email and cloud storage. I set up an account on Proton Mail for my personal email and file storage. I currently have an android phone, but I don't like iPhones so I don't really know what I want to do there. I switched back to Firefox after 15 years of using Chrome. I actually started using Bing search more. I'm looking into alternatives for the Chromecast that Google doesn't seem interested in supporting anyway, which might just end up being a small PC hooked up to the TV.

I'm just so tired of Google services either being shut down or slowly getting worse and worse until they're nearly unusable.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

Yes. I hate advertising companies.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

All my homies hate Google

[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Notice how Google Maps data hasn't been improving, and if anything getting worse?

I worked for Cognizant, a contractor for Google maps at the Bothell office. I worked for a contractor that Google would fire every 5 years, contract it to another company and change the sign on the office building they owned...then rehire everyone. One of the benefits of this for them (one of the key benefits) was it made it much harder for workers to organize especially because Cognizant and Google can just play "go talk to the other parent I cant do anything" when workers ask for help because they were suffering/needed higher pay to survive/needed basic accomodations.

I worked for Google but Google didn't want to pay me or my coworkers a living wage, so Google paid some lawyers to make it so they could pretend we didn't work for Google.

Google is a trash company with absolutely zero idea how to move forward into the future, the company was absolutely chock full of intelligent interesting smart people but Google was so shortsighted that they forced my whole department back to the office for no good reason (literally everything was remote work too).

My experience after working for Google was that Google was most definitely going to collapse within the decade in terms of market power, at the very least in the realm of maps/spatial data.

What a shameful, pathetic company and the management should be ashamed of how stupid and out of touch they were.

Also, completely and utterly anti-worker.

(Cognizant is trash too but if you have ever heard of the company Cognizant you already know that).

A particular point of shame I want to level at the management above me at Cognizant and Google, most of our work was involved with prototyping google maps data editing and QC workflows... that could then be exported to India or somewhere else with cheap labor.... except upper management was racist as fuck against Indian workers and would complain about their shoddy work indirectly all the time...

...and never bring up that they specifically wanted to hire Indians so they could pay them shit and treat them like shit. If you were a tech worker in India would you work as hard as I did for far far far far less pay and WAY worse treatment?

I actually led a training class on a workflow that was absolutely not suited for new workers to Google Maps gis data editing to... totally new entry level hires in India, and the Indians were frequently cheating or totally checking out.. again because why the hell would they take this shit seriously? To be clear most people were like most people, they just did the best job they could, but there were lots of people I was training that could see right through the bullshit of the entire system and I can ZERO percent blame them for not disrespecting themselves by treating Google like it was genuine in its offers of employment, stability and a career.

Management encouraged a culture where lowkey shitting on Indians for being lazy and dumb was basically accepted because it rationalized the cruelty, inefficiency and stupidity of the entire system.

I hate Google.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You could also blame the idiots who had a chance to unionize but never did.

If you go back 5-10 years, everyone would say, "why do we need to unionize? Working in IT is great, we don't need to unionize!" And now see where we are today to realize how stupid of a mindset that was. I guess they don't buy insurance for the same reason.

I thought you had to be smart to work at Google, but seeing people take dumb positions like that made me realize that while they might have been brilliant engineers, they were definitely not very smart people.

(I'm not holding Google blameless here by the way - fuck them hard! But Google employees had the chance and wasted it, and this is what they left behind.)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

dOn'T bE eViL

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

How about "monopolizing the ad industry, going all in on manipulative engagement farming, and making billions off of destroying the internet they helped create, and possibly democracy"

I think the headline proves most people don't really understand how deeply Google has embedded themselves in, and farmed, well, everyone.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

For the 113th time: YES

Google stopped being cool ages ago and Chrome marked the moment they turned evil. They no longer had an incentive to just throw money at problems, they wanted to completely drive the web ecosystem and they did. They had a browser.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

All companies enshittify themselves eventually, and the fact that those that were trying to fight it within the company were still getting shit on from within and from outside the company only hastened its fall by just removing them as a deciding factor through sheer pressure. Google really isn't as dystopian as people put it as - for one, it's too incompetent at starting and sticking to new ventures.

As it continues falling and eventually the traditional competitors overtake it, I think it will become apparent what a truly dystopian megacorporation actually is before Google completely becomes anything remotely close to it - Microsoft would have reached that line if they had successfully been able to sneak in Recall. DuckDuckGo fell when Bing did, smoke and mirrors... Google is pretty bad right now, just not what I would call a dystopic megacorp.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (3 children)

All companies enshittify themselves eventually,

This isn't a foregone conclusion, just a number of things that are increasingly likely:

  • When a place becomes "cool" and "rich", then they get job applicants that are all in on "get rich quick" and as they get to call shots they are ready to destroy the core value to pulp out some profit. Particularly older companies like Intel, IBM and Microsoft have had time for that mindset to promote into the positions.
  • Failing that, investors can rapidly corrupt existing leadership, particularly for "startups". It might start sincere, but then when a relatively small bunch find themselves with a multi-billion dollar payday, pedal to the floor to ruin things.
  • Additionally, any major player not in a position to be a part of the fun will make their knock-offs and market or monopoly their way to displace. Oh look, Microsoft Teams....

There's a moderately successful, but also reasonably modest company that went about 50 years without getting "enshitified". The founder was passionate about it, kept the company private, and held in until his 80s when he finally decided he really couldn't do it anymore. Then they went public and immediately the layoffs, price hikes, and cloudification commenced, as the flood gate of enshitification opened on his retirement.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Google's motto in 2003: "Don't be evil."

They sure let that motto slide.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

everyone with common sense and the ability to pay attention has hated google for over a decade.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You either die a hero or less be long enough to become the villain.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Wait until you learn of their role in the apartheid and genocide in Palestine

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I must ask though, why was it hard for you to just look it up yourself?

I'm lazy and you seemed to know about it based on your comment

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Would it have been just as hard for you to cite your sources in the first place?

[–] [email protected] -5 points 3 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

for the same reason we hate apple. they put a pencil pusher with no direction other than higher stock price as ceo.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

I'm glad "The Man Who Killed Google Search" blew up.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 months ago (1 children)
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