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.
its a human flaw… insatiable greed.
we distilled this greed and removed all actual responsibility creating an entity, ‘the stock market’. this well of irresponsible greed has reached a singularity… a point of no return. we are all too dependent on this terrible thing and so it cant be removed.
the majority of us just get to suffer while being told ‘theres no other way’
we cant have nice things because humans are just so fucking greedy and incapable of controlling that greed.
Hopefully DeGoogleing will go a bit like the cable “Cord Cutters” did in terms of headlines over time:
- Is cutting cable feasible?
- Some are are finding solutions to lower their cable bills.
- Industry denies cord cutters are impacting profit.
- Providers cling to sports broadcasts as a way to short-circut cord cutters.
- Are young people the “never-cable” generation?
- Here’s where to watch the Olympics online.
Of course, streaming is worse than cable now… so lets learn from that.
“streaming is worse than cable now” is it though?
I stream for weeks on end without a single ad, watching only what I want. I go to an older person’s house and I hear the same friggin commercial jingles, the same canned studio laughter, and shows that are designed for the stupidest common denominator.
I grew up in the era of Saturday morning cartoons. My brain was liquidified on cereal commercials. I won’t allow cable into my house under any circumstances.
But I do agree that we should learn from too easily replacing the working with the next big thing without any regulations on how the next big thing is allowed to operate
I stream for weeks on end without a single ad
But that’s now changing. The bottom tiers of many (most?) streaming apps include ads, and it’s not a stretch to think that they’ll include ads on the higher tiers eventually, or just increase prices until people downgrade to ad-supported tiers. Yeah, you can use an ad-blocker, but you could also use a DVR for cable that also filters out ads.
I’m bailing on both and just buying physical media again. I hope that doesn’t die out, but I’m done with paying for subscriptions. We don’t watch a ton, so I’m probably going to save money this way.
I wish we had a streaming equivalent of a DVR, then I might actually want streaming again.
“streaming is worse than cable now”
Ironically, pirating has never been easier lol
We demand infinite growth. Why? Because shareholders want to buy shares and sell them later for more.
Do anything it takes to make that transaction happen, cut people’s jobs en masse, whatever.
Forever.
Stock holders demand infinite growth. If the management doesn’t make money, they put in place new management. A company is only worth the value of the next stock buyback or dividend. It’s baked into the structure of corporations, especially publicly-owned corporations.
