I’m curious because I see a ton of Google hate on here daily. It’s certainly not all unwarranted, and I do agree with some of the privacy concerns.
That being said I do very much enjoy their products. Gmail, Photos, Chrome, Gemini, Home, Assistant, YouTube, Pixel phones, etc… I’ve tried out many of the alternatives but always come back to their ecosystem.
Curious as to how many of you here on the fedi use Google products without the common associated angst from the FOSS community.
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i used to love google… ive been around since the beginning and used many of their products.
it feels like a friend or family member thats slid into serious meth or other drug use… you can only stick around attempting to help them for so long. at some point you know you have to cut your losses or be further dragged into their destruction.
when they dropped the ‘dont be evil’ was right around the time i also realized they dont actually support their products, and kill them on a whim. i jumped ship ~2012 when they started fuckin around with google voice and had no real ambition with G+. .
They didn’t drop the don’t be evil thing. It’s still right there in the code of conduct where it always was, they just moved it to the conclusion of the document so it’s the last thing that remains with you. See for yourself: https://abc.xyz/investor/google-code-of-conduct/
The supposed removal is a perfect example of the outrage-bait headlines I’m discussing in another comment.
There’s a whole Wikipedia page covering the motto drop. And yes, it was an ugly move deserving of all the bad press.
From literally the first paragraph stating it’s still there.
The original motto was retained in Google’s code of conduct, now a subsidiary of Alphabet. Between April 21st and May 4th of 2018, the motto was removed from the code of conduct’s preface and retained in its last sentence.[9]
So it’s dropped from the motto?
Yes, they dropped it.
It was a Warrant canary
deleted by creator
If they removed it from the preface and pasted it at the beginning of every paragraph throughout the entire document, a certain type of person would still be focused on the one place they removed it from. Those are not serious people and should not be taken seriously.
They definitely stopped living by that mantra at the same time. It may exist as a footnote to this giant code of conduct but it hasn’t been their MO in over a decade. The reaction is justified.
right there […] where it always was.
they just moved it to the conclusion
Make up your mind, which one is it?
If it’s any consolation, they haven’t killed Google Voice. They haven’t updated it since 2012, but it’s still around.
I get updates a couple times a year.
But it hasn’t changed
I loved them for a long time and was around since the beginning as well. When they opted everyone into Buzz without their consent I became real cautious about what I share with them. I still use some services, and even used Stadia when they had it. However, I’m ready for them to turn anything off at any time and don’t share any info with them that I wouldn’t want public.
I don’t hate Google. I don’t trust them and I don’t think anyone else should either. Vet the products and services you use. But I don’t hate them.
This is it. I didn’t hate them because “big tech” like other people here. I loved Google and their stuff. But one by one they killed my favorite things, and they made me hate them.
If you don’t hate Google for killing s service you loved them your just waiting for them to do it.
They’ve killed a fair few of the services I’ve liked over the years. But there are other services I still like (with caveats) that I still use so it’s a mixed bag for me. If they kill those services I’ll move on to others.
100% this. I don’t hate them at all. I just can’t trust them ever anymore
Agree with this. I think this also should extend to every corporation.
This kinda conflates hate for the unethical practices of the company with hate for the quality of their products, which seems unfair. As a company they’re definitely bastards. There was a long, long period of time where their products were pretty unquestionably top-notch compared to everything else out there. However, for a while now everything has been going really downhill. Then recently it’s really accelerated, especially with them leaning into AI. These days I hardly even miss them anymore.
Google have done a lot of great things and run some really vital projects that have benefitted the world. Anyone that refuses to acknowledge that is not coming at things honestly.
Yeah that’s my take on it, too.
Plus they’re far too big for “Google” to be a useful entity in discussions. The Google C-suites? The CEO? The Maps team? The Mail team? The support for end-user customers? Need to be more specific, because I bet the Mail team is bigger than some competing companies in their entirety.
Not trying to compare google to the Nazis, but this reads a lot like “but he build the Autobahns”.
Alternatively, if there was no Google or Google like company, we would likely be much further along in tech, and have better functioning democracies. They have limited innovation in maps and search products. They rely on being big to be competitive. Their products are pretty poor given their engineering team size. Digital advertising: they bought their way into a quasi monopoly, siphoning dollars from people that actually create things.
I don’t have feelings about corporations.
“Loving” or “hating” brands, let alone massive oligarchal conglomerates makes no sense at all. I want them well regulated and split down to reasonable size if necessary. Ideally competing in a well populated marketplace and restricted in their ability to cause damage.
That’s not “hate”. And it certainly doesn’t stop me using Google products and services and judging them based on their quality and performance.
Yes, I am a riot at parties, thank you very much.
For me it’s a love hate relationship. I love the idea of their products, but hate that often they’re the only feasible options in their categories.
I dunno if I hate Google, but I’ve grown tired of their bullshit. I use their products, but mostly because they’ve become the default solution being so feature rich and widely used. They’ve leveraged that to bog them down with ads and Spyware and THAT I despise.
I hate all corporations lol
Google made lots of stuff that I used and enjoyed, then slowly made them worse or outright killed them off. Hangouts was imo the gold standard of simple chat programs, their podcast app was excellent and ad free. Both are now gone.
They also have been ceaselessly working to wring every last cent out of their products at the expense of the user experience. The products and services were fine and they were making loads of money even with adblocking and tracker blocking in place but they knew they could make more money and most people would just accept the inconvenience so they said fuck em and ran with it.
I hate how shit their search is now
There’s this study that attempts to quantify this effect, at least.
I don’t think you understood the question :)
Reading is hard. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I use Google products, at this point they likely know more about me than I do.
I wanted to like Google, I bought into the whole ecosystem and still regularly use my gmail account, but they’ve fallen quite far in my eyes. They’ve killed off multiple features I used extensively, Search, the thing they should be good at, just isn’t as dependable as it used to be, I don’t trust using Chrome anymore, and the company overall just seems like a pale reflection of its former self. I just don’t trust them as a company. Not as bad as Meta or anything Musk touches, but still bad.
“
Don’tBe Evil”
Google spies on me, but actually provides useful services (other than search) for free (ish) in return.
Microsoft want money for everything.
The rest of big tech wants all your data for basically no gain.
I don’t trust Google, but for now the trade seems worth it.
Imo the trade off used to be fair.
The search results have gotten worse and you basically need to search for them among targeted ads.
They dropped the promised unlimited SD photos storage offer and took the space for it off the email storage
I just don’t trust them any more not only with their services but also with their targeted advertising and constant tracking.
I am using Kari, my own domain mail at a we hotel and enter photos.
I still need to use google on my android though but its limited use compared to before
I’m frustrated because IMO their search keeps getting worse, but most of their other core products (Gmail, Chrome, Drive, Docs) are pretty good. I’m not mad about the lack of privacy because I feel that that was part of the deal I knowingly accepted back when I was an early adopter. I’d rather get free service than pay for impossible-to-verify privacy, especially when the free service has minimally annoying ads (eg. Gmail but not Youtube).
Man I’d say their other stuff is terrible as well. Yeah it functions but what a low bar to meet.
Hate? No, I do not hate Google. I still use a Pixel phone (and photos/assistant on it), my Gmail is still my primary email (I also self-host a few other domains but those are primarily used for automation and a few other one-off things), I subscribe to YouTube Premium, I still utilize my Stadia controller as my primary game controller, I use a Google TV set top box, etc.
I don’t use Search (I use Kagi instead), I don’t use Chrome (Firefox), I don’t really utilize Gemini all that much (I just run ollama for the few times I want to use an LLM).
Really I just use their products that work well for me, and don’t use the ones that don’t. There’s no love/hate about it.
