Don’t Drink the Google-Ade

September 24th, 2008, by The Angry Drunk

Last night I posted a quick blurb that said:

I just want to go on record here that I will go back to using tin cans and fuck­ing string before I use a phone with an OS devel­oped by Google. So mote it be.

In the com­ments for that post Wes asked:

What’s your rea­son for this? Don’t like Google or some other objec­tion? I’d use it if its Mac sup­port was as good as the iPhones and the user expe­ri­ence was as good or better.

I don’t really have much else to write about; so I fig­ure I’ll go ahead and answer this on.

The bot­tom line is, no I do not like Google. Why don’t I like Google? Well, the answer to that ques­tion is long and com­pli­cated; so I’m going to limit my answer to Google in rela­tion to the Android OS.

 

What Google Is:

To start out I’d like to take a brief moment to sum­ma­rize exactly what Google is; since many in the tech indus­try don’t seem to know. Google is a pub­licly traded cor­po­ra­tion; just like Apple, or everyone’s least favorite tech. com­pany: Microsoft. This means that Google exists solely to pro­vide a decent return for its investors. In fact, should the Google Board of Directors act in a man­ner that is demon­stra­bly not in the fidu­ciary inter­ests of its investors they would be expos­ing them­selves to legal action.

Specifically, Google is an adver­tis­ing com­pany. I know this part comes as a shock to many peo­ple; but Google doesn’t make a dime directly from the ser­vices they offer (search, Gmail, Android, etc.). This, of course, is the point where some­one leaps to inform me that Google does charge for their enter­prise ser­vices; but seri­ously, that rev­enue is a drop in the bucket. The truth is that every­thing that Google does, from free email host­ing to build­ing a mobile phone OS is done to either fur­ther a plat­form for adver­tise­ment deliv­ery, or to gather demo­graphic data to help refine that deliv­ery sys­tem. If you won’t accept this, then you may as well stop read­ing. You’ve drunk the Flavor-Aid and there is no help­ing you.

 

What Google Isn’t

We just cov­ered what Google is; here is a brief list of what Google isn’t.

  • Google isn’t a char­ity: I have no doubt that many, if not all of the indi­vid­u­als work­ing at Google have the high­est aims and ideals; but at then end of the day Google is a pub­licly traded, for-profit corporation.
  • Google is not infal­li­ble: Somewhere along the line, many in the tech. world got it into their heads that Google could do no wrong. Their search is always rel­e­vant, their maps are always accu­rate, Their code is always per­fect, their inten­tions are always noble. I’m sorry, Google is a col­lec­tion of indi­vid­ual peo­ple. People are fal­li­ble, peo­ple make mis­takes, and the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
  • Google is not unique. Google hap­pens to be in the great posi­tion of being a mar­ket leader capa­ble of attract­ing the best tal­ent. Nifty, oth­ers have been there before.

Why I Won’t Own an Android Phone

In the end, my ratio­nal for declar­ing that I will never own a phone run­ning an OS pro­duced by Google is a sim­ple one. I don’t want to use a device run­ning an OS built by an adver­tis­ing com­pany. There you go, sim­ple and clear. I don’t trust Google; and, given the choice, I’d rather give my money to a com­pany that is rel­a­tively up front about their inten­tions to make a ass-load of filthy lucre off their prod­ucts. It cer­tainly helps that, in my opin­ion, the iPhone is par­secs ahead of the T-Mobile G1/Android com­bi­na­tion that is cur­rently the only Android game in town. But even if they did have fea­ture par­ity, my device yould be the iPhone.

But let me make one thing per­fectly clear; noth­ing I’ve writ­ten should be taken as a rec­om­men­da­tion to oth­ers. The G1 works for you? Great, knock your­self out. Unlike my friends at the Free Software Foundation, I believe in choice. At the end of the day though, I’ll keep my iPhone. And, if Apple folds, there’s always semaphore.

36 comments - (Comments closed)
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  • Mike Glass

    “Google is an adver­tis­ing company.”

    Thank God. I thought I was the only one on the planet who real­ized this.

  • Mike Glass

    “Google is an adver­tis­ing company.”

    Thank God. I thought I was the only one on the planet who real­ized this.

  • http://www.theangrydrunk.com The Angry Drunk

    @Mike Glass: What kills me is, it seems fairly self-evident, but so many peo­ple don’t get it.

  • http://www.theangrydrunk.com The Angry Drunk

    @Mike Glass: What kills me is, it seems fairly self-evident, but so many peo­ple don’t get it.

  • http://tewha.net Steven Fisher

    Not only don’t get it, but won’t get it.

  • http://tewha.net Steven Fisher

    Not only don’t get it, but won’t get it.

  • http://alex.mullr.net/blog/ alex­muller

    Echoing what Mike (and you) say above. The first time I realised Google was only in it for the adver­tis­ing was a cou­ple of years back when Leo Laporte had a rant about it on his radio show. Since then, it’s been so obvi­ous to me that I’m shocked at the num­ber of peo­ple who can’t grasp it.

  • http://alex.mullr.net/blog/ Alex Muller

    Echoing what Mike (and you) say above. The first time I realised Google was only in it for the adver­tis­ing was a cou­ple of years back when Leo Laporte had a rant about it on his radio show. Since then, it’s been so obvi­ous to me that I’m shocked at the num­ber of peo­ple who can’t grasp it.

  • bkhar­mony

    Are you using par­secs as a mea­sure of time or distance?

  • bkhar­mony

    Are you using par­secs as a mea­sure of time or distance?

  • http://www.theangrydrunk.com The Angry Drunk

    @bkhar­mony: Do I look like Han Solo? Distance, of course.

  • http://www.theangrydrunk.com The Angry Drunk

    @bkhar­mony: Do I look like Han Solo? Distance, of course.

  • http://artwells.com/ Art Wells

    Good point, but isn’t every com­pany an adver­tis­ing com­pany now? I know, I know, they aren’t all as adver­tisy as Google, but some com­pany is always try­ing to pro­file you and sell your behav­ior to an adver­tis­ing com­pany. You can make a great effort to block pro­fil­ing, by block­ing ads in your browser, avoid­ing credit card pur­chases, actu­ally read­ing every damned pri­vacy pol­icy you see, but there always at least a lit­tle and an ever-growing amount of encroachment.

    So it’s more of a mat­ter of degrees, I think. A phone OS made by an adver­tis­ing com­pany is just a step, or even a huge jump for­ward, on the same path every com­pany is on.

  • http://artwells.com/ Art Wells

    Good point, but isn’t every com­pany an adver­tis­ing com­pany now? I know, I know, they aren’t all as adver­tisy as Google, but some com­pany is always try­ing to pro­file you and sell your behav­ior to an adver­tis­ing com­pany. You can make a great effort to block pro­fil­ing, by block­ing ads in your browser, avoid­ing credit card pur­chases, actu­ally read­ing every damned pri­vacy pol­icy you see, but there always at least a lit­tle and an ever-growing amount of encroachment.

    So it’s more of a mat­ter of degrees, I think. A phone OS made by an adver­tis­ing com­pany is just a step, or even a huge jump for­ward, on the same path every com­pany is on.

  • http://bryanpayne.tumblr.com Bryan Payne

    It still amazes me that peo­ple don’t under­stand that Google is an adver­tis­ing com­pany. But hey, the stu­pid­ity of peo­ple some­how con­tin­ues to amaze me pretty much every day.

    What I’m also really sur­prised about is how peo­ple don’t under­stand who really should be afraid of Android. Microsoft. I see Android as much more of a com­peti­tor to Windows Mobile than it is to the iPhone platform.

  • http://bryanpayne.tumblr.com Bryan Payne

    It still amazes me that peo­ple don’t under­stand that Google is an adver­tis­ing com­pany. But hey, the stu­pid­ity of peo­ple some­how con­tin­ues to amaze me pretty much every day.

    What I’m also really sur­prised about is how peo­ple don’t under­stand who really should be afraid of Android. Microsoft. I see Android as much more of a com­peti­tor to Windows Mobile than it is to the iPhone platform.

  • http://jean.posterous.com Jean Vincent

    Should I stop read­ing your blog because it’s an adver­tise­ment business?

    Personally I pre­fer Open-Source even when spon­sored by Google because Open-Source always remains open to deliv­ery with­out strings attached.

    I really don’t like Apple iPhone jail and anti-competitive practices.

    IMHO iPhone is bro­ken and Android is the fix.

  • http://jean.posterous.com Jean Vincent

    Should I stop read­ing your blog because it’s an adver­tise­ment business?

    Personally I pre­fer Open-Source even when spon­sored by Google because Open-Source always remains open to deliv­ery with­out strings attached.

    I really don’t like Apple iPhone jail and anti-competitive practices.

    IMHO iPhone is bro­ken and Android is the fix.

  • http://ripragged.blogspot.com Anonymous

    @Jean

    I like strings. Without strings there is no con­sis­tent user inter­face. Without strings there is no guar­an­tee the next ver­sion of the OS won’t break my phone. Without strings, no one assumes any respon­si­bil­ity for my device being functional.

    I’ll take my strings. So will most con­sumers. Android may be pop­u­lar among a sub­set of pro­peller­heads, but that won’t keep it alive long. The fix has to stay in busi­ness long enough to do some good. The Android may be tech­no­log­i­cally advanced, but then so is Blu-Ray, and it will be dead soon too.

  • http://rip-ragged.com/dross Rip Ragged

    @Jean

    I like strings. Without strings there is no con­sis­tent user inter­face. Without strings there is no guar­an­tee the next ver­sion of the OS won’t break my phone. Without strings, no one assumes any respon­si­bil­ity for my device being functional.

    I’ll take my strings. So will most con­sumers. Android may be pop­u­lar among a sub­set of pro­peller­heads, but that won’t keep it alive long. The fix has to stay in busi­ness long enough to do some good. The Android may be tech­no­log­i­cally advanced, but then so is Blu-Ray, and it will be dead soon too.

  • Anonymous

    I know Google is an adver­tis­ing com­pany and I would still absolutely love to have an Android pow­ered phone. Advertising is a fact of life — there’s no get­ting around it, you are going to see ads. Now, I would much rather work with a com­pany that knows my inter­ests and can pro­vide suit­able adver­tis­ing I would be inter­ested in than a com­pany that insists on telling me about Viagra and how my man-meat can be so much bigger.

    Maybe I’m wierd… but adver­tis­ing just doesn’t bother me that much. As long as it is unob­tru­sive and rel­e­vant, which has been key to Google’s adver­tis­ing pol­icy since day one. Remember when GMail came out? People went absolutely crazy because it was “read­ing their email” — every­one I know has a GMail account now and no one cares about the unob­tru­sive and rel­e­vant ads that are displayed.

  • http://www.michaelwales.com/ Michael Wales

    I know Google is an adver­tis­ing com­pany and I would still absolutely love to have an Android pow­ered phone. Advertising is a fact of life — there’s no get­ting around it, you are going to see ads. Now, I would much rather work with a com­pany that knows my inter­ests and can pro­vide suit­able adver­tis­ing I would be inter­ested in than a com­pany that insists on telling me about Viagra and how my man-meat can be so much bigger.

    Maybe I’m wierd… but adver­tis­ing just doesn’t bother me that much. As long as it is unob­tru­sive and rel­e­vant, which has been key to Google’s adver­tis­ing pol­icy since day one. Remember when GMail came out? People went absolutely crazy because it was “read­ing their email” — every­one I know has a GMail account now and no one cares about the unob­tru­sive and rel­e­vant ads that are displayed.

  • http://jean.posterous.com Jean Vincent

    @Rig, Blu-Ray is an entirely dif­fer­ent story. The disc is a media on its way out because it is the wrong media for an Internet-centric world, period.

    Open-Source does not nec­es­sary means incon­sis­tent user inter­faces. With Chrome, Google has deliv­ered the future in terms of user inter­face for the web, it is far supe­rior to any­thing that came before and every­one is going to copy: Microsoft, Mozilla and of course Apple. The require­ment for mobile devices is less clut­ter, more con­tent and Google is doing this right.

    Sure Apple design is a bit bet­ter than Android on a few things, this is Apple’s strength after all. But Android will power many more devices beyond the G1. Android has already shown many really use­ful fea­tures that are really well designed, easy to use, and will make it stick much longer than you believe.

    Android is also a key com­po­nent of Google strat­egy against Microsoft Office. Apple is not Google’s tar­get. The tar­get is dom­i­nance over the mobile web, for this you need a plat­form that devel­op­ers will adopt and embrace, no strings attached.

    Don’t count Open-Source out just yet because of the fail­ure of the Linux desk­top so far. Linux has unique strengths when it comes to mobile devices, unen­cum­bered with the legacy of Windows desk­top appli­ca­tions, and unleashed with the slick Chrome user interface.

  • http://jean.posterous.com Jean Vincent

    @Rig, Blu-Ray is an entirely dif­fer­ent story. The disc is a media on its way out because it is the wrong media for an Internet-centric world, period.

    Open-Source does not nec­es­sary means incon­sis­tent user inter­faces. With Chrome, Google has deliv­ered the future in terms of user inter­face for the web, it is far supe­rior to any­thing that came before and every­one is going to copy: Microsoft, Mozilla and of course Apple. The require­ment for mobile devices is less clut­ter, more con­tent and Google is doing this right.

    Sure Apple design is a bit bet­ter than Android on a few things, this is Apple’s strength after all. But Android will power many more devices beyond the G1. Android has already shown many really use­ful fea­tures that are really well designed, easy to use, and will make it stick much longer than you believe.

    Android is also a key com­po­nent of Google strat­egy against Microsoft Office. Apple is not Google’s tar­get. The tar­get is dom­i­nance over the mobile web, for this you need a plat­form that devel­op­ers will adopt and embrace, no strings attached.

    Don’t count Open-Source out just yet because of the fail­ure of the Linux desk­top so far. Linux has unique strengths when it comes to mobile devices, unen­cum­bered with the legacy of Windows desk­top appli­ca­tions, and unleashed with the slick Chrome user interface.

  • http://unlogica.com Blain

    “Good point, but isn’t every com­pany an adver­tis­ing com­pany now?”

    No. Only the ones that can’t make ends meet by mak­ing good prod­ucts resort to adver­tis­ing. Because it makes good prod­ucts so much less. By adver­tis­ing, I mean some­thing that was paid by a dif­fer­ent com­pany to be on there. The Apple logo on a MacBook isn’t adver­tis­ing, it’s brand­ing. A recipe on a box of noo­dles that calls for the sauce made by the same com­pany isn’t adver­tis­ing as much as cross-selling.

    But do you ever buy a box of cereal, and on the side of the box is a sec­tion about the lat­est Ford Trucks? How about a ham­mer, and it’s labeled with a list of restaurants?

    Remember, way back when? When some­one asked Steve Jobs about why Macs don’t carry Intel Inside stick­ers? The answer is the same rea­son as why Macs don’t have shov­el­ware loaded on them: Apple’s in the busi­ness of sell­ing a good prod­uct to you, not sell­ing you to some adver­tiser. That way, there’s not a con­flict of interests.

  • http://unlogica.com Blain

    “Good point, but isn’t every com­pany an adver­tis­ing com­pany now?”

    No. Only the ones that can’t make ends meet by mak­ing good prod­ucts resort to adver­tis­ing. Because it makes good prod­ucts so much less. By adver­tis­ing, I mean some­thing that was paid by a dif­fer­ent com­pany to be on there. The Apple logo on a MacBook isn’t adver­tis­ing, it’s brand­ing. A recipe on a box of noo­dles that calls for the sauce made by the same com­pany isn’t adver­tis­ing as much as cross-selling.

    But do you ever buy a box of cereal, and on the side of the box is a sec­tion about the lat­est Ford Trucks? How about a ham­mer, and it’s labeled with a list of restaurants?

    Remember, way back when? When some­one asked Steve Jobs about why Macs don’t carry Intel Inside stick­ers? The answer is the same rea­son as why Macs don’t have shov­el­ware loaded on them: Apple’s in the busi­ness of sell­ing a good prod­uct to you, not sell­ing you to some adver­tiser. That way, there’s not a con­flict of interests.

  • http://www.theangrydrunk.com The Angry Drunk

    Jeebus, some of you aren’t just drink­ing the google-ade; you’re prac­ti­cally bathing in it.

  • http://www.theangrydrunk.com The Angry Drunk

    Jeebus, some of you aren’t just drink­ing the google-ade; you’re prac­ti­cally bathing in it.

  • http://twitter.com/dwarfland dwarfland

    @Michael Wales:

    “People went absolutely crazy because it was “read­ing their email” — every­one I know has a GMail account now and no one cares about the unob­tru­sive and rel­e­vant ads that are displayed.”

    peo­ple stopped giv­ing a shit? i guess that really does make it all bet­ter, then. where do i sign up…

  • http://twitter.com/dwarfland dwarfland

    @Michael Wales:

    “People went absolutely crazy because it was “read­ing their email” — every­one I know has a GMail account now and no one cares about the unob­tru­sive and rel­e­vant ads that are displayed.”

    peo­ple stopped giv­ing a shit? i guess that really does make it all bet­ter, then. where do i sign up…

  • http://villiom.dk Dan Villiom Podlaski Christian

    I have both a Gmail account and a MobileMe sub­scrip­tion. One I use exten­sively, the other hardly at all. The one I actu­ally use is the one with server-side fil­ter­ing, the one I can use from any device, regard­less if it’s my Mac, uni­ver­sity Linux boxes, my stu­pid phone, my Wii or whathaveyou, and the one which doesn’t have an inse­cure pass­word retrieval sys­tem. MobileMe only works with cer­tain mod­ern browsers, unfor­tu­nately, and since it has no auto­matic fil­ter­ing, it’s use­less for fol­low­ing mail­ing lists.

    My point is that even though I pay for the Apple ser­vice, there are numer­ous areas where the free-of-charge Google ser­vice just offers more. I believe this is a direct con­se­quence of the busi­ness mod­els: Google only make money when I use the ser­vice, so they put a lot of effort in hav­ing it acces­si­ble from as many dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios as pos­si­ble. Apple need only focus on mak­ing a sin­gle ser­vice, fea­ture­ful enough and good enough to get me to renew my subscription.

    I wouldn’t dis­count Android just yet; it’ll be inter­est­ing to see what hand­set man­u­fac­tur­ers come up with, par­tic­u­larly in mar­kets where car­ri­ers don’t have the lever­age they do in the US.

    Android makes it eas­ier for man­u­fac­tur­ers to catch up with to the iPhone, and one of them just might be able to do so. The man­u­fac­tur­ers define and con­trol the final prod­uct, not Google. We all ben­e­fit from bet­ter choices and increased competition.

  • http://villiom.dk Dan Villiom Podlaski Christiansen

    I have both a Gmail account and a MobileMe sub­scrip­tion. One I use exten­sively, the other hardly at all. The one I actu­ally use is the one with server-side fil­ter­ing, the one I can use from any device, regard­less if it’s my Mac, uni­ver­sity Linux boxes, my stu­pid phone, my Wii or whathaveyou, and the one which doesn’t have an inse­cure pass­word retrieval sys­tem. MobileMe only works with cer­tain mod­ern browsers, unfor­tu­nately, and since it has no auto­matic fil­ter­ing, it’s use­less for fol­low­ing mail­ing lists.

    My point is that even though I pay for the Apple ser­vice, there are numer­ous areas where the free-of-charge Google ser­vice just offers more. I believe this is a direct con­se­quence of the busi­ness mod­els: Google only make money when I use the ser­vice, so they put a lot of effort in hav­ing it acces­si­ble from as many dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios as pos­si­ble. Apple need only focus on mak­ing a sin­gle ser­vice, fea­ture­ful enough and good enough to get me to renew my subscription.

    I wouldn’t dis­count Android just yet; it’ll be inter­est­ing to see what hand­set man­u­fac­tur­ers come up with, par­tic­u­larly in mar­kets where car­ri­ers don’t have the lever­age they do in the US.

    Android makes it eas­ier for man­u­fac­tur­ers to catch up with to the iPhone, and one of them just might be able to do so. The man­u­fac­tur­ers define and con­trol the final prod­uct, not Google. We all ben­e­fit from bet­ter choices and increased competition.

  • http://ripragged.blogspot.com Anonymous

    @Jean I’m not count­ing out open source. I’m not going to bet my house on it, either.

    Open source has a valu­able role to play. Consumer com­mod­ity is not that role.

    However, I’m going to make the major­ity of my deci­sions with empir­i­cal data, and the minor­ity of my deci­sions with hope and ide­al­ism and the inno­cence of a child.

    I’ve found that to be a good bal­ance for mak­ing my mort­gage pay­ment on time and keep­ing food on the table.

    Chrome is a pro­to­type. Safari is a full browser. Both are based on WebKit.

    Everybody is gang­ing up on Microsoft unnec­es­sar­ily. Microsoft will die soon. Not fal­ter and fade; die. It will be quick, painful, and unex­pected by every­body – though it shouldn’t be. I’ve watched the tech world since the mid sev­en­ties as a spec­ta­tor and user. The pat­tern of fail­ure is clear. Obsolescence is an unfor­giv­ing and very grim reaper. Microsoft is toast.

    I’m bet­ting that back in col­lege days Allen and Gates used to leave Ballmer to explain the mess in the host’s dorm the next day. These things have a pat­tern about them. Ballmer will be the one who always gets left hold­ing the bag.

  • http://rip-ragged.com/dross Rip Ragged

    @Jean I’m not count­ing out open source. I’m not going to bet my house on it, either.

    Open source has a valu­able role to play. Consumer com­mod­ity is not that role.

    However, I’m going to make the major­ity of my deci­sions with empir­i­cal data, and the minor­ity of my deci­sions with hope and ide­al­ism and the inno­cence of a child.

    I’ve found that to be a good bal­ance for mak­ing my mort­gage pay­ment on time and keep­ing food on the table.

    Chrome is a pro­to­type. Safari is a full browser. Both are based on WebKit.

    Everybody is gang­ing up on Microsoft unnec­es­sar­ily. Microsoft will die soon. Not fal­ter and fade; die. It will be quick, painful, and unex­pected by every­body – though it shouldn’t be. I’ve watched the tech world since the mid sev­en­ties as a spec­ta­tor and user. The pat­tern of fail­ure is clear. Obsolescence is an unfor­giv­ing and very grim reaper. Microsoft is toast.

    I’m bet­ting that back in col­lege days Allen and Gates used to leave Ballmer to explain the mess in the host’s dorm the next day. These things have a pat­tern about them. Ballmer will be the one who always gets left hold­ing the bag.

  • GaryPatterson

    I’ve long thought sim­i­lar things about Google, although I’d put it this way:

    “Google is an adver­tiser. The prod­uct they sell is you and every­thing they do is about get­ting more from you so they can sell it on.”

    There’s noth­ing nec­es­sar­ily wrong with that, but it’s impor­tant to remem­ber when you see more free stuff com­ing from Google. As with any com­pany, it’s worth remem­ber­ing how they make their money when you look at any prod­ucts they produce.

  • GaryPatterson

    I’ve long thought sim­i­lar things about Google, although I’d put it this way:

    “Google is an adver­tiser. The prod­uct they sell is you and every­thing they do is about get­ting more from you so they can sell it on.”

    There’s noth­ing nec­es­sar­ily wrong with that, but it’s impor­tant to remem­ber when you see more free stuff com­ing from Google. As with any com­pany, it’s worth remem­ber­ing how they make their money when you look at any prod­ucts they produce.