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.
“Google is an advertising company.”
Thank God. I thought I was the only one on the planet who realized this.
@Mike Glass:
What kills me is, it seems fairly self-evident, but so many people don’t get it.
Not only don’t get it, but won’t get it.
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.
Are you using parsecs as a measure of time or distance?
@bkharmony:
Do I look like Han Solo? Distance, of course.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
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.
@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.
“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.
Jeebus, some of you aren’t just drinking the google-ade; you’re practically bathing in it.
@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…
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.
@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.
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.