Skip Navigation

why do some people really dislike google??

i don't want to offend anyone, but some open source/privacy enthusiasts dislike google, but why?? google has made chromium, android, etc and most of the things they do are open source, and not only that, they also support creative commons media or public domain. i know the privacy concernes they may have, but they would never do anything bad to you. i love google personally because of their commitment to open source software.

72 comments
  • Because they are above all else an advertising company. Businesses like having somewhere to advertise, of course... but overall consumers don't like ads. Chrome, Android and gmail are simply ways to steer people to google search so they can sell ads. Then, like Facebook, their bread and butter is essentially privacy invasion - gathering huge dossiers of personal information on everyone they can. Google also has a reputation for being somewhat arrogant, as far as their work culture (only hiring people from elite universities, and having ridiculous 'clever' interview questions) as well as launching products, getting people to depend on them, then cancelling them with little notice or replacement. In addition, while their main product was innovative for the first several years, it's declined significantly in quality, but their near-monopoly status makes it difficult for anyone else to effectively compete. Another issue is that like Facebook, Google has basically no customer service for anyone not spending 5 million a month with them. If they decide to close down your account based on who-knows-what algorithm thing, unless you get lucky on social media or have good connections, you're screwed and all your stuff is permanently deleted.

  • One more thing concerning the 'open source'. Most things Google does aren't open.

    You mentioned Chromium. I don't think it would have become the most used browser platform if it hadn't been open. So I'm not sure if it's a gift or marketing decision. They kinda use it to spy on people/track behaviour. And push the web-standards they like. It's part of their strategy to retain control over every part along the way and dominate the internet. From servers, to network infrastructure to the end users device and even their software that displays the webpages.

    With Android they take extra care to move more and more things into their propretary Google Services. I think the Calendar is kinda unmaintained, the ASOP keyboard is very bare. Half the Apps don't work without Play Services, Push Notifications are an important part of todays world but proprietary. The camera doesn't even have half it's capabilities and the Play Store is set to assert control over the ecosystem. Contactless Payment doesn't work with open source, ....

    With Google, their open source always comes with strings attached. They're not doing it for your benefit.

    If you compare it for example with Meta, they just give away PyTorch, React and their Llama2 models because they can and it' beneficial to them. I don't see too many strings attached there.

    But Google has a few of those, too. TensorFlow, Kubernetes, Gerrit, Angular and the two or three programming languages.

    If you like being dominated and the future of the web being shaped for you by a single company, or your wants and needs align well with their motives, I don't have any objections, though.

  • I love open source too, but this:

    i know the privacy concernes they may have, but they would never do anything bad to you.

    Is just super problematic. I appreciate the enthusiasm for open source, but google is a monopoly actively involved in making the internet worse in order to profit from it. They do this by leveraging your personal information, and that's bad.

  • funny thing is, a guy i went to jr high with (in calgary) 'invented' a program called bumptop. a few years later less than a year, the guy sold everything to google for a nice sum, and got a job. next android update...was basically bumptop. seems hes still doing well for himself, colour me a bit jealous lol

72 comments