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Has Google Peaked?
nile_list writes "Robert X. Cringely's latest column explores just what the heck Google could be doing. 'Google likes to play the Black Box game. What are they DOING in all those buildings with all those PhDs?' He concludes that it's likely Google has peaked as a company: 'What if everyone is mainly wrong? What if search and PageRank and AdSense are Google's corporate apex. Most companies would be content with that, but Google isn't supposed to be like most companies. But what if they are?' His conclusion is that 'Microsoft's clearest threat still comes from Apple, though not the way most people expect.' It's an interesting read."
I, Cringe writes "Robert X. Cringely's latest column explores just how inane and idiotic he can be.'I wilke to play the baseless speculation game. What can I THINK some company is doing based on my limited knowledge?' He concludes that it's likely he has peaked as a columnist: 'What if I am am mainly wrong? What if I, Cringely is my writing apex. Most writers would not be content with that, but I'm not like most writers. But so what if I'm not?' His conclusion is that 'My clearest threat still comes from people with brains, though not the way most people expect.' It's a boring read."
What if, what if, what if. This article could have been posted when Earth came out, or GMail, or even Desktop Search. There can always be speculation, why now?
I dunno, the article sounds rather like pretty wild speculation to me. Not that speculation is wrong—the author admits it's speculation—but if any of this stuff comes to pass, I would chalk the author's correctness up more to luck than to keen insight.
Google has a lot of project in the works, including Gmail, Gtalk, Google Desktop, etc. These projects are anything but mainstream and have a LOT of room for growth. Hell, there's still even room for growth in their primary market, the search engine. Though they are huge, they are far from owning that market.
And Apple knocking off Microsoft? Maybe, but if they haven't done it yet, I don't have much reason to believe they'll do it anytime soon. I will admit that there was an interesting speculation in the article:
Wild speculation, but man, it would be fun to watch the resulting scramble.
As for me, I'm convinced that if anyone will ever knock off Microsoft, it will be an OS that gets game developers behind them. I've said for years that as weird as it sounds, gamers drive the market. Not many people use computers at home or school for productive uses, most people use them for playing games. The most popular "applications" on my own computer are probably Firefox and City of Heros. Firefox already runs on a zillion platforms. If City of Heroes ran on Linux, I would probably go ahead to switch to a Linux-only system, if for no other reason than it's free and I don't have to buy a new version every few years.
Once everyone is using an alternative OS (not necessarily Linux, but something other than Windows) at home for games, then they will all want to use it at work and school for productivity and educational applications, and that familiarity will drive more and more companies and schools to switch desktops.
But that's just my wild speculation...
Next question the does not involve endless futile /. speculation please.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Sure, you type in some stuff, and get something that LOOKS highly relevant. How do you know?
Google may be following the typical path, which is generally attributed to the growth of a company. The difference that I see between a company like google and Microsoft is that google generally does an awesome job on virtually everything they release(which, by the way, is all free.) G-mail is hands down the best e-mail service I've ever used, and although I haven't used the new IMing service, I hear that it's very streamlined. I like google. They give me what i need to surf the web efficiently. As long as they don't become bent on world domination like Microsoft, I don't see why them getting bigger would be a problem. In my eyes, it means more resources with which to provide us with better services.
These articles are like monthly soap operas. What will happen next? Google gets pregnant? lame.
I used to love Google, but not anymore. Don't ask why, but reading Google-related stories on slashdot every few hours is one of the reasons.
This has led me to come up with the seeds of a compelling plan that will bring down Google. It involves making search engines respect privacy and copyright, by law.
Search engines like Google enable people to compile information from different sources about the same thing. So while one website might not provide enough information about some John Smith, using search engines it is very easy to find out a lot more about that person. And without the consent of that person. This compiled information could be harmful to that person in various ways. CNET was recently shunned by Google because one of it's reporters "googled" Google's CEO and found out some stuff about him. Google didn't like that. I don't like it either when someone else is able to "google me". I'm sure you don't like that as well, after all, it could be a potential employer, spouse, scammer, stalker, etc. who could be "googling" you.
I am sure most people and entities (companies, government, etc.) would not like to be "googled" because of various reasons. It could be about national security, competitive reasons, personal well-being, etc. They should be able to "opt-out" of internet searches.
This is what a proposed "Do-Not-Search" law would look like: There would be a national do-not-search registry which the search engines would have to check against before returning the results of each search. All items in the do-not-search registry would have to be excluded from the search results. If the search engine doesn't do that, then there would be penalties associated with it.
A person or entity, upon presenting some valid credentials, could add some terms to the do-not-search registry. For example, John Smith can exclude himself from being searched. Only problem is, how to ensure other John Smiths are not excluded as well ? This is a 'bug', and will be sorted out soon.
This is a work in progress, and only began a couple of days ago when all the hoopla surrounding Google Talk reached its height. Your comments/opinions on this would be helpful as well.
Google needs to be tamed because it is a threat to many of us. I am sure some lawmaker in the US, Canada or Europe would grab on to this and then it will begin. The stock price would tank and the searches would become increasingly complex, time-consuming and irrelevant as the do-not-search registry grows. That would be the end of Google as we know it, and we would have saved slashdot and ourselves.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Working. What are YOU doing, Cringely?
He's working. As a journalist and columnist, it's his JOB to write stuff.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
yeah thats a good idea, a free Google killer.
having to pay to search on Google is a real bummer... oh wait!
While I do think their search algorithm is slowly getting hacked and more link farms are popping up, it seems obvious the plays they are making:
personal location based services.
Repeat after me...
personal location based services.
Google Maps, the other purchases, google weather and tracking. All this stuff feeds into some sort of local play for the cell-phone/gps space. Maybe car nav systems as well. Ubiquity.
There is still a lot of things that can be done with information for management if they want to. They could create a directory system similar to Yahoo. They could let you further customize the news and other stuff you receive.
- As a webmaster, I don't want to rely on Google for 80% of my traffic. I'd like to be able to count on each of three search engines for about 30% of my traffic. Google has been known to throw sites out of their index accidentally.
- As a user, I feel that Google knows too much about me already. They have a ton of information about what I search for. With gmail, they have a list of who I know, with maps they have a list of places I go, with froogle they have a list of what I buy.
I would prefer that some of the other players in search got their act together and improved to the point to be able to challenge Google. I'd prefer if some of the other maps, email, and shopping sites got their act together and became as good as Google.Its hard to hate a company that usually has the far superior product, but Google is getting huge and a little scary.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Self-important yutz with a worthless blog noone reads replies to self-important yutz with a worthless blog noone reads.
TAKE IT TO YOUR BLOGS, BLOGGERS.
He started out ok, made a few interesting at least observations about Google behaviour of late. But then with a lot of handwaving and not a lot of reasoning dismisses them as has beens so he can go on yet another tired rant about how Apple is going to rise from insignificance and crush it's enemies.
Didn't we all get tired of hearing this same song from the Amigans, how any day now _insert company who owns em today_ is going to come back with something wonderful and all the infidels on PCs and Macs will be wailing and gnashing their teeth?
Apple is a bit player now, will remain a bit player after Intel. In fact, after they perform this one last act for Mr. Gates (get TCPA into mainstream use, something Gates was rightly pilloried for trying under the Palladium name) I'd expect the coup de grace to finally be administered.
But leave off the last part of that collumn and it does raise an interesting question. Where does Google want to be in ten years?
Democrat delenda est
You know, this guy who makes a living by getting his name in the press is completely, objectively correct. There's nothing Google can do with the FOUR BILLION dollars they raised in a (small) stock sale.
There's nothing left to invent in the world. There's nothing more we want from computing. There are no more improvements possible. Rampant spam, spyware, crummy messaging protocols like email and primitive IM are all that we want. We don't need access to more information in other dimensions of our lives, and all the Ph.D.s in the world are not going to find ways to improve our lives through computing.
Google, if you're listening, please understand: there are no more efficiencies possible in human society, at least through information management. The annual improvement of efficiencies of 4-10% per year noted by macro economists is all smoke screen. Stop making maps, phone-related lookup services, and archives of all the world's libraries. We simply don't want this information, or need it. Please stop trying. K THXS.
Sincerely, B. Gates
I have only one comment on this: BWA-HA-HA-HA!
But it'll never happen.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Maybe Google has peaked, or maybe they're just in a bit of a valley right now (see the underwhelming debuts of GTalk and GDS 2). I can give that to Cringely. But Apple giving away copies of OS X?? Even old copies, especially old copies? That's insane. If they really wanted more market share Apple could just preload porn on all new video iPods.
Everybody is rooting for brilliant convergence, but Google is a such a mess nowadays, it's just not going to happen.
Google Video is a ratty service, even for a beta, I've regretted the time I spent uploading content. No way it's going to shine.
Google Talk is a callback to 1995.
Picasa and Hello are glued messily together, and posting from Hello is flaky.
There's a bushel of great services too, but the whole Google concept is just all over the place.
Now is the winter of our disco tent
This has to be a new low. "I don't know what Google are doing, so I'll write about how I don't know what Google are doing!"
I thought this "OS X on generic Intel boxes" thing had been done to death? How are Apple going to solve the driver problem? Giving away a free older version that doesn't work with half your hardware is going to make a negative impression, not a positive one.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
That's why they're busily copying every "portal" feature from their superior competitor
They're pretty slow off the mark then. Yahoo had the "X-Cam Pop-Under ad" feature years back, and Google *still* haven't implemented it.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
What if Google's plan is to actually deliver on the 1990s promise of a "Web Desktop", one app at a time? They're doing it 1990s "spiral development" style, rolling out one complete feature at a time. Amassing the best (or #2 behind Apple) brand in the world, with a "Google feel" of simplicity, immediacy, and nonintrusion. When they lay a layer of association across their related apps, so their Earth model is related not only to your searches (including history of clicks) but also to your contacts and purchases, presenting your online life to you seamlessly wherever you "hit the Web", they'll have endrun Microsoft and everyone else in the "computer business". All those other companies will be merely component suppliers, and the customer relationship will belong to Google. Which is where every seller wants to be - so all those other vendors will have to go through Google to get to the customer. Without all the "evil" baggage of Microsoft, or "complicated" baggage of AOL. Of course, Google won't be able to totally monopolize that relationship, nor hold it forever without challenge. But they will be in the catbird seat for long enough to have all the advantages of perpetuating their power that incumbent market dominators get. It remains to be seen just how benevolent, and benign, is their ruling of that roost - if they achieve it.
--
make install -not war
... because even the most virulent (ahem) MS-loathers have to be aware that they're sounding a little stale these days. The sheer drama of a once-romantic company like Google making the transition from dewey-cheeked lass to, well, a grown-up company will fuel slashdot rants for years. This is mostly due to the dislike, on the part of so many users here, of the realities of what it takes to be a large, publicly-held, growing tech company (i.e., make money for the people who invested so much cash, solidify the brand, beat or absorb competition, and show that you have what it will take to continue to grow indefinately). The real drama comes from Google's original "no evil" clause, coupled with the completely rudderless definition of "evil" as used by slashdotters. Thus will Google simply become a canvas on which to paint every argument about capitalism, openess, income disparity, regulation, monopolism, liberalism, conservatism, and operating system religions.
It's not so much the fun we'll have watching certain G-accolytes feeling betrayed. It's the fun we'll have watching so many people realize they've simply been projecting their own notions onto a company that's now so large and visible that the disconnect will be obvious, even to those addled enough to have thought that there could be something that big, "free," and still beyond the reach of normal economic realities. We're not seeing Google "peak," we're seeing the Google fanboy fantasy peak. I use their tools dozens of times every day. As a surfer, as a consultant, as a merchant, as a consumer, as a driver, as a communicator... but for some reason, as much as I'm impressed with pretty much everything they do, I've not ever quite heard the siren song that so many others seem to hear. I'm always impressed, but not so much seduced. Perhaps it's because I don't have the abiding hatred for Google's competition found in so many others - that makes the whole issue less emotional, I think.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
hey fucktard, robots.txt
Much like Digital they only employ people who "get it" when it comes to technology and real innovation. Theire chosen back end OS? Linux. Wise choice especially on the technical end. Unfortunately, there are some people who think that technology should exist for business and that's when things go sour. That's what happened to Digital. They were run by some of the most brilliant engineers, but they hhad to compete against other companies run by suits who only care about making money and not advancing technology or society. Most of the time techs can't beat suits at business. Let's hope this isn't the case with Google. I really like seeing companies that are more focussed on moving technology forward and less focussed on insane profit. (Yeah, I know they make a lot of money from ads, but they apparently aren't totally focussed on it because they've been coming out with the most innovative stuff due to their sole focus on the advancement and innovation with technology.)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Followed by some defensive fudging to link the "hardcore search" mantra with the current portalization of google. Interesting note at the page bottom:
What the recent NCSA study showed, contrary to the slashdot interpretation, is that Google remains very vulnerable to keyword spammers, while Yahoo is quite good at muting them.
Google is no longer a clear-cut leader in search, and they are branching out to the full spectrum of portal services. And it's not clear that they will succeed in these new areas.
I'm very grateful to Google for increasing the demand for engineers, pressuring other companies to ramp up engineering and prioritize innovation, and teaching the world that giant flashing gifs and paid placement listings were not the way to go. And Google Maps shows that Google is still capable of giant leaps forward.
I'm puzzled, however, by the level of Google fanboyism on slashdot. I guess a lot of you were "imprinted" by Google back in the Dark Ages of search when nothing else worked right, and cannot see them objectively.
What if search and PageRank and AdSense are Google's corporate apex.
That's probably true, but it's completely irrelevant. There are still countless areas in which they can APPLY PageRank and AdSense.
The other reason the Intel move hurts Microsoft is less subtle. By switching to Intel, Apple hurts development on the new Xbox360. Right now development is done on Apple G5s probably because of the similiarity in chip architectures. By moving away from PowerPC, Apple makes it harder for game companies to develop. Sure developers could probably use something else like Intel emulating PowerPC or an IBM PowerPC machine. But the later is very expensive ($5K a piece) and the former doesn't provide for real-world simulations.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The big draw of OS X, and one of the big reasons why it rocks and Windows sucks, is compatibility. Getting device drivers to work, and to work well with each other, is the biggest nightmare to stability and ease of use ever invented.
I can't imagine that these people who continually suggest that Apple get OS X working on commodity Intel boxes have ever really used Macs. Apple doesn't sell a computer--they sell a user experience. Seriously. From the moment you plug the computer in, you're in a little Apple dream world, full of eye candy and "everything works" and stuff that's easy to use. Do you think replicating that experience on commodity Intel boxes is easy, much less even possible? Do you think that Apple would want to risk their image on such an outrageous gamble? Not a chance.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
I've seen a couple of projects on the net trying to achieve this. The obstacle always seems to be speed: Distributed P2P searching won't give near instantaneous answers like Google and Yahoo does.
But the idea is intriguing. What I've been thinking is that if something like that should be made, it should be done as a part of Firefox. Every page you visit could be indexed by Firefox. Not any other pages. There's not a crawler involved, because you're the crawler: Your surfing habits decides which pages are indexed and which are not.
Now think about BitTorrent: The more people sharing the same file, the faster you can download it. Imagine if the same applied to your distributed search engine: Often and much visited pages would have a high distribution, and would therefore "be more searchable" and therefore automatically be ranked highly.
With this you'd get a search engine where pages could be ranked according to popularity and freshness in a way that ordinary search engines cannot do. It would be a kind of social bookmarking service for search.
I think it's clear that Google Labs will be what Bell Labs was 30 years ago. Trust me, we haven't even seen a fraction of what they are currently working on. You can doubt what they are doing all you like, it doesn't change the fact that they are packed with talent. Perhaps they will not be as hugely profitable as they have been with AdSense, Bell Labs never made great profits, but I have no doubt they will be the most innovative place on the planet for the next 10 years.
Robert X. Cringely confirms: Google is dying!
You can't handle the truth.
The saying "games drive the market" really is about the rapid upgrade cycle of the home user. Its a great way for intel, nvidia, and the rest to say "See, thats why you need this new chip. You cant play this game!" Its the old keeping up with the jonses strategy and it works.
Back in the day, Apple thought it could get OS dominance by giving away machines to schools and selling pricey GUI driven machines to business. Well, it ends up that its very convienent for people to buy a computer that runs some of the stuff they run at work to do work at home. MS had a good start in the business world and it just translated into the home market.
Not to mention the x86 architecture was much more hacker friendly than Apple's offerings at the time. That's still true today.
Lastly, the game companies are developing in DirectX anyway so they seem to have drunk the kool-aid with the rest of the industry.
Or better, are they the same person? Has anyone seen them in the same place at the same time (and survived with enough sanity intact to report the fact? I didn't think so). But both of them seem to subsist on pompously worded pointless "conventional wisdom challeging."
Is "T" actually a vowel? What if paper money was edible? Is it already? Dispite what most city dwellers think, most of the worlds buildings are still only one story tall! And made-up words--are they really neologisms, or is everyone just crumulous?
Is this tabloid journalism for the neo-technoploobi, or something...more sinister.
Inquiring minds want it to STOP.
--MarkusQ
Why? Because he hates Microsoft and loves Apple. Both MS and Google have a shitload of money to invest and both have tons of stuff they can do with their money. But if Google really wants to take on both MS and Apple, and even Intel, I think I got an excellent suggestion for them.
In my opinion, Intel and the rest of the big processor vendors can only come up with so many incremental improvements before they bore the market to death. Microsoft is mired in buggy code that they'll never be able to fix. Apple is playing second fiddle in the market. So what comes next?
I suggest that Google starts working on the biggest problem facing the computer industry today: unreliable software. It's costing us billions of dollars and even human lives. Consider that the basic architecture of the processor has not changed in more than 150 years, when a guy named Babbage and his girlfriend Ada built their mechanical computer around the "table of instructions". All processor architectures have been based on and optimized for the algorithm ever since.
A truly innovative architecture would abandon the algorithmic model altogether and embrace a non-algorithmic, signal-based synchronous software model. It would not only revolutionize the computer industry, it would solve its nastiest problem: software unreliability.
But can we really expect the big guys (Intel, AMD, IBM, etc...) to be truly innovative at this stage of the game? Their approach is evolutionary, not revolutionary; and they are doing just fine as it is. They have no great incentive to change. Hopefully, a bright upstart will get the message and make a killing while the behemoths are busy fighting each other for market share. They won't know what hit them until it's too late. The message is simple: There is a solution to the software reliability crisis. The disadvantage is that it will require a radical change in both processor architecture and software construction methodology. The advantage is too good to ignore: 100% software reliability! Guaranteed!
This is the stuff that revolutions and great companies are made of. After a century and a half, I think it's time for a change. He who has an ear (and the venture capital) let him hear!
Probably because their HR department has rubbed a bunch of techies the wrong way. Having to wait 6+ months for a response (if you're lucky) on a _solicited_ resume, then being prompted to take phone tests _after_ you've landed a job that has better pay. That, coupled with the company's opacity, could understandably damage their reputation amongst the traditionally hypercommunicative hacker community and OSS folks. Good guys aren't supposed to be that secretive.
Also, word on the street is that the 20% of 'personal research' time is now essentially added onto a standard work week, thus driving the hours on the job up, which smacks of a growing sweatshopization (but which may also be a symptom of bad HR).
OTOH, of the folks I know there, all seem to be pretty happy, so it could all just be sour grapes and bullshit. Still, hubris is something to actively, constantly thwart.
The point is - It's not only you putting your own name on websites YOU control, it's everyone else who mentions your name on their website - Employers, friends, enemies, yellow or white pages, clubs and organizations you may belong to, forums, chatrooms, IRC logs, blogs, blog comments, guestbooks... The point is that restricting others' access to information about you is only possible to a certain degree. The best way to control it isn't to give your real name out on the internet if you don't have to and be aware of where your name is. Certain organizations publish member lists; if your name appears on a web-accessible membership list and you don't want it there the best way is to notify the webmaster of that site.
Personally, I don't think it's the hatred of other companies that drives Google fanboyism (I'm a fanboy myself, I'll admit it).
What makes it exciting for me is that they are the one company, at this point in time, that seems to have that innovative drive along with the resources to fund those ideas. I don't have Microsoft or Yahoo... they just appear to have lost their drive. They improve their products, but they always seem to be in lockstep behind Google. (Some examples: Yahoo releases Search. Google releases search plus Page Rank. Now Yahoo does their own version of Page Rank.)
What makes us nerds excited is true innovation. What makes us more excited is innovation that WORKS. Google seems to be committed to this vision. Who knows? Maybe they'll go the way of Yahoo when it transitioned from innovator to large, corporate company.
On a final note, I don't think people here are blindly devoted to Google. I think it's that western sort of competition that drives us to like the innovator, the little guy, the people who make it and keep it exciting. If Google becomes stale, if they become a more settled company with little innovation, then we will be looking for The Next Big Thing.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
He believes Microsoft's greatest threat may come from Apple, in that case I believe he may be living in the past, thinking companies of the past may pose the largest threats. What if people like him are wrong, and Google's mission and their web services is the model for many future IT companies, and the actual hardware you buy will start playing less of a role than it once used to? Even today, I notice myself buying brand new computer systems far less than before. Not even the games (and yes, it's modern games) require a new computer as often as they used to. More often than not, it's just about a new graphics card if anything at all, not about upgrading your 8 MB ram to 16 MB like you used to. You can often keep running with the 512 MB you bought four years ago.
And when it's about web services, it's their hardware that matters, not Apple's. It seems like the author is putting an awful lot of trust in that hardware markets will decide everything, in an age when web services become more and more complex.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Has Google peaked? What!? Who dared violate the Eleventh Commandment? Google is on its way to free WiFi for like, everyone, and taking over the freakin' world! Of course it hasn't peaked! Of course...it has now, thanks to t3h slashd0t effect.
Apple wouldn't make any money off those new users right away, but whatever percentage of them chose to keep using OS X would be candidates for buying an upgrade somewhere down the line, and perhaps even buying Apple hardware.
And I didn't see any suggestion anywhere that the IPod was suggested as the permanent storage - it could just as well be used just as install media.
The iPod suggestion was as a means to put OS X in the hands of Apple friendly Windows users to grow the base of OS X users. Putting out torrents might be a good idea for Apple too, but it would still require people to make a conscious decision to use a lot of time to download it as opposed to looking at a leaflet with their shiny new iPod and deciding to give it a spin and see what it's like.
perhaps i'm alone in feeling this way, but no company has a soul. none. any corporation in our capitalist economy has one goal: create a return for investors (or, make money).
what does this have to do with google? simple. a company like google saying 'do no evil' is the most banal meaningless and baseless statement ever, unless you've seen the shell ads talking about 'human power' and 'alternative fuels'. there's absolutely no reason for google to 'do no evil', there's no market share that's based on the ability for a company to be 'evil free'.
where does that leave us? my feeling, and i feel very strongly this way, is that google (although they won't admit it) collects and aggregates marketing data, hoards of marketing data. because of their policy towards 'do no evil', they fail to recycle most of this data, other than for their own adsense network. once this stock plateaus, whenever that happens, they'll annonce that they're releasing their marketing data, lay off all their phd's, and the board/heads of the company will be instant billionares (as if they weren't already, but that's the way it works, the collection of capital, more capital.)
to break it down:
1) collect marketing data
2) ipo
3) plateau
4) release marketing data
5) $
Greg Albrecht (gba@undef.net) * -0700 GMT/UTC
http://undef.net
Then perhaps "peaked" is the wrong word to toss around here.
The porn market, eh? Now THAT'S an industry in which Google has the potential to experience large growth, but the road ahead would be long and hard. Any thoughts at this point would be premature, don't you think?
But if they do manage to penetrate that market, they should give themselves a hand--job well done!
- Google's services are free
- The advertisements are not intrusive
- The search engine is very useful to me
- Gmail is simple to use and generous in terms of space
- The list goes on...
I don't care if their motto is "do no evil" or not. As long as I see and perceive no evil *AND* I like the service I'm getting, I see no reason to hate them.I'm not going to blindly follow some faceless comment or story telling me to think Google is evil *or* good. I make up my own damn mind!
If you can't mod them join them.