Slashdot Asks: Which Tech Giant You Can't Live Without?

In this week's column of NYTimes, Farhad Manjoo writes about the five largest technology companies in the world: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet, the parent company of Google. As he notes, these companies have become the most powerful firms of any kind, essentially inescapable for any consumer or business that wants to participate in the modern world. This brings us to two questions:
1. Of the five aforementioned companies, tell us one whose services you don't need for work and for personal use. (In short, the company that doesn't matter to you.) Here's a poll where you can cast your vote.
2. On the same note, which company's services and products you can't ditch (for work / personal use)?

Comments

Alphabet

[McGruber]

I've never owned any Apple products, avoid buying from Amazon, think Facebook is a huge waste of time, and got rid of my last Windows (W2K) computer a few years back.

But my Android phone is indispensable and I find that duckduckgo's search results aren't as good as google's results.

Re:None of them.

[cayenne8]

You know...I lived a good portion of my life before any of these companies existed.

Ok, I guess I heard of Apple in my teens, but they weren't the behemoth they are now and didn't have that much influence on society.

But seriously, I grew up in a city, with a family, friends, and normal life....without any of these companies and I can tell you, I never felt back then my life was lacking in any form.

Today?

Well, I do appreciate and use the resources of many of these companies...but I do find that some of them also creep me out with the data mining and surveillance they have on my and everyones' lives.

I find that FB and other social media, while being helpful in so many ways, is also seeming to increase the divisiveness in society, especially in the US. I know there are underlying problems, but I think FB and other social media are compounding these problems.

Google has some great stuff, but I very much dislike their data gathering on me, my life and preferences.

So, I could (and have) lived without any of these companies.....and did just fine.

I don't use FB, never have...so, no loss there. I could probably get by without Google, but the one thing I'd miss is YouTube.

I do use Amazon a lot, it's my primary purchase destination, but ever since they started collecting tax a couple months ago on their direct sales to my state, I've been using them less. If they clamp down on the 3rd party sellers on Amazon and make THEM also start collecting tax, I'll likely drop using them as often. Might as well buy local at that point.

So, I guess my answer to the question is "Meh"....I've lived without them before and life was just fine.