I think it's common for people to romanticize about the possibility that a "free market" could actually exist, but beyond the econ 101 textbook there is the real world and judging by our history humans usually seem to "cry foul" when the invisible hand threatens their security and call for socially-motivated programs (like the new deal) to help protect them from the market deciding that certain people have lower value to the marketplace than they themselves are prepared to accept.
The free market is a nice dream that might even work quite well if it didn't have human psychology to contend with, which seems to demand that once we organize ourselves in to a group called society, that it is "civilized" and "decent" to offer protection to those who once contributed to the market and were later tossed out either because they couldn't adapt or support themselves.
That is not to say that I support price controls or antitrust laws, or even don't support the (always failing) social security program. I'm actually pretty neutral on economic matters provided I have the freedom to make my own financial decisions and the money in the bank to take care of myself when the market shifts. I only comment because I often hear people spout off about Adam Smith, and when I do it often sounds quite naive given the broad spectrum of market forces competing with the invisible hand.
But even if they don't really pull it off, and they just end up being a slightly-above-average provider with slightly-less annoying service, I'm sure the public will continue to feel warm and fuzzy about Google because it seems that they've reached the much sought after "we can do no wrong" status.
Maybe that's because they've led a good company and provide excellent products. Or maybe it's because even if Google does invade our privacy and uses our information to make massive profits without continually improving the quality of their products, that nobody is going to publicize any massive backlash against them because the people who would have the most to lose by Google falling out of favor.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but Google has been creeping me out lately. That and the fact that I'm growing increasingly discontent with the quality of their services.
Yeah but...
I'm not a huge fan of Google either, amazing technologies or not.
First of all, their technologies aren't as effective in today's internet world as they were when they first started -- I'm spending more and more time weeding through meaningless results for things and my queries have only gotten more specific so I'd expect pretty accurate matches -- so I would say they should focus on quality and not quantity. In other words, make your search better. I'd love to take their advice and share their ideas about several ways they could do this, but they're cutesy little "help us improve" link they have takes me to a list of jobs that I'm not qualified for because I don't have a CS degree, relegating me to gripe about their problems in some Slashdot forum instead.
Secondly, Google wants us to buy into the fact that even though they have the ability to abuse our information, that they won't because they adhere to some kind of moral principal. If that was really the case it seems they wouldn't store your search history indefinitely. They don't really need more than some simple information to effectively target ads to you, in other words they could purge your searches and retain only what they need to to target ads. But they don't. Even Microsoft and Yahoo purge their search histories more frequently. From what I understand, Google reserves the right to use this information to "profile" its users in the future. To paraphrase something I heard once from someone who works at EFF.org, your Google history is the closest thing in the digital world to what's in your brain.
Google makes money off selling targeted ads. They are very good at it, look at their stock. This is how they can also try to pull off a bid on a part of a wireless spectrum valued as highly as $10 Billion. But each one of those dollars was made by showing you, albeit only slightly annoying, ads in response to your search queries. The difference between Google and bulk spammers is that Google actually provides a useful service. But as the quality of their search results deteriorates, hopefully the world will realize that they've spread themselves too thin and either force them to improve, or move onto someone else.
Long live creative destruction. Google, I'll keep using your service if it's good. But if it starts to suck, I'll move on.
If Spam was a gourmet product I could understand Hormel making a case that emails of suspcious quality or content have nothing in common with Spam, the food. However, we all know that the source of the content for either Spam, the email, and Spam, the food is equally as questionable.
I think Hormel should be happy about all the free advertising. Spam has become a household name again, returning us to simpler times when people just didn't question the origin of things. Come on Hormel, you're not peddling beluga. Take pride in the fact that you've made millions from peddling random meat scraps and move on.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's common for people to romanticize about the possibility that a "free market" could actually exist, but beyond the econ 101 textbook there is the real world and judging by our history humans usually seem to "cry foul" when the invisible hand threatens their security and call for socially-motivated programs (like the new deal) to help protect them from the market deciding that certain people have lower value to the marketplace than they themselves are prepared to accept.
The free market is a nice dream that might even work quite well if it didn't have human psychology to contend with, which seems to demand that once we organize ourselves in to a group called society, that it is "civilized" and "decent" to offer protection to those who once contributed to the market and were later tossed out either because they couldn't adapt or support themselves.
That is not to say that I support price controls or antitrust laws, or even don't support the (always failing) social security program. I'm actually pretty neutral on economic matters provided I have the freedom to make my own financial decisions and the money in the bank to take care of myself when the market shifts. I only comment because I often hear people spout off about Adam Smith, and when I do it often sounds quite naive given the broad spectrum of market forces competing with the invisible hand.
Well, you're right about one thing. At least you can choose whether or not to buy Spam, the ?meat?.
But even if they don't really pull it off, and they just end up being a slightly-above-average provider with slightly-less annoying service, I'm sure the public will continue to feel warm and fuzzy about Google because it seems that they've reached the much sought after "we can do no wrong" status. Maybe that's because they've led a good company and provide excellent products. Or maybe it's because even if Google does invade our privacy and uses our information to make massive profits without continually improving the quality of their products, that nobody is going to publicize any massive backlash against them because the people who would have the most to lose by Google falling out of favor. I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but Google has been creeping me out lately. That and the fact that I'm growing increasingly discontent with the quality of their services.
Yeah but... I'm not a huge fan of Google either, amazing technologies or not. First of all, their technologies aren't as effective in today's internet world as they were when they first started -- I'm spending more and more time weeding through meaningless results for things and my queries have only gotten more specific so I'd expect pretty accurate matches -- so I would say they should focus on quality and not quantity. In other words, make your search better. I'd love to take their advice and share their ideas about several ways they could do this, but they're cutesy little "help us improve" link they have takes me to a list of jobs that I'm not qualified for because I don't have a CS degree, relegating me to gripe about their problems in some Slashdot forum instead. Secondly, Google wants us to buy into the fact that even though they have the ability to abuse our information, that they won't because they adhere to some kind of moral principal. If that was really the case it seems they wouldn't store your search history indefinitely. They don't really need more than some simple information to effectively target ads to you, in other words they could purge your searches and retain only what they need to to target ads. But they don't. Even Microsoft and Yahoo purge their search histories more frequently. From what I understand, Google reserves the right to use this information to "profile" its users in the future. To paraphrase something I heard once from someone who works at EFF.org, your Google history is the closest thing in the digital world to what's in your brain. Google makes money off selling targeted ads. They are very good at it, look at their stock. This is how they can also try to pull off a bid on a part of a wireless spectrum valued as highly as $10 Billion. But each one of those dollars was made by showing you, albeit only slightly annoying, ads in response to your search queries. The difference between Google and bulk spammers is that Google actually provides a useful service. But as the quality of their search results deteriorates, hopefully the world will realize that they've spread themselves too thin and either force them to improve, or move onto someone else. Long live creative destruction. Google, I'll keep using your service if it's good. But if it starts to suck, I'll move on.
If Spam was a gourmet product I could understand Hormel making a case that emails of suspcious quality or content have nothing in common with Spam, the food. However, we all know that the source of the content for either Spam, the email, and Spam, the food is equally as questionable. I think Hormel should be happy about all the free advertising. Spam has become a household name again, returning us to simpler times when people just didn't question the origin of things. Come on Hormel, you're not peddling beluga. Take pride in the fact that you've made millions from peddling random meat scraps and move on.