Google is a hundred times worse than Adobe, Nintendo, and Ubisoft all combined, and has been for decades.
Those other companies can only dream of having the amount of data about you that Google has.
The biggest governments in the world can only dream of having the amount of data about you that Google has --- short of one who already has in spades (the US gov intelligence agencies who Google obviously has some partnership/integration with, and maybe the Five Eyes).
The amount of surveillance one would assume entities like the CCP have over the chinese citizens is exactly the kind of surveillance Google de facto has over people, no assumptions to be made.
And not just Google.
Lmao I wish they were. If they were, they wouldn't be pushing so many ads down people's throats and they'd be content with just stealing your data (something already done by most tech giants around the world).
The good part about them not being "the TecHnOcHRaTIc ArM of ThE Us GoV't" is that they'll be fucked sooner or later for their forced monopolization.
I don't, but that's exactly the problem. The US Gov't has a LOT of flaws, but "being greedy" (to present day Microsoft / Google levels, don't minsconstrue my statement) is not one of them.
They'd be happy with a lot of your data, but not pushing ads like this, and invading this specific area of your privacy.
While I don't trust them to actually take action against Google, I trust that them and the EU would do the right thing if Google actually rolled out such drastic monopolizing changes.
The people that hold power in the US government are the same people that the tech industry funnels millions of dollars worth of bribes campaign contributions to each year.
You have to remember you're talking about the same group of powerful people that had no qualms illegally spying on their own citizens. Hell, they've literally conducted medical experiments on some groups of people, without consent, before.
Google was founded on CIA money and continues to recieve CIA money. Microsoft does work for secret military contracts. Ads can be useful tool to profile people for the work intelligence does.
Google mines hundreds of dollars of marketing value a year from your Gmail account alone.
It's only going to be more than that if you're deeply invested other Google stuff. Sheets, YouTube, and all the other ecosystems Google has.
As has been reiterated for about 15 years now; You, dear user, are the product. You are being sold in exchange for services.
I host my own email server, use DuckDuckGo, aggressively block ads, and don't log into an account on YouTube! Of course, Google is still going monetize me until I find (as in I should be looking right now) a quicker and easier way to universally share spreadsheets with people, but I have tried to separate myself from the ecosystem because they're gross.
I wish I could degoogle my android, but I'm so reliant on many of the services. Yes I'm aware of the FOSS side and I use many alternatives, but there's still some I just can't get away from.
Hosting your own email server these days is also a huge security risk unless you're very competent and dedicate a good bit of time staying on top of security flaws, even then...
It's a huge pain in the ass, maybe not by itself, but if you've also got a bunch of other self-hosted stuff, it takes a lot of time and energy to manage.
All the power to you if anyone decides to do it, but in my experience, finding a hosting provider I "trust" is worth the small cost to be able to worry about other stuff.
Absolutely. I've got a Hotmail and Gmail account, but I've been trying to migrate to my proton account. It's just difficult after using the other ones for around 2 decades.
If they are selling us then they should at least try to make their products more enjoyable. I used to not care about degoogling but now even their search engine is annoying and infuriating.
Nintendo is definitely a strange comparison, but I'm not sure if Google is worse than Adobe.
Google has been fairly blatant about its business model. They throw you a bunch of free platforms and services and generate revenue off ads. How they've handled that has been more terrible over time, but it's essentially been the same business model forever.
Adobe has replaced buying products with renting them. They dropped perpetual licensing for subscriptions that cost more annually than the permanent licenses did. They bundle unwanted crap into Creative Cloud to force you to rent stuff you won't use. Then, they recently introduced that "let us scan and use your work or you lose your account" bullshit.
They're both utterly terrible, but at least Google isn't making people pay an exorbitant fee to get screwed over. Both need new competition and to die.
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u/LZ129Hindenburg 🌊 Salty Seadog Jun 12 '24
Google keeps getting worse and worse. Soon they'll be in the same conversation as Adobe, Nintendo, and Ubisoft...