At this point, I think Google should have more worries about antitrust. Google is very aggressive about bundling G+ with everything. I didn't want to get on it, but I was on gmail, Youtube, and a few of their other products, and they stopped working well without it. Once I was on it, there is huge social pressure to use it.
Google Chat, I didn't want, but it was integrated into gmail. Suddenly, I'd have chats from friends pop up as I was working. I presume there's some way to unbundle, but at this point, it's too late.
List keeps going. Google is crushing competitors not by building better products, but by using search to steer them there, and the rest of their chain to force users into them.
Google's motto seems to have changed from indexing and organizing the world's information to hoarding, organizing, and locking down the world's information.
Like Microsoft, they're also getting less and less competent. 6 years ago, their software was phenomenal. Today, it's kind of below average -- they've had a huge brain drain to startups, Facebook, and other places (except for Google X, which seems to be poaching quite well).
It's not as bad as Microsoft in it's prime, but it's getting there. I think in a year or two, they'll actually be worse.
This is kind of a silly comment. Google is only crushing competitors where their services are actually superior. Dropbox still exists and I assume has many more users than Drive. Facebook still exists and is still by far the most successful social network. And even in an area where they were pretty much the first in the field, Maps, there is new competition from Open Street Map. These are just some examples.
People who really don't like Plus and its integration into everything seem to keep using it as some kind of example of Google using monopoly power to force it and its other services to market domination. This just doesn't seem to me to be how it's working. And it completely ignores the fact that all it's actually quite useful to the majority of users, the ones who don't for whatever reason have a problem with it.
> Google Chat, I didn't want, but it was integrated into gmail. Suddenly, I'd have chats from friends pop up as I was working. I presume there's some way to unbundle, but at this point, it's too late.
What does this even mean? Just set yourself to invisible or sign out, and don't go back.
Your "locking down the world's information" comment doesn't seem to make much sense either considering Google is one of the few (if only?) companies to have a data liberation teem, with the explicit goal of making all of your information exportable from Google.
And finally, to call Google's software in general "below average" is just weird. Think about it. Really. It's a weird statement. Their software is better and does more than it did 6 years ago, but has somehow gone from amazing to below average.
IMO Google still isn't anywhere near what Microsoft is. It has quite a long way to fall, if it does.
They may not be guilty of any of these accusations but they are probably better off taking measures to be as transparent as possible rather than continuously defending themselves...
Google Chat, I didn't want, but it was integrated into gmail. Suddenly, I'd have chats from friends pop up as I was working. I presume there's some way to unbundle, but at this point, it's too late.
List keeps going. Google is crushing competitors not by building better products, but by using search to steer them there, and the rest of their chain to force users into them.
Google's motto seems to have changed from indexing and organizing the world's information to hoarding, organizing, and locking down the world's information.
Like Microsoft, they're also getting less and less competent. 6 years ago, their software was phenomenal. Today, it's kind of below average -- they've had a huge brain drain to startups, Facebook, and other places (except for Google X, which seems to be poaching quite well).
It's not as bad as Microsoft in it's prime, but it's getting there. I think in a year or two, they'll actually be worse.