'Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead' (secondbreakfast.co) 130
An anonymous reader shares a column: Back when there were rumors of Google building an operating system, I thought "Lol." Then I watched then-PM Sundar Pichai announce Chrome OS. My heart raced. It was perfect. I got my email through Gmail, I wrote documents on Docs, I listened to Pandora, I viewed photos on TheFacebook. Why did I need all of Windows Vista? In 2010, I predicted that by 2020 Chrome OS would be the most popular desktop OS in the world. It was fast, lightweight, and $0. "Every Windows and OS X app will be re-built for the browser!" I thought. Outlook > Gmail. Excel > Sheets. Finder > Dropbox. Photoshop > Figma. Terminal > Repl.it. All of your files would be accessible by whoever you wanted, wherever you wanted, all the time. It was obvious. Revolutionary. I haven't installed MSFT Office on a machine since 2009. Sheets and Docs have been good enough for me. The theoretical unlimited computing power and collaboration features meant Google Docs was better than Office (and free!). Then something happened at Google. I'm not sure what. But they stopped innovating on cloud software.
Docs and Sheets haven't changed in a decade. Google Drive remains impossible to navigate. Sharing is complicated. Sheets freezes up. I can't easily interact with a Sheets API (I've tried!). Docs still shows page breaks by default! WTF! Even though I have an iPhone and a MacBook, I've been married to Google services. I browse Chrome. I use Gmail. I get directions and lookup restaurants on Maps. I'm a YouTube addict. Yet I've been ungluing myself from Google so far this year. Not because of Google-is-reading-my-emails-and-tracking-every-keystroke reasons, but because I like other software so much more that it's worth switching. At WWDC, Apple shared Safari stats for macOS Big Sur. It reminded me how much Chrome makes my machine go WHURRRRRR. [...] I've given up on Google Docs. I can never find the documents Andy shares with me. The formatting is tired and stuck in the you-might-print-this-out paradigm. Notion is a much better place to write and brainstorm with people. The mobile Google results page is so cluttered that I switched my iPhone's default search to DuckDuckGo. The results are a tad worse, but I'm never doing heavy-duty searches on the go. And now I don't have to scroll past 6 ads to get the first result. DuckDuckGo's privacy is an added bonus.
Docs and Sheets haven't changed in a decade. Google Drive remains impossible to navigate. Sharing is complicated. Sheets freezes up. I can't easily interact with a Sheets API (I've tried!). Docs still shows page breaks by default! WTF! Even though I have an iPhone and a MacBook, I've been married to Google services. I browse Chrome. I use Gmail. I get directions and lookup restaurants on Maps. I'm a YouTube addict. Yet I've been ungluing myself from Google so far this year. Not because of Google-is-reading-my-emails-and-tracking-every-keystroke reasons, but because I like other software so much more that it's worth switching. At WWDC, Apple shared Safari stats for macOS Big Sur. It reminded me how much Chrome makes my machine go WHURRRRRR. [...] I've given up on Google Docs. I can never find the documents Andy shares with me. The formatting is tired and stuck in the you-might-print-this-out paradigm. Notion is a much better place to write and brainstorm with people. The mobile Google results page is so cluttered that I switched my iPhone's default search to DuckDuckGo. The results are a tad worse, but I'm never doing heavy-duty searches on the go. And now I don't have to scroll past 6 ads to get the first result. DuckDuckGo's privacy is an added bonus.
Married? (Score:2)
Even though I have an iPhone and a MacBook, I've been married to Google services
Yes, the most abusive privacy rapists [urbandictionary.com] will do that to you.
Re: Married? (Score:2)
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Raping implies consent. You consent when you sign up or use services. I think itâ(TM)s a terrible business model, but rape, it is not.
Hmm, yes, that totally explains zero results for this query [google.com].
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Uh, no it doesn't.
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I *SO* mis-read the headline (Score:5, Funny)
I thought it said "Google blows a 10-year load"
Other priorities (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Other priorities (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Other priorities (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple typical psychopathic corporate policy. Do go for your customers to win them over. Once you have dominance in the market, exploit the fuck out of those dumb cunts that is what customers are for, mwa hah hah. And yes, they do laugh at their customers when they rip them off and exploit them, they blame their customers for being gullible morons who deserve to be cheated.
Google got search dominance and are seeking to profitise all their customers to the maximum extent possible, unlimited profits, unlimited power, all you are seeing is typical psychopathy on full public display.
Duckduckgo searches are way better than google ones, googles one have been tainted now, prioritising major corporate and advertisers over everyone else, news searches are entirely pointless on google, it's more like a corporate propaganda search.
The only thing left to use Google for is maps and some youtube but not much youtube it is just getting more and more psychopathic mass consumerism, eat more, burn more, waste more (this from a supposedly green company, well, at least it's fucking marketing).
Re:Other priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is too busy leading the world in social justice to worry about software.
If you believe that you'll believe anything. Google is leading the world in delivering advertising. Their current platforms like Gmail and drive are sufficient to allow them to deliver that advertising. It's a perfect mirror if Microsoft with Internet Explorer 6 - they had completed their aim (destroying Netscape) why would they care about their users?
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Because IE6 was the last time Microsoft dominated the browser market and it's been trying to claw it's way back ever since.
Re:Other priorities (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is obvious to everyone in hindsight, but MS sure didn't see it coming.
Same is true for any big company, they get big, they get comfortable, and they feel invincible. Then someone else comes along eats their lunch, and the big behemoth just can't pivot quickly enough to catch up again. Then the new company grows, gets big, gets comfortable, etc.
No big company remains efficient and competitive. It's just not possible to compete at that level when the vast majority of your workforce transitions from doing the work, to managing people who are managing other people, etc. The most efficient businesses are the smallest ones. The most innovative as well. That's not to say that big companies don't have barriers to entry, small companies can never win on advertising, or lobbying, or contract negotiations, etc. But they'll win on innovation and efficiency every time.
Internal politics (Score:3)
In large companies, the majority of interactions are internal. And the key to success in management is to be liked by other managers, which only has a weak link to being able to delivering.
Capitalism works because of Natural Selection. If there are several small companies competing in the same space, then only the efficient will survive. And the focus of the successful ones will be outwards, being efficient. But once a certain size is achieved, that focus blunts.
It is truly amazing the extent to which c
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That was my point. It's obvious to everyone now so why would Google ignore it?
I think people are misunderstanding the value proposition of Google Docs. It's a decent office suite, the interface stays consistent unlike Microsoft Office, and most importantly it ties in with all their other products and G Suite.
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That was my point. It's obvious to everyone now so why would Google ignore it?
Bad management structure and an lack of interest in their users who they don't see as their "customers" is my guess. There's always much more benefit for a manager or even a developer from working on something new and shiny whilst working on the old stuff isn't seen as glamorous. Google sustainedly ignores their users and doesn't care about their perception. Think of the situation where Google deletes some feature from an application or where there's some feature that's desperately needed. Normally there's
lol, wut? (Score:2)
Lemme see, issue public stock, form Alphabet reject notions of the founds (something about 'evil')... yep that's an American corporation now, expecting anything but a focus on generating revenue is just dreaming
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Re:lol, wut? (Score:4, Interesting)
Focusing on anything other than generating revenue, growth and profit is literally un-American for a company.
That's deeply inaccurate historically. What you describe has a name, "Shareholder Capitalism". It's a trend that began in the late 1970's with the arrival of the MBA sickness and still continues to this day, but it's way different from what American Capitalism used to be in the decades and centuries before. That earlier style, the genuine one, is now branded "Stakeholder Capitalism" to differentiate it from the new kid on the block, and it'd do boatloads of good for the US economy, and society, if it came back.
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Re:lol, wut? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are partially right. Yes, there are good reasons that stakeholder model lost to shareholder model. But at what cost? It has ruined the substrate on which it operates in a classic tragedy of commons. If you exploit shared resources it will always lead to a short term gain and indeed those who exploit commons will win over those that try to act sustainably. In the end though, the commons gets exhausted and everything suddenly crashes.
One of the commons is the labor pool. Companies stopped training workers and expect them to start job trained. They do mass layoffs when they run into temporary crisis, they either invest all money or return it to shareholders instead of maintaining healthy reserve to allow them to operate in lean times. They will pay starvation wages and refuse to pay extra in taxes to contribute to education of workers and social programs. They don't pay vacation time or sick leave, making workers absolutely exhausted. This tactics has drained the labor pool and shrunk the middle class.
Another commons is the health of the economy overall. Outsourcing to China and India created some short term profits, but we have lost nearly all the manufacturing that has kept the middle class healthy. We have created for many years trade deficit that contributed to budget deficits. The structure of our economy is not balanced and we are leaving large portions of the population in unemployable state. We have also neglected our infrastructure in the most terrible way since the 80s. All of this is due to the insane drives for profit, which turns into lobbying efforts for lower taxes, into storing profits overseas, etc.
I am not sure who wins in this scenario. But I would not call shareholder capitalism a win, more like a disease.
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The solution is well understood: judicious and well-planned government-led, taxpayer-sponsored job placement, retraining, unemployment insurance and occasionally housin
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Re: lol, wut? (Score:2)
That's fine for a lot of small players competing against each other with minimal startup costs, it's not good for the end user experience. Hence why every serious Android producer has it's own version of OS and it's own version of core applications which, although optimized for their system, further fractures the Android base.
I find the exact opposite; all of that "fracturing" doesn't optimize for anything. Manufacturers add bloat, clutter, and often confusing and annoying UI changes which provide negative value. For the last 5 smart phones I've had, the first thing I've always done is unlock the bootloader, wipe the phone, and install a more stock Android OS (LineageOS for the last 3 phones) with bare minimum google apps. I just bought a new phone to replace my current one, and I'll be doing the same thing with it. Personal
Revenue Generation Model (Score:5, Insightful)
Google doesn't make revolutionary stuff, as the author describes, for free. They do it to generate data that they can monetize. The problem with this business model is that "free" and "good enough" are sufficient to derive the desired data / revenues from it. It doesn't have to be amazeballs.
Google Drive Stream is crap on the Mac (for instance). It freezes up frequently, fights with spotlight, and is otherwise bug-ridden. And it's been like that for years. But it doesn't matter in the context of how it is monetized, so it doesn't get fixed.
In free and open source software we can fix this shit ourselves. This is why just being free is not enough and the "open" part is also essential.
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The issue with Google software being crap is that it's often just someone's 20% project and they abandon it. Google has people spend 20% of their time on any project they like, so someone makes a Google Drive sync tool for Mac and it gets released. They move on, it's not a priority like say Chrome, so it stagnates.
Yeah, pretty much (Score:5, Insightful)
Under the hood tech has improved a lot (Score:2)
Also, the voice recognition, language translation etc are way better.
Not much innovation in new user interfaces and applications that can take better advantage of the insanely-good AI though.
Re:Under the hood tech has improved a lot (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but no. I will grant that, if my search is very vague, the AI often does a good job finding something relevant. If my search is specific, search is terrible compared to what it used to be. You can't call it an improvement when you search for a word and up come results for synonyms of one of the connotations of the word, but not the word itself. Results have also become a popularity contest. Search for something from science or history or literature or mythology, etc. and, if there's some popular brand that uses that name or is related to it somehow, you get nothing on the first five pages of results but garbage about some sports team or product, etc. I suppose it's great if you don't know what you want, but if you do know what you want, it seems to be harder to find than it used to.
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The main thing that's changed to make it worse is probably just that there's a lot more crap out there now than there was in the 1997 web.
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"If my search is specific, search is terrible compared to what it used to be." Agreed, or at least that corresponds to my impression, based on my memory.
Let's see, what was I talking about. Oh, yeah: I used to put a '+' before a word I wanted an exact match too (usually some technical term). Google in its wisdom stopped paying attention to that. They say that quoting something has the same effect, but in my experience it does not. And here I don't need to rely on my memory, it bites me frequently.
Re: Under the hood tech has improved a lot (Score:2)
Google searches are dramatically worse than they were 5 years ago. So many people know how to game their results, and just regurgitate contents from other sites, itâ(TM)s impossible to find anything in Google. Even companies have to buy keyword ads for their own company names for Google to even put their site on the first page when you search specifically for that company. Of course, since that earns Google revenue, there is absolutely no incentive to improve it.
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What about their Loon service [engadget.com]? I can't imagine the MBAs are looking at this in terms of a hard next-quarter profit.
SJWs, not MBAs (Score:1, Interesting)
I can only assume they grew to the point that MBAs started pushing for profits over everything else.
Google really isn't run by MBAs. It's developer-centric and that is one reason I used to really wish I could work there.
https://www.quora.com/How-does-Googles-culture-compare-to-Amazon-and-Microsoft [quora.com]
I agree with other commenters that Google has improved in the last 10 years, more in ways we can't see; but also Google is wasting a lot of its energy on SJW nonsense. Google has a tremendously SJW culture, and e
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No, it is not a developer centric place either. It is a very 20th century place pretending to be 21st. While many organizations use google hangouts for entirely remote work and they had massive internal video conferencing resources way before most, until covid remote was forbidden, so managers could watch people working tied to cubes. I actually went thru the entire interview process to the end 12 years ago and then declined. To me it seemed in so many ways backwards, and actually the last place I would
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When I read it I was thinking "hey, people are constantly complaining and Microsoft changing Office for no reason, but when Google keeps their apps the same someone else moans about that too!" Apparently you can't win.
I've been using Google Docs for years. It works, it's robust, they have made some improvements over the years to things like printing which is all I want. I'm happy with it, especially Sheets which is the main one I use.
Drive is easy to navigate, it's just files and directories. Sharing is eas
Google customer here (Score:4, Insightful)
These services the author describes are just the toys that keep the cows happy. They cows are still providing plenty of milk, though, so I don't see why Google would care one way or the other.
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WebTech inherently a side effort... (Score:2)
I totally agree Google blew a lot of potential by not really updating the web apps they had...
But honestly, how much better could they have gotten?
It was never going to be as good a system for building and running apps, as real native apps that can take fuller advantage of a system then you'll ever get through web APIs - which by necessity trail the features an operating system can offer.
In 2010 I was using all the same apps this article writer was using, but I knew at that point it was just an interesting
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Google at one point did make decent hardware integrated for their OS. Not sure what happened to it but even that project stagnated.
It seems nobody at Google, even if they have a good idea, knows how to drive it to completion or perfection. Apple on the other hand will continue beating a dead horse (ADB, SCSI, FireWire) because it is technically superior to the alternatives even if it is more expensive.
Re:WebTech inherently a side effort... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google Fiber is a perfect example, read up on it:
The head of it was making great strides. They spun it off to ABC. Then the MBAs started coming talking about how it wasn't making a profit right then, and the entire idea got massively scaled back even though it could have changed the entire telco landscape with some vision and more chutzpah (I had it for a short time and it was incredible), and the original creator left (if I'm not mistaken). This seems to have happened time and time again at Google. They start growing something incredible but before it can really take off they chop it away.
There's no consistency, and for that reason I don't want anything to do with their projects no matter how exciting they sound at first.
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They recently (within the last year or so?) added offline editing for the Web-based Google docs/sheets apps, which helps a lot when you're non-urban/un/der/developed areas with intermittent connectivity.
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well, that depends on what you mean. You assume the app had to stay in the browser ,but there were /are many hybrid paths that could have been developed ( applets that launch frm the browser ) or some other such things. Certainly as able to take advantage of native speed and resources as C# apps. One of the main obsticles to be overcome would be what to do when the network disconnects or lags, but there are lots of solutions here. Seems to me a lack of effort or interest on googles part. Not Glitzy eno
Even that doesn't help (Score:1)
You assume the app had to stay in the browser ,but there were /are many hybrid paths that could have been developed
Even that has the same issues I am talking about. Notion has a "native" app, but because bits of it are really web technology they glitch in very annoying ways - like that navigation sidebar comes resetting, because browser tech.
Notion is probably the best example of what Google Docs could have become had Google really focused on improving things as best as possible, but even that falls far sh
What is this? (Score:2)
An anonymous post linking to a blog post I've never heard of hosting some column from some guy who doesn't like some software.
I used to ask people to tell us all the software they don't like here on Slashdot as a joke, I didn't think it would make the front page.
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Re: What is this? (Score:1)
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That's not the Slashdot I remember. I remember articles written by prominent members in the open source or technical community featuring on actual tech news sites often sites that dedicated themselves to topics concerning Linux or Unix.
This on the other hand seems even less relevant than some crappy opinion column especially considering it brings nothing much to the table other than "Google hasn't updated it's interface" On SLASHDOT. A site which prides itself on the ability to use systems which remain feat
Notion is not good (Score:2)
It's hard for me to rectify your accurate observations about the Google suite being years behind the times, but then read "Notion is a much better place to write and brainstorm with people"
Notion is not good. It's like someone's CS 400 class project from 2007 on what an HTML 'collaborative tool' might look like. Search is awful, tables are awful, doesn't scale well.
Trust (Score:4, Interesting)
black couple
asian couple
muslim couple
indian couple
white couple
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Interesting... so apparently in googles way of clasifing the world a bi-racial couple IS a white couple. I'm sure it is an algorithmic mistake, because this isn't anti-white like the OP suggest. It is actually VERY anti black and prejedicual. The old 'if you half-white' you are white trope because 'white is better'. UGLY and wrong.
Re: Trust (Score:2)
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There used to be(is?) something called a paper bag test. If you're darker than the bag, you're black. I think this test got used by blacks and whites, but I definitely heard it told about being used at black parties, on light skinned blacks, to see if someone could come in.
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You mean because the "indian couple" search also gives me results for take out?
Re: Trust (Score:4, Interesting)
Google employee explained this (Score:5, Informative)
From this article [wordpress.com]:
So in short, there's no leftist political agenda/conspiracy in this case. Google is just reflecting our own biases (when we tag images) back at us.
It's down to a lack of competition (Score:4, Interesting)
Who really competes with Google in these areas? AFAICT nobody tries. It's like with Microsoft in the late 90s. We know they're the 900 lbs gorilla in the room and no one wants to tangle with them. Even when the monopoly suit hits them, they'll appeal it to the point it's not relevant anymore. Just like MS did.
At some point the world will have changed enough that they'll become a part of the background. They'll still be around but it'll be just as the makers of Android. Everything else will have hit the point that others do it better and cheaper. What's cheaper than free? We'll find out.
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Funny you should mention Microsoft because they compete. They have Office 365 or whatever it's called now, and OneDrive.
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Who really competes with Google in these areas?
Err are you joking? Google basically has a direct competitor with either MS or Apple in every single thing mentioned in TFA. Shit man even TFS mentions the guy just gave up on Google's apps and simply replaced them. Google don't have anything resembling a monopoly in OS, Office, or Cloud storage market.
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The only thing I can think of where no one really tries to compete with Google at their level is their massive online advertising empire. For everything else I see others like Microsoft, Apple, etc. competing directly with Google. Sure, they aren't always successful, but they are trying.
Haha (Score:2)
Comparing Finder to Dropbox. Okay.
Chrome (Score:1)
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Outside of the United States, Microsoft Bing s.cks b.lls. You cannot imagine the garbage they deliver as search results.
Let it be known: I was a Windows Phone user (Nokia Lumia) and to this date it has been the best overall mobile experience I had. And yes, tried iOS and owned several Android devices from different brands.
So yes, you could call me a Windows Phone fanboy.
However, searching with Bing on that phone, that was such a bad experience here in the South-Americas. Completely irrelevant results. Looki
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Tried Bing also on the desktop, but search results rarely and barely improved there. So I just gave up on Bing, as Google and DuckDuckGo provided me with much more relevant results.
...
Just know that for most people outside the U.S., Google was the only option for relevant search results until DuckDuckGo arrived.
Thanks for the realistic survey of alternative search engines. I've tried alternatives to google over the years, even as far back as 2000, which was when google became the default because they blew the competition out of the water.
I'm in Australia, so the localisation problem is crucial.
In 2017 I tried DuckDuckGo and found it just hopeless for Australia.
I've also tried Bing and it seemed good for localisation.
But I keep coming back to google because while others are catching up from behind google seem to ke
Suits replaced Engineers...the old story (Score:5, Informative)
This has happened many times before (look at Boeing, or any major car company other than Tesla) and will happen many times again to others. Founders are engineers, care about the product, and build great products and a great company. Eventually they retire and "professional managers" with MBAs are brought in. Those people cut the "fat" (what made the products and company great) and improve earnings. For a while. Over time things fall apart.
BTW, the headline reminds me of Apple famously blowing the 10 year lead they had over Microsoft in the late 80s/early 90s. Same thing happened - Woz and Jobs left/got pushed out, Suits came in, 10 year lead was lost. In that case Jobs came back and fixed things, but the OS lead was never to be regained.
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...but the OS lead was never to be regained.
Perhaps not in terms of desktop marketshare or revenue directly attributed to desktop operating systems. In terms of market cap and stock price tho, they seem to be doing just fine. I'd also argue MacOS is doing well in terms of quality.
They got a rare 2nd chance with iOS. Did they learn the lesson?
Don't want an OS to provide *Everything* (Score:3)
While I agree on most points regarding how good the basic Chrome apps are, I differ from the author in that I am not expecting (or even wanting) the OS provider to supply all the basic functions I use every day. I don't see the OS as anything more than just the platform that provides APIs to the base system functions - I know this is an overly literal interpretation of an OS but I find it freeing in terms of being locked in to what apps I use for different functions.
One thing about the author's list of apps that surprised me was that (s)he basically uses the same apps for desktop/mobile - that seems like an unrealistic expectation considering the differences in the devices (input methods/output sizes and resolutions) that would limit what you can do with the different apps. I can't see myself doing any kind of a spreadsheet or even document on a phone and I worked at RIM and one of the things we were doing was trying to come up with apps that could do that and we failed miserably.
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Interestingly I find that a distinction without difference.
Do you bundle Docs with Chrome, Office with Windows, or LibreOffice with Ubuntu... the last one is the OS not providing anything, but basically every Linux distro comes with it pre-installed and it's one of the things we laud Linux for, an app ecosystem of freeware / open source programs easily installed directly from the distribution "app store".
Where do you define the OS boundary anyway, and how do you consider something provided with it?
Is it sti
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Personally, I would consider the OS ending at a simple terminal interface (below the desktop environment). That really sounds Linux centred but I'm really keeping with the definition I got for an OS at University (in the '80s).
So in answer to your third question an app bundled with the OS is NOT part of the OS.
As to whether or not the core library/API is coded by somebody else, that's still part of the OS. So I would consider a graphics library to be part of the OS because it can be used by different apps
Happening again (Score:2)
Car manufacturers blindsided by Tesla and the shift to electric/autonomous features.
VR headset makers failing to realize the importance of high resolution headsets (Appleâ(TM)s upcoming headset will have over 60PPD).
Coming soon: Companies failing to see robotics disrupting manufacturing, food (McDonalds is already testing robotic burger machines), retail, and delivery.
Interesting Idea of "Lead" (Score:5, Interesting)
In actuality, Microsoft and Apple had nearly two decades of a head start and while they may have initially languished in developing cloud services, it's way easier to add cloud services to platforms that have a combined marketshare of almost 100% than it is to create a whole new ecosystem whose only advantage is a temporary head-start in cloud services. In many ways, this played out very predictably.
Uh, what? (Score:4, Informative)
Docs and Sheets haven't changed in a decade. Google Drive remains impossible to navigate. Sharing is complicated. Sheets freezes up.
I don't think any of this is true. They've steadily been adding features to Google Docs for years such that it's now almost on par with Microsoft Office. Just because there haven't been many sweeping UI changes doesn't mean they aren't working on it. Chrome OS is getting better too.
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That's funny! No really, that's completely bonkers. Docs is freaking amazing for things like school work assigmnet level work and perhaps a lot of the really simple document prep a lot of people do. I find it's speed and collaboration environment jaw dropping. Love it for that. But then when you hits it's limits that's it. You start instead limiting what you do to make it work. But it becomes silly.
Personally I hate Word. with a passion. But in terms of quality high level document prep its goit it
Because email (Score:2)
The reason why is because email.
We need email for work, so that's the easiest thing to open your wallet for.
Notion looks great! But it's $8 per month per person <sub>only if you pay for the full year up front>/sub> and corporate accounts are... call us to get a price. That's versus $0 for using Google Sheets and Google Docs plus StackEdit to do the same thing.
And P.S. if you have one paid $6/month account with Google, you can share all your files with everybody on your team... and you still only
Opposite (Score:3)
I remember seeing ChromeOS for the first time. My experience was different. I realized that GOOG wanted to own every piece of software from the browser to the kernel, and make their servers the only place my data and programs ever lived.
I remember thinking "fuck that, fuck you, and fuck GOOG" and starting the process of de-googling, before it became a Thing.
Related: also fuck YouTube, check uncensorable decentralized LBRY [lbry.tv]
Good way to archive my docs? (Score:2)
Google Photos removed from Google Drive for (Score:2)
no apparent reason whatsoever.
Google blew no such lead (Score:3)
Google's overarching strategy for more than a decade has been to push everything into the Cloud where they and the rest of Big Tech can analyze, dissect, and track everyone's documents, activity, and relationship webs.
Sure, their online services still suck, but that's mainly because of Javascript (which porting to web assembly won't fix). ChromeOS was always doomed because it's not a full-featured operating system, it's a WWW thin client (as are all mainstream mobile device OSes).
There's a limit to how well the Cloud and SaaS can replace native software. If anything, Google set themselves up to discover that first.
But it's still free and good enough... (Score:3)
I use Firefox almost exclusively. The only time I boot up Chrome is to use Google Docs/Sheets because it doesn't randomly pause for 30 seconds on Chrome as it does on Firefox. It's annoying, ya, but it costs me literally $0.00 out of my pocket and it allows me to collaborate with A HUNDRED people simultaneously. Yes, it has flaws, but as a NON-PAYING customer, I'm happy to report bugs and just hope they get fixed.
If Cisco were to asked, "How much would it cost to create a Google Docs clone and make it available to the entire world for free?", I wonder how they would respond.
This is free beer, people.
Productivity apps need a reliable GUI standard (Score:2)
Web standards are shitty for real GUI's. We need an open-standard GUI markup language. It would help Google etc. eat into Microsoft. The DOM varies too much per browser brand and version to emulate GUI's reliably. Allow the layout/flow engine to be on the server, at least as an option, so one doesn't have to test gajillion client variations.
Sundar Pichai - Nightmare for Google. (Score:3)
HP; Carly Fiorina; destroyed the company to keep stock prices high.
Bell Labs/Lucent; Carly Fiorina; split than destroyed the company to keep stock prices high.
IBM; Samuel J. Palmisano, Ginni Rometty and Arvind Krishna; Have been destroying the company to keep stick prices high.
Apple; Tim Cook; destroying Apple by dropping innovation and focusing on locking in customers; likewise, trying to keep stock prices high.
Microsoft; Ballmer and Satya Nadella; Destroying MS by focusing on keeping stock prices high.
And now?
Google; Sundar Pichai; Destroying Google by focusing on keeping stock prices high.
Now, the question is, why are these ppl focused on keeping stock prices high? Is it for their stock holders? Nope. Short-term profits are NOT good for stock holders. So, why are they focus on these? Because they get paid in stock options with little to no taxes?
It is LONG past time for CONgress to require that NO EXECUTIVES be paid with publicly traded stock. Ideally, companies should have 2 types of stocks; publicly traded and corporate stock for employees, including the executive and board.
Re: Sundar Pichai - Nightmare for Google. (Score:2)
And we should force your advice on incentive structuring and risk wrecking the economy even worse than it is because?
I mean how do you know you plan will even work? Have you some simulations? Done it on a small scale somewhere? Got evidence? How do we know it wonâ(TM)t result in worse idiocy and bigger scamming?
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have any evidence that it won't work? Why do you assume that it will be a disaster? Stock markets don't keep the economy running. Regular people buying shit does.
Re: (Score:2)
You want the burden of proof to be on me that something won't work but you're willing to put something into law that could have disastrous and potentially irreversible consequences without a shred of evidence that it will work?
First you have to show that your method will work, only then will the burden be on me to show that it won't. You're the one proposing the drastic change.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes if you're going to make a hyperbolic claim of disaster like chicken little then you're going to have to show why it would be a disaster and not just claim it "could" be a disaster.
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"Stock markets don't keep the economy running. Regular people buying shit does."
Uh, you need both. How will companies exist without someone fronting the capital to build factories and stuff? Also most people's retirement and everyone's social security is dependent on the stability of the stock market. If it collapses the money you have paid into social security and retirement accounts will vanish.
Re: Sundar Pichai - Nightmare for Google. (Score:2)
That "Free" bit (Score:2)
That should have been your clue.
Right tool for the job (Score:2)
It comes down to the job you need to do, and the tools you want/need to do it. Some tools are essential, some are nice to have, Which nice to have you own generally come down to personal choice, and preference. I'm not a carpenter, or a woodworker, so, most of the time I do not need the sliding compound mitre saw I own. For a board or two, a hand-held Skill saw does do the job quicker and easier. But, when we, along with several neighbours, needed to replace fences 8 year ago, the mitre saw was a must. S
I liked Chromebooks until they stopped working (Score:2)
I liked Chromebooks until they permanently stopped updating, and, eventually, stopped working on some web sites.
I have Windows laptops that are almost a decade older than these discontinued Chromebooks that still work fine in Windows. Thankfully, I found out about Neverware CloudReady to revive these otherwise perfectly good laptops that GOOG abandoned to save money.
I think TFA gets it wrong. Very wrong. (Score:2)
Part of the reason why Chrome OS is so appealing is that it is not bloated with features.
So Sheets API is flaky? Who cares. If I want a database, I'll use one. And I sure as hell do *not* want the dimwits who try to do *everything* in Excel carry their strategy over to another Spreadsheet programm. Heaven forbid!
Likewise Docs. It has Pagebreaks by default. Halle-flippin-Luja! If I want to use a text editor - guess what? - I'll use a text editor. If I use a word processor, I am preparing a paged document, in
The writer is a complete nutjob (Score:2)
Who the fuck thinks that way??
Who the fuck calls himself a tech writer, and calls the poster boy of the inner-platform effect software design anti-pattern *and* of letting the data kraken leech *all* your data... "perfect"??
Hell, who but a shill even uses online services for those tasks? Or can't think of the risks, like not having Internet, him being abused by advertisers, his data leaking *everywhere*... apart from wasting the majority of his money and computer resources on the inefficiencies of that inne
Re: (Score:2)
And don't forget (Score:2)
I got a divorce earlier than you did (Score:2)
When the f
Circles, cycles, and the easy alternative (Score:2)
It's been 40 years of watching the same thing happen. I've been a big part of them (to a small number of people) personally too.
Google Docs was never "better" than Excel. It offered one big huge benefit (cloud-access) which was much better. But it had a hundred tiny disadvantages in terms of features.
But that made it simpler to learn, simpler to use, and as you said: "good enough for me". And hence, "better".
But things change as you use something that's "good enough for me". The more you use it, the mo
Congratulations (Score:2)
Congratulations, you figured out the big lie about Google: it's a rest and vest party.
Re: Free product performs marginally (Score:2)
*Laughs in Linux* (sound comes from inside your phone too)