Google engineers want me to stop using anything from google
Back when Threads got released someone told me on Lemmy that Meta will not pull an EEE on ActivotyPub because something something antitrust Microsoft long ago millions of dollars.
How is Manifestv3 different?
I’ve tried internet without adblock and it’s almost unusable.
You’re right, they can only try. They can express concerns, they can interpret goals a little differently to minimize harm, they can stretch the truth and make the project seem less feasible. None of that is going to do much if management is driving this through - loudly resigning in protest is the last move, and unless you have a big name it’s not going to do much.
But you’re wrong that I’m coming at this as a consumer - I’m a dev and I’ve been put in this situation before (although our work wasn’t public).
You’re also wrong on the googler front - most of them aren’t making that much, better than they’d make most other places, but not life changing amounts
When you talk to a googler, there’s a pride, and buried under that usually an insecurity. They got into the bleeding edge of tech… Or so they thought.
Last Thanksgiving I was talking to someone who worked for them, and once the conversation got technical I could see it in his eyes. I happened to be well versed in the topic, and so I started asking questions about his approach. And as much as I tried to hide it (he is family) he must’ve seen the disappointment on my face… He just deflated. He knew deep down what he was doing wasn’t actually that cool or special - it’s just a lie that he hears constantly
Working at a company like Google, you’re constantly being told you’re doing important work that could change the world. There’s pride and status there. They’ve crafted a bubble where everyone reinforces that belief, that “what we’re doing is good and important”
When you step outside that bubble and realize the technical community doesn’t respect you, personally, not because of Google but because of your own actions? That pokes a person right in the place they put their self-worth
Sites that won’t load unless I them ad-berserker over my web browser I just don’t visit anymore. Seriously. There are a million bazillion web pages out there. The internet managed just fine with people posting pages of relevant links to other similar or recommended other websites back in the Day when Google didn’t even exist yet (I had one myself) and other curated web search sites like https://curlie.org/en (and I contributed link suggestions to the ones like this back then). The only thing we can’t do today that we could back then is run BBS sites for each other off our home land lines. I’m not so worried.
Edit: typo
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We waste intelligent minds on this rubbish when we are facing an existential crisis in climate change.
I really need to ween myself off the Internet so that, once it becomes an unusable hellhole in the next 20 years or so, I’ll be able to give it up entirely and move on to better things.
It isn’t Google Engineers wanting to do it. It’s Google engineers being told to do it.
And another question: did someone already lay out a roadmap to google’s collapse?
Right now we’re going through a financial crisis, big tech needs to start making proper money so they try to squeeze the users. Google hopes to “drm the internet” to maximise ad revenue. Let’s assume they succeed. 3 years from now the dystopia of dead adblockers is live, google and other leeches make bank off ads.
But there’s no more adblockers and no more ad revenue left to squeeze out (because every internet user is already chained to a screen and force fed ads within ads). And shareholders demand increase in profits. What do they do then? Is there any hint of a long-term strategy? How long before the maximum theoretical ad revenue is reached and plateaus? Then COVID29 or something comes, fed raises rastes again and…?
Basically adware.
Yes because that’s beneficial to society and definitely not solely for the purpose of making the company and their executives richer.
I find it disturbing that there are people out there who spend much of their time thinking about new ways to get people to see adverts. Surely it falls under the “bullshit jobs” category that David Graeber once wrote about.
This guy is amazing. He is asking for patience to move this to a proper place to discuss this website drm and then commits it to chrome lol.
Similar things are done with TV and streaming unfortunately. You ever notice how commercials/ads have louder volume than whatever content you’re watching? It’s intentional. If you’re someone who doesn’t skip them and doesn’t mute them, they want you to be able to hear them from another room and then they hope you’ll come back to see the ad. It’s so dumb.
