The monstrous tech bros destroying humanity by bringing about electric cars, intelligent machines, mapping the world, bringing information to anyone anywhere.
I on the other hand, Maximus Virtus, am a net gain to humanity when I hack into tech products for visualizing my home’s data.
“As someone familiar with the aviation industry” you should know people “skiplagging” won’t check bags, which destroys your whole argument since that’s where all the inefficiencies lie.
Now you just have a no-show at the gate (P>50% ? something they’re surely used to handle efficiently) giving them some slack to fly their overbook flight without having to bump anyone. Truly a win-win
Because a lot of those business are only possible through monumental amounts of work and/or investment and selling is way easier than being an owner-operator for years under very probable risk of failure?
You can literally use Chrome, Workspace, Drive, Android and Maps without seeing a single ad, without an ad blocker, without EVER using google search, for free.
#1. Would I have used the computer at the same time/place/duration? Then yes it is free. It literally cost me nothing.
#2. You can pay? Also is the argument somehow that the free thing isn’t free because the ad in it makes the UX worse?
Also curious to know how many ads exactly do you get while using google workspace? drive? android? maps?
Finally: You can literally use Chrome, Workspace, Drive, Android and Maps without seeing a single ad, without an ad blocker, without EVER using google search, for free.
So you’re telling me the evil monopolist that charges nothing has a competitor, and that competitor is free? Which is why we must break up the evil monopolist?
If I build a movie theater and give away the tickets knowing that I can make money on ads before a movie that does not mean that 5 minutes of your eyesight is now worth something
Like I said in my comment. All of those things are things you can PAY FOR, today! To multi-trillion dollar corporations! The time you can go back to giving away your money for things google gives away for free is… now!
Excellent criticism too that the evil monopolist that devilishly gives away extremely useful and value-add products and services in order to expand its evil monopoly is also famously criticized by the victims of those free data-mining products for sometimes discontinuing them without giving them proper notice! Surely Google can’t just stop mistreating them without adequate prior notice!
“But my data”
Have your ever sold your data? Would the value you could ever possibly receive for your data ever equate to the value you get from the free services?
Likely No and No.
Is the free ad supported city newspaper free? Yes it is in fact free, just like FM radio is free, and broadcast television is free, and sidewalks next to billboards are free
Someone creating something appealing and giving it away for free in order to make up for it through ads in front of eyeballs does not in any way mean that the free thing isn’t free
Yes I can see the dystopian consequences of google’s search monopoly profits, which they have used to do such horrible things as:
- Providing a free alternative to Microsoft’s monopolized office suite and desktop OS
- Provide a free alternative to Apple’s mobile OS, spurring a revolution in access to the internet for the world’s poor
- Provide free global maps with streetview sights
- Provide a free to access video platform with invaluable educational resources that allows millions of creators to make a living and that likely wouldn’t exist save for Google’s monumental investments and ability to sustain years of losses
- Research given away for free that ignited the current AI revolution
- Research given away for free that is revolutionizing medicine and drug development
This illustrates why breaking up google is a good idea given their egregious charges (free) for things people used to/still spend money on, such as:
- An office software suite
- Global maps and GPS, City Guides
- Video entertainment
- Mobile and Desktop OS
- Web Browsers
Also, pay no mind to their competitors in all of those markets AND in their core business of search, being feeble multi-trillion and multi-billion global corporations