I think I disagree about Google being a big proponent of the open web. This may have been true at one time, but now they do very little to help this, and have done many things to detract from it. They show very little concern for user's privacy, and are strongly in favour of tracking and profiling.
They entered into the browser space with Chrome by abusing their monopoly position in search. Their own products appear to work better in Chrome than other browsers.
AMP is another attempt at vertical integration by Google. Just like all of their other products they aren't trying to be nice, they're just trying to capture more market share. Instead of improving existing offerings they continue to experiment and capture more users. Given the extent of the market coverage they already have, this is bad. Their influence on the web is already too extreme.
At this point it's completely irrelevant what AMP is actually solving, giving any more control to Google is just bad. If they actually wanted to help they could easily fund committees and open standards for most of the stuff they do. But they don't.
One way I like to think about google is currently doing is ask myself:
"What if Apple/Microsoft/Facebook had all the prowess Google currently has?"
It can be easy to forget how well a company the size of Google is trying to remain as positive as much as possible.
I'm not here to defend Google (I hate them for some of their tactics), but looking at the bigger picture helps.
At this point it's completely irrelevant what AMP is actually solving, giving any more control to Google is just bad.
In parts of the world where individuals sit behind 500+ mbps fibre connections, AMP might seem irrelevant, and rather come off as a monopolistic approach by a data-hogging company.
To the ordinary internet user in a remote somewhere, AMP is relevant.
If they actually wanted to help they could easily fund committees and open standards for most of the stuff they do
Unlocked Android OS. They provide an OS that allows vendors to lock-out users and install permanent questionable software on the devices.
How? Have we forgotten Android is open source? Android is Open Source. How can Google police God-knows-how-many vendors using the Open Source of Android to prevent lock-ins?
Just how? I hear many blaming Google every single minute of the trash vendors do with Android Open Source. The thing, is, again, I repeat, Open Source. If a vendor decides to place a million bloatware on the phone, that's none of Google's business. It would be foolish on Google's part to even dream of making it their business.
Want a bloatless Android to use? Into a non-locked in Android OS? Why not try the many options out there that come with almost barebone Android?
Imagine what would happen if iOS is made Open Source for 1 second?
Disconnection of profiles across google services, protecting user privacy.
Again, how? I should have 1 google account, but 16 different profiles? And how does having a multitude of different profiles across google services 'protecting of user privacy'?
The last I checked, I'm onto over 20 different Google services (yeah, I've sold my life to them, sad me), and I can't think for a second, having to manage all those services independently.
So I change my name on Maps, and then my 19+ remaining profiles show my previous name?
How is this supposed to work in the first place, and how would that protect user privacy? Is rather having a centralized profile where you can manage all the various aspect of the services what would improve privacy?
I'm not sure how "Disconnection of profiles across google services" would in any way = "protecting user privacy"
Stopping tracking your every move on your phone with location services.
What happened to users taking control of their devices? Going into settings to flip off high accuracy GPS isn't enough?
As users, why do we always offset the part we can play onto the service providers?
I don't turn off my GPS, then I want Google to stop tracking my every move? How does that work?
As evil as Google might seem to be, with their seemingly self-centered approach, I wouldn't want whatever they do today, to have been in the hands of Apple or Facebook.
I guess I'd say that Google doesn't really seem like a monolith, so I wouldn't want to paint them with to broad a brush. But yeah, your sentiment is more or less what I'm thinking.
I can't help but treat the relationship as a complicated one. There seem to be other tech giants with more clearly parasitic positions. (Or maybe not).
There's no doubt that Google has done a lot of positive things for the net. They definitely have divisions which do more good than harm.
Though think about their overall position regarding their users: we are their product, and they treat us as such. Consider a few dominant things that they could easily change if they were inclined to support users:
Standing up against automatic content-filtering on sites like YouTube. Google knows full well their Content-ID system does not work well.
Encrypted email on GMail. Popular web clients have been a constant road-block to end-to-end encryption.
Unlocked Android OS. They provide an OS that allows vendors to lock-out users and install permanent questionable software on the devices.
Disconnection of profiles across google services, protecting user privacy.
Stopping tracking your every move on your phone with location services.
They remain relatively silent on net neutrality -- AMP is something that would definitely benefit from a lack of net neutrality.
They don't actively fight against DMCA take-down requests, they have no problem with supporting censorship in China.
Perhaps much of this is political, and you may disagree with the issues. It nonetheless paints a picture of people being treated as a commodity rather than as valued partners.
Even if you ignore this aspect, from a business standpoint, the company has simply grown too large. They have more control than Microsoft did when the world was against them. It could be argued they have even more control than Standard Oil did when the US wrote new laws to deal with it.
"Google argued that it could play a role more useful to the cause of free speech by participating in China's IT industry than by refusing to comply and being denied admission to the mainland Chinese market. "While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission," a statement said.[44]
A US PBS analysis reported clear differences between results returned for controversial keywords by the censored and uncensored search engines.[45] Google set up computer systems inside China that try to access Web sites outside the country. If a site is inaccessible (e.g., because of the Golden Shield Project), then it was added to Google China's blacklist.[46]
In June 2006 Google co-founder Sergey Brin was quoted as saying that virtually all of Google's customers in China were using the non-censored version of their website.[47]"
-- source: your wiki link
-- It seems that most of the flak google china got was from Americans that had a problem with google trying to cooperate with the Chinese government... But in all honesty after reading the whole wiki article, it seems the Chinese government is censoring things, not google. Who knew?
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I think I disagree about Google being a big proponent of the open web. This may have been true at one time, but now they do very little to help this, and have done many things to detract from it. They show very little concern for user's privacy, and are strongly in favour of tracking and profiling.
They entered into the browser space with Chrome by abusing their monopoly position in search. Their own products appear to work better in Chrome than other browsers.
AMP is another attempt at vertical integration by Google. Just like all of their other products they aren't trying to be nice, they're just trying to capture more market share. Instead of improving existing offerings they continue to experiment and capture more users. Given the extent of the market coverage they already have, this is bad. Their influence on the web is already too extreme.
At this point it's completely irrelevant what AMP is actually solving, giving any more control to Google is just bad. If they actually wanted to help they could easily fund committees and open standards for most of the stuff they do. But they don't.
One way I like to think about google is currently doing is ask myself:
"What if Apple/Microsoft/Facebook had all the prowess Google currently has?"
It can be easy to forget how well a company the size of Google is trying to remain as positive as much as possible.
I'm not here to defend Google (I hate them for some of their tactics), but looking at the bigger picture helps.
In parts of the world where individuals sit behind 500+ mbps fibre connections, AMP might seem irrelevant, and rather come off as a monopolistic approach by a data-hogging company.
To the ordinary internet user in a remote somewhere, AMP is relevant.
As if they don't already do this?
Considering some of the points you raised here (dev.to/mortoray/comment/309j), I keep wondering.
How? Have we forgotten Android is open source? Android is Open Source. How can Google police God-knows-how-many vendors using the Open Source of Android to prevent lock-ins?
Just how? I hear many blaming Google every single minute of the trash vendors do with Android Open Source. The thing, is, again, I repeat, Open Source. If a vendor decides to place a million bloatware on the phone, that's none of Google's business. It would be foolish on Google's part to even dream of making it their business.
Want a bloatless Android to use? Into a non-locked in Android OS? Why not try the many options out there that come with almost barebone Android?
Imagine what would happen if iOS is made Open Source for 1 second?
Again, how? I should have 1 google account, but 16 different profiles? And how does having a multitude of different profiles across google services 'protecting of user privacy'?
The last I checked, I'm onto over 20 different Google services (yeah, I've sold my life to them, sad me), and I can't think for a second, having to manage all those services independently.
So I change my name on Maps, and then my 19+ remaining profiles show my previous name?
How is this supposed to work in the first place, and how would that protect user privacy? Is rather having a centralized profile where you can manage all the various aspect of the services what would improve privacy?
I'm not sure how "Disconnection of profiles across google services" would in any way = "protecting user privacy"
What happened to users taking control of their devices? Going into settings to flip off high accuracy GPS isn't enough?
As users, why do we always offset the part we can play onto the service providers?
I don't turn off my GPS, then I want Google to stop tracking my every move? How does that work?
As evil as Google might seem to be, with their seemingly self-centered approach, I wouldn't want whatever they do today, to have been in the hands of Apple or Facebook.
I've seen that AMP page was 100% analyzed by google.. That's another privacy problem.
I guess I'd say that Google doesn't really seem like a monolith, so I wouldn't want to paint them with to broad a brush. But yeah, your sentiment is more or less what I'm thinking.
I can't help but treat the relationship as a complicated one. There seem to be other tech giants with more clearly parasitic positions. (Or maybe not).
There's no doubt that Google has done a lot of positive things for the net. They definitely have divisions which do more good than harm.
Though think about their overall position regarding their users: we are their product, and they treat us as such. Consider a few dominant things that they could easily change if they were inclined to support users:
Perhaps much of this is political, and you may disagree with the issues. It nonetheless paints a picture of people being treated as a commodity rather than as valued partners.
Even if you ignore this aspect, from a business standpoint, the company has simply grown too large. They have more control than Microsoft did when the world was against them. It could be argued they have even more control than Standard Oil did when the US wrote new laws to deal with it.
" ... they have no problem with supporting censorship in China ..."
Care to elaborate on that?
The history has it's own Wikipedia page
"Google argued that it could play a role more useful to the cause of free speech by participating in China's IT industry than by refusing to comply and being denied admission to the mainland Chinese market. "While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission," a statement said.[44]
A US PBS analysis reported clear differences between results returned for controversial keywords by the censored and uncensored search engines.[45] Google set up computer systems inside China that try to access Web sites outside the country. If a site is inaccessible (e.g., because of the Golden Shield Project), then it was added to Google China's blacklist.[46]
In June 2006 Google co-founder Sergey Brin was quoted as saying that virtually all of Google's customers in China were using the non-censored version of their website.[47]"
-- source: your wiki link
-- It seems that most of the flak google china got was from Americans that had a problem with google trying to cooperate with the Chinese government... But in all honesty after reading the whole wiki article, it seems the Chinese government is censoring things, not google. Who knew?