

Ask HN: imagine a world where Google was truly evil ... - wongjoh

... and had the most resources, same drive, same execution, lack of morals, and audacity to plagiarize what every up-and-coming startup and other successful company is doing in its own market.<p>For example, imagine that Google were to exactly replicate Quora, StackOverflow, Wikipedia, EBay, Amazon, etc. in UI, UX, distribution channels and deals and then gradually stopped showing those competitors as search results, provided incentives to corporations to partner with it instead of its competitors, bribed/lobbied every government agency, and that it would rather copy/destroy its competitors than acquire them.<p>Now, imagine that you were an ambitious entrepreneur in that environment / geographical area. How would you compete?<p>Just so you know -- this is actually happening. Not in the US and not with Google, but far east, and with actual big tech companies there.<p>What would be your practical advice to those entrepreneurs in that particular country?
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brudgers
Because Google is amoral - corporate "persons" don't have the free will
necessary for meaningfully characterizing them as moral actors - the idea that
Google is ontologically good or evil is a category error (given the assumption
that good and evil are meaningful terms).

That's not to say that a corporate "person" cannot be used as a tool or means
for moral agents to commit acts of kindness or commit harm. But moral
responsibility for those acts lies with the moral agents who run the company
or otherwise make the decisions which lead to such states of affairs.

There is nothing in the scenario which you describe which is evil so long as
one accepts that a corporation maximizing its profits is a good, i.e.
characterizes corporate "persons" as moral agents rather than a force which
moral agents possessing free will may harness for their acts.

I will add that the fundamental premise of the scenario is that Google would
create a walled garden and give it preference over open networks such as the
internet when providing information to users of its services.

The application of ethics to such scenarios is left as an exercise for the
reader.

~~~
wongjoh
Sure. This is the classical question about a corporation maximizing profits vs
its social responsibility. Furthermore, ethics/moral stand depend on the
societal norms. In the scenario I gave, we are looking from the outside -- it
may be perfectly "legit" within that society (and in fact, that's how many see
it in my actual applied country). But reality remains: a giant with the
resources, tenacity, and goal to copy and replace most every other successful
company.

So my question remains: what should tech entrepreneurs do in this "imaginary"
environment/scenario?

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pemulis
My advice would be to focus really hard on a single area in the market. Google
(or the Asian companies you seem to be _really_ talking about, like Renren and
Sina) can copy your user interface and quote-unquote "idea", but their size
creates problems. They're not as focused as a small start-up can be. Big
companies lumber, small companies sprint.

Since all of the front-end parts of a website are stealable, you have to win
by focusing on back-end technology and community. That's how all of the sites
on your list have found success. For Quora, StackOverflow, and Wikipedia, it's
the community. For eBay and Amazon, it's the back-end technology. That's
somewhat oversimplified, but you get the idea.

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namank
As a kid, I was always paranoid about the kind of things Google can do. They
can effectively build an accurate psychological profile on absolutely anyone
on the internet. They track your search history, email, contacts, even your
telephone number. They have all your docs, and now, with Chrome they CAN track
your browsing history. And with things going paperless, they know everything
about you.

Then their goals: build a database of genome of every person on the planet!!

My problem wasn`t the consolidation of data itself but the motivations of the
people doing so and the easy target such service providers may make for
crackers. Google is still run by ideal-respecting founders today. This won`t
always be the case for a publicly-traded company. For a mild example: What is
going to stop Google from selling potential clients to marketing firms when it
goes in search for a new revenue stream?

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mariuolo
I hope it would be broken up by antitrust regulators.

~~~
wongjoh
I would hope so too, but in the case/scenario, the very regulators are
lobbied/bribed/look the other way. Not every society is as law-centric as the
US, especially the fast, emerging countries.

