
Google Blindness - mh_
http://www.marco.org/2013/08/13/google-blindness
======
tptacek
Not that any other forum would do a better job of carefully and intelligently
discussing the differences between Apple and Google and iOS and Android, but
just so you know: HN is terrible at these kinds of discussions. Maybe we
should cultivate them so 'pg and his minions can come up with clever
statistical tests for bad comments using these stupid OS-war slapfights as a
corpus.

Meanwhile, to everyone else on the thread: GUESS WHAT? You're never going to
resolve this issue. None of your comments are convincing anyone of anything.
They're generating head-nodding from people who already agree with you, and
rageposts from people who don't. It has ever been thus, since the moment where
someone wrote a second text editor in the history of text editors, and it will
always be thus. At least you're part of a noble, silly-looking tradition.

------
acqq
One point I'd like to see discussed is written by Bruce Schneier, it made me
look at the subject a bit differently than before:

 _If the National Security Agency required us to notify it whenever we made a
new friend, the nation would rebel. Yet we notify Facebook. If the Federal
Bureau of Investigation demanded copies of all our conversations and
correspondence, it would be laughed at. Yet we provide copies of our e-mail to
Google, Microsoft or whoever our mail host is; we provide copies of our text
messages to Verizon, AT &T and Sprint; and we provide copies of other
conversations to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or whatever other site is
hosting them.

The primary business model of the Internet is built on mass surveillance_

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/the_publicpriv...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/the_publicpriva_1.html)

Google's primary business is surveillance of their users. Selling the results
to their customers, advertisers.

~~~
jmduke
I get clear utility out of letting Facebook know who my friends are.

I see no clear utility out of letting the NSA know who my friends are.

~~~
acqq
The Government would say: NSA protects you from the terrorists, there's your
clear utility. But there are enough other threads to discuss NSA.

I'm interested in Google here. What are our limits feeding it? Are we really
aware of what we are doing, in the name of convenience?

------
jmduke
So I think there are two points that Paul makes: hardware and services.

On the hardware front: I don't really buy the notion that Android hardware is
up to par with Apple. I realize this is an inherently subjective argument:
I've played with my friends' Android phones and I just don't like the way they
look or feel compared to the iPhone.

On the services front: I think the argument that "Google is an advertising
company and that makes them an inherently worse ecosystem" is weak, but I
absolutely agree that we're past the point of "this is the best solution for
everyone."

Personally -- I don't use any Apple services besides, well, the App Store,
despite relying on them 100% for the hardware side (iPad + MBA + iPhone). And
I don't use Google to the extent Paul does: I use GMail, Search, and Chrome.

This has the advantage of portability: I don't have to tie myself to a given
ecosystem because I'm stuck there. I tie myself to whatever makes my life the
easiest.

~~~
greedo
It'd be interesting to conduct a blind test, where all the logos/branding were
removed from the devices.

~~~
67726e
I don't know about you, but the device itself is branding. If I pick up an
iPhone, I know pretty much immediately that I'm holding an iPhone based on the
layout of the buttons, especially the "God" button. Similarly I would never
mistake my Nexus 4 for an iPhone 5.

------
anxious
Seems the author is suffering from fanboyism induced blindness. The main
points made about Android that make it great have little to do with Google:
the ability to set default apps, intent sharing between apps, notifications,
customised launchers, etc. Also in the referenced post the Android user
describes rolling his own solutions with Bittorrent Sync:
[http://paulstamatiou.com/android-is-better](http://paulstamatiou.com/android-
is-better)

Somehow OP glossed all over that and shifted the discussion to a troll baiting
exercise. The truth is that whether you're wed to Google's services or to
Apple's you're make certain tradeoffs, but one key difference remains is that
you can be a Google user on the iPhone which puts them ahead in my opinion.

Also I don't buy the disingenuous argument that since Apple is less adequate
at services they are somehow better at privacy - more data makes better apps.

------
varelse
GMail and Google Maps were my go to apps on Android for years (since 2009 in
fact). They both suck now. Combine that with the brick-like interactivity of
my less than 2 year-old Galaxy Nexus and I'm abandoning Android for iOS as
soon as my contract expires despite the fact I actually prefer a lot of
Android's look and feel.

To be fair, my Nexus 7 hasn't quite given up the ghost yet, but now that its
successor has been released, I'm counting the days until it too becomes as
responsive as Karen Ann Quinlan.

And that's a shame because Android's interface has really come a long way in
that time. Paul Stamatiou's article showcases some really cool design advances
that have happened since Android 4.0.

For me it all comes down to Google seeming to not care one bit about anything
except the latest and greatest devices. Yes I know that Android 4.3 is
supposed to address that - good luck shipping that one out to all the major
carriers.

In closing, the same brickification that hit my Galaxy Nexus this year
happened to my original droid in 2011 - fool me once shame on you, fool me
twice...

~~~
null_ptr
I have a Galaxy Nexus with 4.3, and it's been getting progressively laggier
with each update. Changing screen orientation, doing text input or moving the
cursor inside a body of text, and opening the running apps list are all mildly
frustrating.

It's as close to a stock install as you can get, too. It's so disappointing to
see perfectly good hardware be so incompetently misused. This phone should
_fly_. So I wonder if this is on purpose to force people to buy new hardware
every few years, or if the people working on Android are either understaffed
or just not very good developers.

~~~
workbench
> not very good developers

Probably this judging by how many years the UI ignored the GPU on that
platform.

------
casca
We're currently in the stage of the Internet where we can choose our feudal
masters[1]. Want Google? Fine. Prefer Apple. No problem. Microsoft? Why not.
For me, the issue is that people are becoming more entrenched as time
progresses. The cost of preparing to switch can be relatively low - pay
$8/year for your own domain and it's possible to keep using the same systems
you choose today.

Yet if the technological elite (as represented by HN) is unwilling to do this,
what chance do the rest have? [2]

[1]
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.html)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5537383](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5537383)

~~~
dictum
>The cost of preparing to switch can be relatively low - pay $8/year for your
own domain and it's possible to keep using the same systems you choose today.

Domains are not the only thing you need to take into account. There is
hosting, deployment, and keeping things up to date and secure.

Take email for example. Google no longer offer free Google Apps accounts, so
you have to spend at least $50/year for a single user to use Google Apps Mail
with your domain while you prepare to switch to your own server.

To run your own server, you may wish to use a VPS. You can find a cheap
provider on LowEndBox, but for additional safety and reliability, you decide
to sign up for a DigitalOcean VPS for $5/month.

Then you have to install it, keep it updated, etc.

It's not expensive, but it's not $8/year, and it's not as easy as just having
a Gmail account.

This is just email; other services introduce other complications. I really
don't want to spread FUD, and I wish more people would break away from the
Apple/Google/Microsoft cage.

~~~
casca
I'm not advocating that people move now. The value of Gmail definitely
outweighs current costs for many people so it makes sense to keep using it.
But to buy a domain and forward email to a Gmail address does not require a
VPS or maintaining it.

Other services may be harder to migrate, but they usually don't have the same
cost of notification. If I change where my calendar is hosted, I don't need to
inform all my contacts.

~~~
dictum
Again, a Google Apps account for a single user now costs $5/month ($50 if you
pay annually). I made an account (with multiple users so I could have
different emails for certain services and needs) when it was still free. If I
were to sign up now, I'd need at least 4 users, so it'd cost me $20/month.

There are better and cheaper alternatives, but I just wanted to point out that
you can't get free Google Apps accounts anymore.

------
johnward
Can someone explain to me why Marco Arment's opinion is so important? I mean
it even seems like he doesn't understand why. What makes him so popular?

~~~
bane
He consistently writes positively about and supports Apple and consistently
poo poos Android. It doesn't hurt that many sites that favor Android in such a
consistent and highly biased way are instakilled when submitted here.

He's not quite the shill that Gruber is, but it all adds up that he's popular
on HN.

~~~
clarky07
Speaking of instakilled, this went from #1 to #41 in a matter of minutes.

~~~
npsimons
Get back to me when you can explain why the "Android is Better" link was on
the page for practically a split second the other day, despite people
commenting on it after it disappeared off the front page. There's far too much
fanboyism going on here, on both sides.

------
donniezazen

        The better question the Android community should be asking itself is why it hasn't attracted or developed great writers and evangelists as well as Apple has.
    

Android has much more global impact than iPhone will ever have [1]. A huge
chunk of people in developing countries earn less-per-month than the cost of
an iPhone. So who cares if some yeppie evangelist is not using it.

    
    
        People are going to be coming online for the first time. There’s this vibrant community of young app developers growing in Kenya and Nigeria. - Jimmy Wales.
    

Macro goes on at length on privacy without realizing that there is no way to
tell if iPhone is not sending each bit of data back to government or any other
organization for that matter. Open Source nature of Android, AOSP, makes it
the most viable option in today's surveillance state.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/10/50-android-smartphones-
are-...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/10/50-android-smartphones-are-
disrupting-africa-much-faster-than-you-think-says-wikipedias-jimmy-wales/)

~~~
patrix99
Think Marco was talking about privacy in terms of using your data to sell to
advertisers. In today's surveillance state, if it exists to the extent we
think it does, whatever you do that remains constant so can't be used in
comparison.

------
Fuzzwah
So you've got to choose one and he's chosen apple. The previous article chose
google.

I've chosen google but what would make an interesting article for me is one
which explained whether iOS or android was better if / when I want to cut
myself off from either apple or google's online services and replace them with
self hosted email / calendar / etc.

~~~
madoublet
I would argue that you do not have to choose one. In fact, it is probably
better if you don't.

~~~
Fuzzwah
My 1st line was a poorly worded TL;DR of the article. I agree with your point.

------
DannoHung
Considering the shitfits people were going into over Reader being eliminated,
you'd think people would be a little more cautious about giving Google the
keys to the kingdom on things as crucial as calendaring, contacts, and mail.
Which is why the original article was a pretty good summation for me of why
I'm not going to go Android any time soon, personally.

~~~
Kylekramer
I think the Reader shutdown is actually an example of why I am fine going into
the Google ecosystem. Marco talks a lot about lockdown, but I haven't
experienced it. Reader's shutdown was pretty abrupt, but I am happily using
The Old Reader (minus the shutdown scare and less than stellar uptime) the
same way I used Google Reader. Sure, I'd prefer Reader to still be around, but
overall the transition was easy and pain free. I trust if the same thing were
to happen to Gmail, Calendar, or Contacts I would have the same experience.
And meanwhile, being in the Google ecosystem while it still runs makes my day
to day life much better.

The only product that would concern me is Voice, and even then I believe a
suitable replacement would pop up and Google would provide a relatively easy
transition.

------
yevy
I would wager that the reason Marco (and many other mobile entrepreneurs)
gravitate to iOS boils down to one line in his post that he doesn't feel the
need to defend:

"We can make a living developing for it."

Android has (roughly) 4X market share but just 1/3 of the revenue compared to
iOS. When the per user revenue gap closes, Marco's preference may change.

~~~
krazyfrog
He already has a version of Instapaper for Android, so he clearly has no
problem making money off the platform, whatever little it may be in comparison
to iOS.

~~~
workbench
He's also gone into great detail on his blog about how unsuccessful that has
been and if he worked on the port himself (outside company volunteered to work
on it) he wouldn't have been able to go fulltime like iOS allowed.

------
oscargrouch
after reading both perspectives you learn that:

* you are locked in, no matter if you prefer android or ios * choose you poison?

come on, it took years and a lot of effort to take us all out of the nightmare
of the windows ecosystem lock in.. so we can fall out in the same trap all
over again?

and while this is a natural behavior of apple that we should be all expecting,
i expected more from google.. because nowadays google is looking like a
schizophrenic, working for the web and open ecosystems, creating a lot of
awesome opensource projects with one hand, and creating more and more closed
ecosystem that try to lock people and developers in.. google looks like dr
jekyll and mr hyde..

i hope the open google, the google with the hacker culture, that the "Dr
Jekyll" google wins in the end..

but nowadays it looks that google is more in a love affair with its mr hyde
side.. i hope it gets cured preety soon and come back to its hacker spirit
roots.. with no traps in their products..

apple will just loose more and more market share, because its acting like if
it was the 90´s.. and we see now with microsoft that this way of doing things
its a thing of the past.. so it will fall by its own steps..

but google with a candy in one hand, and a knife in the other hidden on the
back.. thats a behaviour that should be feared..

~~~
workbench
You don't really get a choice about lock in, however you do get to choose if
you want your actions, searches, communications and location harvested to
build an advertising profile or not.

------
Oletros
Marco Arment saying that other people has a "narrow tech-world view" is highly
ironic

------
antitrust
> I object to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me
> and my data, I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace
> services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie
> that much of your data and functionality into proprietary services run by
> one company in one account...

He makes a good point.

Absolute power gets abused absolutely.

Unless the person to whom the power is handed is some kind of Zen master, it's
likely they'll use that power for personal agenda.

The groups they like will become elites. The ones they don't will get lined up
against walls and shot.

That's just how it is.

Even though Google says, "Don't be evil," they aren't Zen masters.

~~~
CodeCube
> "... they aren't Zen masters"

Well, not all of them, at least :)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8fcqrNO7so](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8fcqrNO7so)

~~~
NotOscarWilde
He doesn't sound like a Zen master to me either. I know it's probably hard to
distinguish between Buddhist sects but "success and happiness" (the subtitle
of the book that is promoted in the video) are not terms Zen Buddhism deals
with usually.

 _Normal_ Buddhism does deal with these extensively, Four Noble Truths are all
about suffering. But Zen Buddhism tends to dismiss these concepts as
unimportant. They may be true, they may not be true, but while you're looking
for happiness and success, Zen offers nothing.

Mindfulness meditation is rather cool, as is general Buddhism. I'm just trying
to distinguish a bit here.

------
bluthru
We're still doing this in 2013?

------
runjake
Marco's article is so poorly-written, so poorly thought-out, I don't know
where to begin. It's really more an article about hating Google as a whole.

Google blindness? Or blind hatred for Apple's competitors?

Some gems, though:

    
    
      I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace
      services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright 
      foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into 
      proprietary services run by one company in one account that 
      sometimes gets disabled permanently with no warning, no 
      recourse, and no support.
    

And Apple's services aren't less proprietary? Apple doesn't tie everything to
one Apple ID? Google has pretty poor support, but I've never heard of anyone
having their account (unreasonably) permanently disabled.

The Google search he links to is some useless Google search on "google account
locked". Here's the equivalent Apple ID search:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+account+locked](https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+account+locked)
26.7 million results.

Here's another:

[https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=apple+i...](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=apple+id+disabled)
Over 29 million results.

I could go on a side-discussion about the number of Google users vs Apple
users and then compare percentages and Google results and point out that there
seem to be more issues with Apple IDs than Google IDs per capita, but why
bother?

What does it mean? People using both ecosystems get their accounts locked up
for some reason or another.

    
    
      If Apple somehow irrevocably locks out my Apple ID, which
      I’ve never heard of happening, it would be inconvenient.
      My contacts and calendar would temporarily stop syncing 
      during the 20 minutes it would take to create a new 
      account and point my devices to it. The biggest problem 
      would be losing my app and media purchases, although I 
      wouldn’t lose any local copies of anything*
    

I've never heard of someone having their Google account irrevocably locked
out, either.

    
    
      and there’s a phone number I can call to convince a human 
      to give me a transfer or credit.
    

Yeah, there's a number you can call for the Play Store for this purpose as
well. I wish it were at the bottom of every page, but it's buried underneath a
Help menu. That said, Apple's support is truly industry-leading and far better
than what Google's got going. It's still not as bad or hopeless as Marco
attempts to portray, though.

    
    
      It’s important to maintain diversity of services.
    

And you can do this with Android. You don't need to use any Google services.
Sure it'll badger you at first, but no more than an Apple iOS device will.

In fact, I'd say that Android is better at maintaining diversity of services.
You can install an account for a wide variety of providers in the Settings
app, whereas Apple forces you to stick with whatever they choose for you
(Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, etc). Occasionally, they might remove a provider
for you.

    
    
      It’s foolish for people on either side to ignore the 
      other or the middle, because despite what it sometimes
      looks like to geeks like us, we’re not everyone. Not 
      even close. Even within our world, we can’t agree on 
      much.
    

Is this self-deprecation on Marco's part?

    
    
      like Paul says he does
    

This snippet appears repeatedly in Marco's article and strikes me as a
passive-aggressive snub. The leading Apple pundits (Gruber, Marco, Dalrymple)
are getting more and more hateful towards Apple's competitors and I think this
betrays an underlying belief that Apple's glory days are (sadly) waning. It
screams desperation. Maybe this Ellison guy is right.

I'm not a particularly big fan of Google or Apple or Microsoft, and I despise
Facebook. But I still use all of their tech daily, but I'm sure as hell not
going to cheer lead for any of them.

Edit: Fixed broken copy-pasted links, thanks anonymoushn.

~~~
Symmetry
A long time ago back in the 3GS days I was a happy iPhone user, who happened
to like podcasts. There were several very nice podcast apps which I liked
since they would download everything I wanted to listen to over the night and
I could listen to them on my walk to work without having to boot up Windows
and sync via iTunes. Then one day after an update all the podcast apps were
gone from the Appstore and my phone since Apple claimed that they "Duplicated
iTunes functionality". A few months later the mobile version of iTunes finally
got the ability to do over-the-air synchs. And when an iTunes security update
ended up installing Safari on my desktop that was the final straw.

I haven't had any experiences that bad with Google. Losing Google Reader was
bad, but also made me appreciate the existence of the Data Liberation
Front[1]. And I know I can install non-Google android or Ubuntu on my phone if
it comes to that.

[1][http://www.dataliberation.org/](http://www.dataliberation.org/)

~~~
tewha
Apple never removed apps. They stopped accepting updates.

~~~
Oletros
Tell that to the 3rd party Google Voice apps pulled from the App Store

~~~
LluisGerard
They can pull an app out from the App Store but they never, ever had the
ability to remove it from your phone.

~~~
skyjedi
really? Never ever? [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/jobs-confirms-app-store-
kill...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/jobs-confirms-app-store-kill-
switch-60m-apps-downloaded/2119)

~~~
dancameron
Yes.

That link acknowledges a kill switch for malicious apps, which they've never
used.

~~~
skyjedi
not necessarily a good thing -[http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/first-
ios-malware-fou...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/first-ios-malware-
found/) \- Still could be on devices, no reason it should be

------
bitsoda
Hey guys, use whatever products and services work best for you. There's no
need to pledge allegiance to any company, nor is there a need to tear down
somebody else for having an opinion.

------
danso
I don't get the point or impetus for the OP. Is it supposed to be a warning
that one should never put all of their information-eggs in one basket? Or that
Google is going to be the worser basket of the two?

The latter question of course is just a fanboy debate, and the former question
elicits a "no-duh". But to boil it down to just Google vs. Apple misses the
bigger picture: to spread our eggs across different baskets raises new issues
of security and convenience, which are _always_ going to be tradeoffs.

For example, if you're paranoid that either Apple or Google is going to shut
off access to your contacts and calendar, is the solution to spread your
information across both?

If so, how do you keep the two in sync (let's assume that at some point in the
future, there was no first party support of syncing services)? Or let's say
you want to use another calendar/contacts app completely. Then you rely on a
third-party service, which raises the issue of 1. How long will that service
stay in business? 2. Can you trust it with your data? 3. Do you have to learn
another interface?

With the adoption of either iOS/Android, I think customers have shown that
they do not want to live a splintered digital life. They want a future posited
by sci-fi shows, where "things just work." It's not Apple vs Google, it's
convenience vs. personal responsibility/maintenance.

------
taylodl
The most fundamental difference between Google & Apple? With Google you're the
product. With Apple you're the customer. It's a subtle, but important,
difference.

Other than that both are for-profit companies seeking to lock you into their
ecosystems as much as they can. And in order to do that they need to compete
for customers - who are varied and have different needs and expectations. Some
will choose Android, others will choose iOS. Meanwhile the earth will keep
turning.

------
beat
What about the personal cost of platform switching? I went to the iPhone when
version 2 hit the market and it was clearly going to survive as a product. I
_hate_ switching technologies, with all the cost and frustration it involves.
I've been able to have a single, constantly evolving configuration through
four different phones now (five soon, once I can jump from my 4S to a 5S).
It's always backed up. It's survived the physical destruction of a phone. It
does everything I require of it, most of that very well.

So to get a user like me to switch platforms - it's a huge personal expense,
not just of money, but of time and intellectual bandwidth. I don't need a
device that's just arguably better, or a little better... I'd need a game-
changer of a device to switch, something that does basically everything I do
on my iPhone more efficiently, faster, better, cheaper. I don't see that.

I'll probably stay on iPhone unless Apple really screws up.

------
daurnimator
Why has it been painted as a dichotomy of Apple vs Google?

In my experience, you want apple software/service, you have to go apple
hardware; and essentially vice-versa. (Correct me if I'm wrong!)

But if you go with Android (or other OSes) you can choose whatever "cloud"
services you want. Just cause Paul used Google with his android phone doesn't
mean you have to.

------
xradionut
Marco so conveniently forgot the whole debacle of Apple's developer resources
and sites being down for almost two weeks.

~~~
nimh
Which is completely irrelevant in a discussion about the iPhone from a user's
perspective.

~~~
xradionut
The original poster is a developer. A developer for Apple platforms. Chances
are this affected him and if not, it did affected his peers. Yet he never
mentions the massively embarrassing outage...

~~~
workbench
He does in his podcast and on Twitter

------
eltondegeneres
Calling someone "blind" for being obtuse or oblivious doesn't really seem like
the best word choice.

------
bdcravens
Keep in mind that many iOS users are as tied to the Google ecosystem. My
email, calendar, and contacts are all Google-synced. Most decent calendar apps
tend to use Google as well; ditto for mail apps like Mailbox. Many of the
Google apps (like Maps) make it too easy to login, which the features it adds.

~~~
ajross
Exactly. I think there's a good article to be written about cloud-lock-in and
its effect on mobile OS choice. But this isn't it. This is just Marco "whining
respectfully" about why his opinion is different because he objects "to a
huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data".
Paul's original article, frankly, was just clear advocacy of the form "I tried
this and liked it and you should too!", and I can't see how Marco adds
anything that wasn't clear from the original.

Really, yawn. I'm personally very much in the Android camp (though not a big
cloud user -- I like the photo backups and bookmark synching, but don't use
gmail or Google Now much at all), and found Paul's "Android is better" to be a
refreshing confirmation that as the market matures and stabilizes iOS users
are finally looking at alternatives. But clearly not all of them agree; I
don't think I needed to read Marco's blog post to know that.

------
jimsilverman
"I object to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me
and my data, I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace
services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie
that much of your data and functionality into proprietary services run by one
company in one account that sometimes gets disabled permanently with no
warning, no recourse, and no support."

that's one horrific run-on sentence. it's both grammatically flawed and
descriptive solely of the platform the author is attempting to defend.

i can no longer tell if this guy's serious or just trolling.

------
gcb0
I usually disagree with marco posts here and i'm 99% sure he get's paid by
apple :) but this point is pertinent and i'm looking for alternatives for
gmail and maps and voice and failing.

~~~
caryhartline
How do we know you're not being paid by Google or Microsoft? I guess they
might cut you off for that comment.

------
product50
Again these are his personal views as well (similar to Paul's). I think if you
take a cross section of all the smartphone users though, there will be a lot
many who use Google's services vs. Apple's. So not sure what Marco would
suggest to those - should they give Android a try based on Paul's article
then? Though I am an Android user, I think this debate is broader than whether
you use Google services or not.

------
thrownaway2424
It doesn't seem very hard to believe that someone uses an iPhone but doesn't
use iTunes to manage music. iTunes is next to useless if your music doesn't
fit on your device. A service (such as Google Play Music All Access [worst
product name ever]) makes more sense if you're always connected.

~~~
nimh
Apple has had iTunes Match since _2011_ for music that doesn't fit on your
device.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Sure, for a fee. Google Music is free for the first bazillion bytes (20k songs
or something).

~~~
workbench
How long till it has adverts seen as every listen will cost google something.

I'd rather pay

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hawleyal
Same coin, different side.

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Gromble
Have any of you people done a single important thing today, or is arguing
about what some guy on the internet said about [corporation] so vital that you
couldn't ignore the Call to Troll?

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seiji
A lot of people are Children of The Church of Google. They're happy with a
100% data tithing to Google. That's Google's entire business: get data from
users then make money from it for the furtherment of Google itself, not the
users.

A lot of people are Children of The Church of Apple. They're happy with
letting Apple carry buckets of data across devices, but the buckets of data
remain in the person's control. That's Apple's entire business model: help
people do what they need to do and don't encroach into lives needlessly.

~~~
jfb
I don't like Google, and don't use their services, but it's in no way that
straightforward. Pretty much the entirety of the marginal utility of Google's
technology relies on the data their users share with them. It's a symbiotic
relationship, not a purely parasitic one.

~~~
seiji
You give them data, they get billions of dollars. But hey, you can get your
voicemails transcribed for free from their neglected voip service and, like,
email for free. email for free with circles. So, it's a wash?

