

Sergey Brin's Clarification On Guardian article - donaq
https://plus.google.com/u/0/109813896768294978296/posts/44gsPvAm5a5

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tferris
Imagine Apple, Facebook or whoever controlled the Internet like Google does:

 _How long would it take until they abused their power?_

If someone is dominating the web it's Google and looking at their power and
how much traffic they move—their actions feel balanced and neutral compared to
any other player.

~~~
rbarooah
Part of what has put Google in their position as the gatekeeper is that the
perception of being balanced and neutral. If search was more overtly biased,
Bing would step in as the neutral player.

The more they consolidate their power, the less they seem constrained by this.
I don't see anything that fundamentally distinguishes google from these other
companies other than their present strategic position.

~~~
tferris
Sorry, I don't get your point.

You can be successful with your product on the WWW without employing any
Google services, being totally independent. If people and other sites like you
and link back to you your traffic will quickly skyrocket _—which feels
natural._ You are not obliged to use any Google service like GA. Just use the
Internet and its open standards and you are ready to go because Google left
the Internet's core like it is and didn't build a walled garden around it.
That's the great thing about the web: it's decentralized and everybody can
contribute, Google haven't tried to change this. That's why I don't like the
native app trend with the appstore, all the innovation the Internet brought us
are vanished by one central and strict entity and nobody cares, Android at
least tries to emulate some parts of the net (i.e. by using intents, allowing
multiple appstores, with the open nature of Android, etc.), Google is
regarding their marketplace Play much more relaxed than Apple.

Looking at the Appstore or the Facebook API, there are so many rules which
don't follow any of the core principles of the Internet. You have to play by
these rules otherwise you are banned or completely and utterly dependent of
one single entities. Moreover, if you then play by Apple's or Facebook's rules
you still do not get the impact as from Google traffic-wise.

Ultimately, Google haven't entered the Chinese Market which shows the
company's values. Every larger western corporation have build joint venture
based branches in China—every corporation, except Google—and that's
distinguishes Google.

~~~
rbarooah
I agree that you don't get my point.

The reason Google hasn't built a walled garden around the internet because
they simply don't yet have the power to do that.

You talk as if it was something they could easily have done but have chosen
not to. I disagree. They just aren't in a position to do it.

It makes no sense at all to say that innovation on the web has vanished
because of the Appstore. We are in in a boom time for internet startups, and
we have healthy browser competition leading to web standards advancing much
faster than at any time in the past.

There is room for both the open web, and for more controlled environments like
the app store or Facebook to coexist and compete with one another. Each offers
different tradeoffs.

The existence of different kinds of environment is a good thing. It provides a
variety of different economic opportunities, and choices for consumers.

Google would naturally like to have more influence and control, but the
reality is that they exist in a competitive environment.

~~~
tferris
Pardon, you are totally misleading.

Google could do this—there are multiple options to silently wallgarden the
user. Just check how much traffic Google moves. If they want they could
arbitrarily redirect traffic and subtly punish user's not using their tools.

But that's not their culture. Just look at their products, how far they
pushing the boundaries and still stay open, give back and contribute to the
community. Look at V8, Dart, Go—all open, all free, all top-notch, all
following the Internet's principles and look at Apple, FB—I see no
groundbreaking innovation that's free or not protecting their walled garden.
Even if Google has some hidden agenda with their products (like with Chrome)
the products are always best-of-breed and never deadlock the user.

The point is: Google benefits of an open Internet, their business model is
fully based on an open Internet. Therefore they will do everything to keep the
Internet neutral, free and decentralized. In contrast, the bizmodels of Apple
and FB do not rely on these values, they need walled gardens. Enough reasons
to trust them less.

RE-EDIT: Took out later added passages as wished.

~~~
j_col
Facebook have given back plenty of open source to the dev community. Scribe
(their federated logging server) and HipHop (their PHP compiler) come to mind
immediately, but there may be others.

~~~
zerostar07
Their business tactics are ridiculously sleazy though. Aside from the google
smear campaign fiasco last year, do you know that facebook does not allow
AdSense advertising on it's 3rd party applications? They don't want FB ads
performance to be compared with Google's (more profitable ads) on the same
pages.

~~~
j_col
I somewhat agree. Frankly I'm no fan off Google, Facebook, or Apple. But
pretending that one of them is more "open" then the other because they open
source some software now and again is a falsehood: they are all for-profit
corporations, with more in common with each other then what separates them,
notions of culture aside.

------
AVTizzle
Refreshing response from Sergey. The Guardian article made him come off very
immature.

The article brought to my mind a presentation Roger McNamee (Elevation
Partners) has been circulating -"10 Hypothesis for Technology Investing."

A number of the points in the presentation illustrate a challenging future for
Google:

\- Index Search has peaked: Google's position of dominance on the web is
fading, due largely in part to their own success.

\- Apple's App Model Threatens the World Wide Web: a walled garden, un-
indexable

\- Rise of Social. Facebook owns. Again, a walled garden, un-indexable

\- Lack of searches on mobile

Similar arguments were made in Wired's "The Web is Dead" feature, and they all
point towards Google's core business going downhill.

The Guardian article made Sergey seem... well... butthurt. As if recognizing
his lousy position, but instead of owning it, whining about it. I've always
thought of Sergey as smarter than that. He's always seemed much more pragmatic
than The Guardian article made him out to be. It didn't feel like the Sergey I
[don't actually] know.

Certainly Sergey has gripes with Apple and Facebook, and certainly he has
self-preserving motivations for responding as he did. But I feel like giving
him more of the benefit of the doubt here and calling slight nanz on The
Guardian for rabble-rousing as press outlets do.

Also - kudos to Sergey for his extremely diplomatic clarification there. We've
all seen much less tactful responses to press spins.

10 Hypothesis Slides: <http://read.bi/GMHoYQ>

10 Hypothesis Video: <http://bit.ly/w0qpeh>

~~~
Jun8
This is an excellent deck, why have not seen this before! Was this on HN?

I agree with almost all his points, insiders are very bullish on Apple, the
feeling's that %600 is nowhere near the peak, it'll be more like $1K. On the
other hand, Google has started to give off the "has-peaked" vibe: the silly
badmouthing of rivals, huge reorgs, half-thought out failed projects, not
being clear of where to go next and milking the usual cow, etc.

One important point that he makes that I think is important to reiterate is
how open the mobile area is, since non of the big guys currently have good
extensions. So I think we'll see more of the Instagram-type successes
(probably not on the $1B level, though).

Takeaways if you're an up and coming, young (or otherwise) developer: Learn
the Apple stack (70% of your time) and learn HTML5/JS (20%).

~~~
AVTizzle
Agreed, and yeah - it's actually the one thing I've ever submitted (I'm a
relative n00b), but it didn't get any ups.

I feel strongly about pushing it and getting it out there though. What's the
etiquette on resubmissions?

~~~
Jun8
I think you can definitely resubmit, but pick your time wisely, there are many
HN discussions on this.

~~~
AVTizzle
Late-morning to early afternoon, I'm reading? Fuck it, we'll do it live! :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3858936>

------
rbarooah
I'm glad he wasn't attacking Facebook and Apple in the way it was portrayed.

I think a key issue here is that powerful incumbent corporations have always
challenged the economic freedoms of smaller players and individuals operating
in their space.

In the heyday that Brin refers to, those powerful corporations hadn't yet
emerged. Now they have. The biggest challenge to starting a new eBay today is
eBay. The biggest challenge to starting a new Google today is Google.

Going forward, what matters is the extent that a platform economically
empowers its participants to create additional value. Ideological openness is
just one dimension in that.

Facebook, Apple, and Google all do empower their participants in different
ways and with different tradeoffs, as do startups like Square and Kickstarter.

------
zerostar07
To me this is another example of a fundamental difference between the Web 1.0
entrepreneur generation and today's superstar startup CEOs. The former's
ambitions ranged from data liberation, information freedom and up to
interplanetary travel. The new generation's ambitions end in their stock
valuations.

~~~
dchest
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosy_retrospection>

~~~
zerostar07
I believe it's more because they had the first mover's advantage and naivete

------
jad
Let me paraphrase: "I bemoan the rise of Internet tollbooths and gatekeepers,
such as the ones put up by Facebook and Apple. By the way, please build native
apps for Android, and please use Google+ to connect with your friends and
family."

------
sparknlaunch12
Pretty scary some of the proposed legislation being thrown around in the UK.

On large companies... If individuals have issues with large companies they can
simply go to an alternative. However government should intervene to ensure
"internet" companies comply with the same laws as "non internet".

~~~
gaius
Google's elaborate tax-avoidance schemes mean they forfeit the right to an
opinion on what the UK government does.

~~~
sparknlaunch12
Avoidance or evasion?

If a company is compliant then it is up to government to intervene and change
laws. However law change should apply to all entities, on or off line.

~~~
gaius
Indeed. But Eric Schmidt doesn't get to whine about e.g. education in the UK,
without ponying up the cash.

~~~
jessriedel
There's a pretty important distinction between a government-provided service
and the government's infringement of a (negative) right, _especially_ when it
comes to who gets to complain based on the amount of taxes they pay. The
government doesn't pay money to not censor the internet.

------
rwmj
What new "tollbooths and gatekeepers" is he talking about? If I wanted to
start an online store or search engine today, who would I be paying?

~~~
jrmg
I'm certainly not saying I agree with this wholeheartedly, but I think his
point is that you wouldn't get very far without (my examples here) a Facebook
and Twitter presence, and an iPhone and Android app.

------
crdoconnor
>Today, starting such a service would entail navigating a number of new
tollbooths and gatekeepers.

One of them being Google.

