

The Angry Drunk: Why I would never buy a Google-made phone - unalone
http://www.theangrydrunk.com/2008/09/24/dont-drink-the-google-ade/

======
PieSquared
I'm sorry, but I have to say that article made little sense to me.

First of all, was writing in that arrogant, insulting tone really necessary?
Please. There's no need to insult your readers.

And also: _"Unlike my friends at the Free Software Foundation, I believe in
choice. At the end of the day though, I’ll keep my iPhone."_ Is that sarcasm?
I found it hard to tell, but I hope it is. Because if anything, 'choice'
doesn't come into play anywhere in the iPhone... And his mistrust of Google is
completely irrational (well, given his trust of Apple or whatever other
smartphone company; personally, I think I would avoid putting all my assets
into one company anyway.)

So yeah. Either I failed to understand this article and it was supposed to be
funny or a parody, or this is just slightly pointless and aggresive...
(Although upon further investigation, if this is by you, unalone, I suppose
that's just your writing style, given your profile.)

~~~
unalone
The Angry Drunk makes his name from that arrogant, insulting tone. He's
absolutely at the core of the "Mac elitist" crowd, so people tend to take for
granted WHAT his opinions are. They come from the level of rancor he spits at
things. Similar to John Welsh, actually.

There was an incident with the FSF where they wrote an article bashing the
iPhone for absurd reasons (lack of OGG support was one of the points). The
Angry Drunk and Welsh both took a lot of offense to that and bashed them. A
member of the FSF posted on Welsh's blog explaining and Welsh ripped him
apart. Later, the FSF told people to make appointments with Apple Store
Geniuses just to waste their time and raise dissatisfaction, and the Mac
community was rather pissed off. The attitude since then has been that the FSF
is an attention-whoring little sub-cult that doesn't tolerate dissenting
opinions.

The idea of "I believe in choice" means "I'll let people pick whatever phone
they want, but I'd never get a Google phone myself." The idea being that he
chose the iPhone and he's happy with that choice, and he's fine if you're
prefer Android.

Why the mistrusting Google? They are advertisers. And while they're honest
advertisers, they're still determined to make as much money selling other
people's products as possible. I use their stuff, I'm a big fan of Gmail, but
I'd really not want an open system designed by an advertising company. It
makes me feel fairly skeevy.

I write my own articles. I link to my blog here, actually, when I feel like
people would care about my stuff. For this one, I just thought it was
something that would provoke some debate, which it has. (I'd like to think
that I'm a bit more sober when I write, but I doubt I'm anywhere near as fun
to read.)

~~~
PieSquared
Fair enough. Although still, I fail to see how Google being an advertising
company makes it any better or worse than any other company?

The only possible Google-related complaint I can see towards Android (ignoring
the usual, tech-wise complaints) is that since it's made by Google maybe it
will have advertising... Or something along the lines of that? But I haven't
seen or heard anyone saying anything about ads on Android, so I don't think
Android being made by Google is any worse than Mac OSX for iPhone being made
by Apple.

Quite the opposite, since at least Android gives you some sort of freedom in
the source.

And speaking of the FSF - I have to agree, they do seem a bit like crazy
cultists sometimes. Stallman, for instance.

~~~
unalone
It doesn't make it better or worse, but it means that their motivation in all
things is to figure out how to spread their advertisements elsewhere.

The fact that you need a Google account to use the phone means that they have
the ability to monitor what you're doing, and that's slightly skeevy. I mean,
don't get me wrong: I don't think Google will abuse that information. I gladly
use my Google account when I have to. But some people are rather worried by
that sort of thing.

------
SwellJoe
Drunkenness and ranting should not go together...if you want to put together
sentences that contain a modicum of sense.

I give it a D for spelling, C for enlightened anger, and a B+ for trolling.

------
iigs
I would buy a phone from a company that was only in advertising until they
were in advertising and operating systems for mobile phones.

Who cares what other things they do? Why wouldn't you evaluate it on its
merits? Is this the poor judgement of being an angry drunk?

------
wh
Someday you may think of working there..then this kind of post will haunt you
;)

~~~
inklesspen
<http://xkcd.com/137/>

