

Why Google is Not Like Microsoft and Facebook - nadim
http://michaelgr.com/2010/02/15/why-google-is-not-like-microsoft-or-facebook/

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grease
Interesting point made by the author.

Its something I've wondered about. What would stop Google from degenerating?
Its an interesting question because the reason we use Google (good search) is
not how they make money (ads). They are related, but not the same. If you have
a product that people _buy_ , you have to keep making it better.

So what stops google from splashing their entire page with ads (to earn more),
or not being the best in search (as long the ad revenue is flowing)? I think
the author gives a good reason why google wouldn't do that -> because users
will easily change their default search engine

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kixxauth
To me this is not about Google's pledge to do no evil, but more like a call to
action against Facebook, Microsoft, and yes, even Apple.

Unfortunately in the tech industry shareholders love to see large market share
followed by strong lock in potential.

As technologists it can be very frustrating to see, what is often inferior
technology, win the market.

But, even more importantly, consumers suffer when interoperability diminishes.
The mainstream top end of the adoption curve can't be blamed for gravitating
towards ubiquity, but as technologists we should always be putting a full
court press on walled gardens.

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billybob
I think the real lesson is "avoid lockin whenever possible." Yes, it's easy to
switch from Google search to something else. But is it easier to leave Google
Buzz or Google Docs than to leave Facebook or Microsoft Office? (Yes.)

As long as you can leave easily, they have to keep trying hard to please you.
If you're locked in, look forward to high prices - in the form of money, sucky
product, loss of privacy, or whatever.

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btilly
This dovetails with something that is obvious within Google. It is part of the
corporate DNA to believe that everything should be open, and to believe that
in a competition when things are open, that Google do well.

The results is that Google doesn't try to lock people in. Which means that,
unlike Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, etc, Google doesn't wind up having the
safety net of lock-in allowing Google to ignore customers in pursuit of some
other goal.

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yanw
The shorter version of why Google is not Microsoft or Facebook is that there
is no lock-in, you can export your data and point your browser somewhere else
if you want.

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greyman
Yes. And what I consider even more interesting, IMHO, is that Google really
became a company which is not indispensable (like for example 5 years ago when
Google Search was de facto indispensable).

Currently, if I must I can survive with Bing for general search and for real-
time search (increasingly important), twitter is even better than Google.

I am still a Google user since I like some of their products more than the
competing ones (Chrome, Gmail, GReader, Adsense), but I will not hesitate to
switch away from any of those if better alternative will emerge.

