Google tries to defend its Web Environment Integrity
Google tries to defend its Web Environment Integrity
Google has defended its Web Environment Integrity on the grounds that it aims to make web browsing more private and safe through tokens.
I'm happy to see this being noticed more and more. Google wants to destroy the open web, so it's a lot at stake.
Google basically says "Trust us". What a joke.
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Yes exactly. This is what worries me the most since I also run only Linux, and I can't imagine even being interested in computers anymore if Linux is not allowed on the web. That would be horrific.
It's 100% critically dangerous and must be stopped.
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They've needed to be broken up for over a decade now, but that'd require the government to actually enforce antitrust/monopoly laws
The FTC is apparently going after Amazon, so I'd be curious to see how that goes
Yup. It's the first FTC in a long time that's even tried to do their job. Really hoping they have success.
If it goes anything like Microsoft's antitrust trial, they'll drag it out until they get a complicit administration to settle with.
It's crazy to think that a little over two decades ago, Microsoft was almost broken up for selling an operating system and a web browser. How monopolistic!
I want to live in the timeline whete Microsoft was borken up
What really disturbs me is how the recent tech shenanigans have been a long time coming; seems the internet we have come to know for the last 15 years only existed thanks to the ridiculous interest rates post 2008.
I'd be interested to hear more of your theory on this:
the internet we have come to know for the last 15 years only existed thanks to the ridiculous interest rates post 2008.
I think this article from the Verge explains it pretty well.
tl;dr:
- The Fed kept interest rates low from 2008 to 2021. Low interest rates made it easier to borrow money and meant that debt-backed investments like bonds had a low return, so investors favored stocks for a better yield on their investment.
- This meant tech companies could borrow a ton of money at low interest rates and raise a ton of money from investors through stock sales, allowing them to build services that weren't profitable in order to grow as rapidly as possible. This basically defined the internet as we know it today - big companies offering free/cheap services with minimal restrictions. Companies could afford to charge low fees and look the other way on things like ad blockers.
- However, now that interest rates are going up, borrowing is much more expensive and investors are less motivated to buy stock, so all that easy money has dried up. Companies are having to raise revenue by increasing prices, adding more ads, blocking ad blockers, etc.
Online services cost a lot of money. People don't realize how much because VCs and corpos w/ deep pockets have been subsidizing most major services for a long time. Now that the free money period is more-or-less over, these services need to start paying the bills with their users - commence enshittification
Well it’s not that they “need to pay bills” they make plenty money to pay bills with the revenue they already earn. The issue is that capitalism demands not just profits, but continually increasing profits each quarter.
To put thing in perspective and trying to not use too obscure financial terms:
- Company's stock prices are related to their Earnings (i.e. their profits) via what's called a Price/Earnings Ratio: basically the idea is that each stock entitles you to a shared of their profits (via dividends: a share of a company's profits which is paid to those who have shares in that company), so if their profits are higher their stock prices should be higher too because each stock entitles you to get more money in dividends.
There's some extra maths here because different companies split iownership in a different number of stocks but the basic principle is that the total value of all stocks in the company at the current stock price are related to its yearly profits.
Now, run-of-the-mill companies (say, traditional automakers, energy companies and so on) have P/E ratios around maybe 20 or 30 (it varies from company to company and depends on the general stockmarket mood, going up when people are more hopeful - i.e. bully - and down when they're less hopeful - i.e. bearish).
By comparison Tech companies (and that includes automakers who managed to pass themselves as Tech companies, such as Tesla) have P/E ratios of around 80, 120 and going all the way at times to infinity for companies not making profits (Twitter for a long time was losing money and had a P/E of infinity).
By the way, this is how Tesla manages to have a higher total market worth (the price of each stock times the total number of stock) higher than companies which sell 10x+ more cars: it's treated as Tech, hence gets this magical boost to stock price.
So, what's the stated reason for this: well, those holding those stocks at such prices claim it's because the growth prospects of such companies are huge.
In reality (IMHO) a lot of it is just speculation, and now that holding stocks at inflated stock prices whilst you wait for a bigger sucker to buy them from you for even more money is something that might actually loose you money (unlike before with zero interst rates, now that interest rates are back up you often could be making more money from it if you bought treasuries instead) the speculative "hold, wait and see if they grow massivelly" posture on stocks (which was even done with lent money on which 0% interest was paid) isn't anywhere as appealing so it's unravelling.
So all of the sudden Tech companies are having to justify stock prices the same way as traditional companies do: by having profits that justify them, hence lowering their P/E ratios from la-la-land values to something more realistic.
I'm just a layman, but it has been nagging my brain how all these big tech companies seem to be turning shitty all at once. I've seen others propose similar explanations, but the basic idea is that the historically low rates got them addicted to "free" capital. Now the faucet has been slammed shut and they have to make up for the shortfall.
Also, it's not just big tech at fault. The massive worldwide inflation we've experienced happened for the same reason - shortsighted greed.
It's definitely the high interest rates. All of tech has been built on venture capitalist money with "grow at all costs" as the primary strategy. With sustained higher interest rates, VC money is much harder to get. The focus has gone from "grow at all costs" to "become profitable at all costs." It's jarring, and it's happening everywhere at the same time.
Linux would still be allowed, but you would have to use Chromium.
"All Google associated platforms hereby block all ios devices."
I am not a fan of apple. But this would piss a lot of people off but is well within their ability and rights to do. And unfortunately they have enough of a monopoly with the internet (Google, youtube, and all the other sites served through their dns) that they can essentially break the internet for people they block. They would get 90% of those ios users to switch to Android.
The flow of information through the internet is one of the greatest advancements of man kind and we have to trust a massive cooperation not to destroy it.
I am not a fan of apple. But this would piss a lot of people off but is well within their ability and rights to do.
That's a goddamn lie. They absolutely DO NOT have the "right" to engage in behavior that blatantly anti-competitive!
Ok they the power and apparently the legal power*
Ad of right now ues and until ftc grow a spine
The fact that they have that much of a monopoly is exactly why it isn't legal, but those laws are basically never enforced
You underestimate the willingness of iOS users to tolerate a sub-par experience in exchange for their fancy walled garden ecosystem.
Just the os alone is restrictive as hell, and they don’t care.
Could they do it? Maybe. But it would be profoundly stupid of them to try.
Your high-horse opinion of Apple users aside, you are right that OP is greatly overestimating people’s commitment to google’s services over their iPhones.
I am an apple user, but I was on android up until last year. It’s more an observation based on conversations I’ve had before and after switching than anything.
I mean he's kinda right. I've seen starving, rabid dogs go at road kill with less intensity than an apple user at a "new" apple invention.
I think you underestimate how much of the internet depends on Google to operate.
Apple already has attestation in safari, so why would any major companies exclude them when they offer it also?
Google would be really stupid to try to exclude apple os, because apple has safari. They would lose their iOS users, iOS users wouldn’t become android users.
Funny how services that used to work transparently, no longer do.
VPN? Works with some sites, not others. Same with email. Can just see the big G wading into that and the waters being royally roiled.
Yeah I've been annoyed with how many sites are using protections that blanket block VPNs.
This is why projects like tor are important
Boycott companies that act like this.
Legislate against and use anti-trust law to destroy companies that act like this. Boycotts, while not a bad idea, aren't even close to sufficient.
I guess if such things were to concretise, alternative ways would rise. Slowly and far less efficient than the Google engine, but I guess there is always a solution. Maybe a network of relay, like VPN but for accesing Google domains ? I know it would be far from perfect...