July 4th, 2006
If Google Didn’t Exist…The Upside
The Google Operating System blog has an interesting meditation on the downside of life without Google — which of course begs for a rebuttal speculating on the UPSIDE of life without Google (Garret Rogers also has a point-by-point response):
* our mail account would still have 2MB or 4MB of storage and we would be happy about that.
And we’d all be more disciplined about deleting email — my Gmail-driven never-delete approach to email has my corporate Outlook always on the verge of collapse.
* we would find a mail by manually reviewing each subject and sender.
Or maybe someone would have invented an email search app that works with ANY email program, so we wouldn’t be locked into Gmail and it’s never-ending stream of ads — and/or someone might have developed a killer email app that was so good we’d be willing to pay for it.
* we would pay for software like Picasa, Keyhole (now Google Earth), Sketchup.
And maybe it would be well worth it, because the independent owners of those apps would have been forced to innovate at a rapid pace to earn our money — instead, Google can let its apps languish until they’re ready to throw up AdWords.
* many startups would not exist without Google AdSense, so there would be less innovation.
Or maybe there wouldn’t be such a bubble in Web 2.0 start-ups with so many me-too apps, because developers would be forced to think more about business models and REAL innovation — without the crutch of AdSense cash, business model innovation might actually keep pace with application innovation.
* our homepage would be a portal, or about:blank.
Google isn’t my homepage — it’s the New York Times, because I actually like information about what’s going on in the world pushed TO me. I’m not always looking for something, and I don’t always know what it is I need to know when I go online.
* our search engines would be cluttered, would mix ads with organic results and wouldn’t care about the users.
AdWords does not really care about users — “relevance” is only a variable in the equation to drive more clicks and thus more revenue.
* we would think beta software is just for the testers and it’s dangerous.
We might also expect beta software to get off its ass and out of beta in less than three years.
* technology news would be less exciting.
We might also have something to talk about OTHER than Google, which sucks up all the air in the room every time they write a line of code.
I, for one, would have time to devote to other targets for iconoclastic rants — like MySpace. Although…I guess from that perspective, Google isn’t such a bad thing.
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Scott, well said.
The original article gives Google way too much credit. Google is not my homepage, I don’t use Picasa, Keyhole or Sketchup and there were plenty of ways to monetize websites before AdSense.
Sure Google has been a positive influence on many fronts but here are some positives of a world without Google:
-millions of less spam filled made for Adsense sites
-websites being evaluated on their usefulness versus the number of links pointing to them
-websites being indexed and not just being indexed if they have enough links pointing to them
[...] I’ve just been catching up with, among other things, the (unofficial) Google Operating System blog, which has a post about what the world would be like If Google didn’t exist…While entertaining and thought-provoking, it is also funamentally misguided, and most of the claims seem to me obviously wrong. To take a couple of examples:* we would find a mail by manually reviewing each subject and sender.This is patent rubbish. There have been mail clients with search facilities going back to the 1980s, and today, Google isn’t even the best way to search email. It may be true that Google’s arrival means that, on average, more people have better email search facilities than they would otherwise, and that is to be applauded. But it’s a difference in degree, not in kind.* we would pay for software like Picasa, Keyhole (now Google Earth), Sketchup.Also rubbish. It’s nice of Google to buy these companies and give their products away, but Google didn’t invent free software. Arguably there’s a net benefit to the people who use Google’s free programs, but it might also be the case that we are worse off, not better off. For example, other companies might have developed better programs than Picasa and sold them cheaply or given them away if Google had not distorted the market. We’ll never know. Either way, it’s a difference in degree, not in kind.I am sure that Google has, in some cases, done things better than they were done before — such as search, web-based mail and maps — but we were doing them before Google appeared, and we’d still be doing them if it had never existed. What’s more important, I think, is that Google has done them with some sort of moral stance: “Don’t be evil.”Google may have fallen short in some cases, but it has made explicit an important element in the competitive marketplace that I don’t believe would have been explicit without Google. Yahoo could have done it, but didn’t. The Free Software Foundation was doing it, to an extent, but without the market power. And, of course, many companies and organisations outside IT are also trying to trade eithically and benefit society. Still, it seems to me that Google’s ultimate failure would not be having inferior products, losing money or losing market share but the admission that “Don’t be evil” was just a marketing slogan. Amost anything else would be forgivable.Footnote: Several other blogs have had a go at this post, including Publishing 2.0 (recommended) and Ziff’s Googling Google Permalink [...]
“Still, it seems to me that Google’s ultimate failure would not be having inferior products, losing money or losing market share but the admission that “Don’t be evil” was just a marketing slogan. Amost anything else would be forgivable“.
You can forget anything Schofield has to say on his blog. It consists of nothing but Google/Apple trashing and singing the praises of all things Microsoft. When he’s not doing that he’s busy revising history. If you post a msg pointing out his inaccuricies and distortions he promptly removes the post. He’s just desperate for any hits to the blog. He’s worst than the worst Usenet troll. Anything else on any other subject is equally distorted and dishonest. I for one won’t be bothered to correct his other fictions.
I don’t thing any officers of Google ever said this:
“Steven McGeady of Intel testified that Paul Maritz told Intel representatives in a meeting in the fall of 1995 that Microsoft planned to “cut off Netscape’s air supply” by giving the browser away for free so that Netscape could not invest in it”
‘He understood that Microsoft would achieve this “by giving away
their products, by embracing the Internet standards and extending them
in a way that favored the Windows platform.” Maritz 1/26/99am, at
57:2 - 59:8 (quoting Sullivan’s deposition)`
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f2600/2613l.pdf
“We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger.” Jim Allchin, September 18, 1993
“(Netscape’s game plan was to make money on the server software. Isn’t that what Apache gives away free? ;-))” - Jack Schofield
How else was Netscape going to make money without a Desktop monopoly?
“Not a very good analogy because Netscape had already achieved a monopoly market share and established the price of the browser at free — to the chagrin of many small companies who hoped to make a living selling.” - Jack Schofield
Anyone could get a license for NSCA Mosaic as did both Netscape and Spyglass. Anyone could license NSCA. Where is this monopoly you are on about?. What is true is that Microsoft first went to the NCSA and then Netscape for a deal before finally turning to Spyglass. What turned them off was the requirment for an exclusive MS only license, in other words a monopoly.
Both Netcape and Spyglass were derivatives of NCSA Mosaic. What chagrined small companies were around at the time trying to sell browsers and couldn’t ? Spyglass licensed their Browser to Microsoft. Spyglass would receive a quarterly fee plus a percentage for the software. Spyglass promptly went broke after MS gave it away.
[...] — There have even been dueling posts on where the Web would be today if Google hadn’t come along. One blogger writes “our mail account would still have 2MB or 4MB of storage and we would be happy about that.” Karp counters in a post headlined “If Google Didn’t Exist…The Upside” that “maybe there wouldn’t be such a bubble in Web 2.0 start-ups with so many me-too apps, because developers would be forced to think more about business models and REAL innovation  without the crutch of AdSense cash …” [...]
[...] Entrei no Boo-blog hoje e dei uma lida no texto que o Marco Gomes publicou há dois dias. ele comenta o temor em ver que muitas startups nacionais - ou simplesmente, blogs - se dedicam a atender exigências de um buscador para monetizar sua empresa. Trocando em miúdos, comenta que todos buscam estratégias muito dependentes do Google, e lembra que isso, no mundo dos negócios, é muito arriscado. Afinal, ter um só fornecedor faz a empresa quebrar, caso o fornecedor se ausente. Claro, Marco puxa sardinha para sua empresa no texto, como não podia deixar de ser. Mas propõe uma reflexão interessante: e se o Gooooooooooooooooooooogle não existisse? Aliás, o blog Google Operating System já brincou com isso aqui, e inflou o ego do serviço de buscas diga-se de passagem… Por isso, o site Publishing 2.0 respondeu aqui. [...]