I’m curious because I see a ton of Google hate on here daily. It’s certainly not all unwarranted, and I do agree with some of the privacy concerns.
That being said I do very much enjoy their products. Gmail, Photos, Chrome, Gemini, Home, Assistant, YouTube, Pixel phones, etc… I’ve tried out many of the alternatives but always come back to their ecosystem.
Curious as to how many of you here on the fedi use Google products without the common associated angst from the FOSS community.
Google have done a lot of great things and run some really vital projects that have benefitted the world. Anyone that refuses to acknowledge that is not coming at things honestly.
Yeah that’s my take on it, too.
Plus they’re far too big for “Google” to be a useful entity in discussions. The Google C-suites? The CEO? The Maps team? The Mail team? The support for end-user customers? Need to be more specific, because I bet the Mail team is bigger than some competing companies in their entirety.
Alternatively, if there was no Google or Google like company, we would likely be much further along in tech, and have better functioning democracies. They have limited innovation in maps and search products. They rely on being big to be competitive. Their products are pretty poor given their engineering team size. Digital advertising: they bought their way into a quasi monopoly, siphoning dollars from people that actually create things.
