snek_boi, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

1. I am scared of the amount of data that they hoard without being transparent with their code.
2. I am also scared of their contribution to hacker honey-pots by giving our data to American mass surveillance systems, something we learned with the Snowden leaks. I mention the honey pot because I assume you trust politicians and bureaucracies more than hackers. Right now there are NSA employees that can look at all of your Google data. While you may trust them, the fact is, they created a honey-pot for hackers. This is Bruce Schneier’s point.
3. I am scared of Google’s capacity to shape public opinion, usually to favor whoever pays the most money. This is Jaron Lanier’s point.
4. I am frustrated at how large they are, stifling competition. This is the point of the antitrust suits that have come up.

Sure, I like that there are cool people there working on Android and open standards for pictures and video. But I do not want to support a publicly owned company that will ultimately serve its investors. I do want to support institutions that are incentivized to care about something other than investors, institutions that are incentivized to care about where the world is going, about you and I.