Comment by neilv
7 months ago
I think this article would work better if it were written entirely like textbook traditional investigative journalism. And less like the modern TV opinion personality, or the random strong-opinion Web comments in which many of the rest of us (including myself) indulge.
I was strongly motivated to upvote and share this article. I probably upvote and share 1/500 articles I read on this website. So I disagree, I think his tone helps convey how the bulk of people feel about Google's search product and gives us a name to actually blame. Whereas every other blog writes about the decline of Google with a sad tone underwritten with nostalgia and always fails to provide any sort of root cause or solution, atleast this guy has given us good information and context to understand Googles decline. And of course, it's more entertaining when people are called out.
> and gives us a name to actually blame.
Understanding the dynamics is great, and we can learn from that, and apply it to other situations.
As for who to blame for something a company does, shouldn't outsiders blame the entire company? That's our interface, and also how we can hold the company accountable for its collective behavior.
It's also a defense against scapegoating: it wasn't just one person who made a unilateral decision, and everyone else -- up to and including the board, as well as down the tree, to those who knew and could walk and/or whistleblow -- was totally powerless. The company as an entity is responsible, and a lot of individuals were key or complicit.
> shouldn't outsiders blame the entire company
No, I firmly believe that this level of indirection over-diffuses responsibility in a way that enables the malfeseance we're observing.
It's a social dark pattern that I'm keen to identify and disrupt.
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> ...and gives us a name to actually blame.
I'm not sure that scapegoating makes the characterization of the article any better.
> atleast this guy has given us good information and context to understand Googles decline.
The style of the article gives good reason to think that the context & information is selectively provided.
> And of course, it's more entertaining when people are called out.
Yup.
Yeah I agree. The personal tone makes it clear that this is the authors’ opinion and not unbiased fact. I thoroughly enjoyed the article and the writing style. Excellent job.
Agreed. I struggled to keep going after "computer scientist class traitor". A very juvenile take that reflects poorly on the author, IMO.
Hyperbole that is quite obviously hyperbole is a well accepted literary device. It is a form of highlight via creative exaggeration of non-critical points, that is transparent, not deceptive, in service of making serious adjacent points. [0]
The point here is to highlight the actually cartoonish level of dysfunction and damage with an intentionally cartoonish flourish.
The "villian" in this case can be colorfully interpreted as the real world isomorphism of a mustache stroking, side sneering perpetrator, from any usually fictional world-stakes good vs. evil story.
Intentional exaggeration also communicates a bit of self-awareness, that gives heavy crisis alarms more credibility. The author's levity demonstrates a higher level awareness and humility, by making fun of his own extraordinarily serious thesis.
Finally: gallows humor. Add humor when talking about depressing things to relieve the anxiety that often inhibits discussion and contemplation of difficult topics.
[0] See famous "juvenile" writer Mark Twain.
Hyperbole is well and good in fiction and personal opinion pieces. I suppose my, and parent commenter's issue, is that we expected a certain type of writing, but got another. And that's fine. I don't have a dog in this fight, but to me it went beyond hyperbole and into personal attack territory. I called it juvenile because the descriptors lack nuance in the same way that "management bad, programmer good" arguments do. Having spent quite a bit of time on both sides, it's pretty clear that motivations, incentives, and constraints are not black and white, so I'm a bit more sensitive when I see people mocked without having full context.
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> Hyperbole that is quite obviously hyperbole
It's not at all obvious that the author intends to sound hyperbolic. At the risk of Poe's Law here, they come across as saying exactly what they intend to say, perhaps attempting to appeal to an audience looking for such portrayals.
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Thank you for this. I found this article compelling not only because of the subject matter but because of how it was written. It's possible for something to be informative and entertaining at the same time - I think this article is both. I enjoy the flourishes and creativity.
You don’t find it to be succinct? It’s certainly pejorative, but in four words it explains quite nicely how the author feels about Raghaven in a way most engineers can probably relate to. If he’d said “engineer who no longer builds but leverages their past technical background to instead succeed in a management role, often to the detriment of their past engineering peers” it would roughly get the same idea across, it’s just a chore to read.
Personally I don’t mind that sort of colloquial flare, it reads like I’m talking with a real person rather than a design document.
Anyone who talks about class traitors, or almost any sort of traitor, outside of a real war, is deeply misguided on this point.
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I thought it was a very good description. The person mentioned is responsible for turning one of the most important pieces of software used by billions, into user-hostile experiences that's better for only a few, including himself, just for profits.
As context, I offer the engineer oath used by some countries for certified engineers:
>> I am an Engineer. In my profession, I take deep pride. To it, I owe solemn obligations.
>> As an engineer, I pledge to practice integrity and fair dealing, tolerance and respect, and to uphold devotion to the standards and dignity of my profession. I will always be conscious that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth's precious wealth.
>> As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises. When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given, without reservation, for the public good. In the performance of duty, and in fidelity to my profession, I shall give my utmost.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Engineer#Oath
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> ..just for profits.
well let's be honest, Google was never founded to dig wells or feed starving children. It was only ever for the profits.
Also, in their defense, afaik no one's paychecks have ever bounced. I bet many many people would become very interested in profit and its growth if their direct deposit all of a sudden stopped.
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"Class traitor" isn't a juvenile insult. It has a fairly well-defined meaning and describes a set of problematic behaviors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_traitor
Are you saying that it's an incorrect description, or are you just generally against accusing people of things?
Thanks for the link. I also took the term as clearly being used to describe the dynamic between managers and the engineers / coding "class" within a company. At Google, those lines are admittedly probably a lot blurrier, but I think the term gets the author's point across in this context.
Like, if we can't allow some level of incisive criticism of extremely well paid tech executives, who have a massive influence on technology, in an article/blog describing feasible harm by said people to said industry, on the "talk about technology news" website, I honestly don't know what the point of forums, blogging, or the internet even is.
It's a ridiculous term that promotes polarization and dumbs down the level of discourse. I have the same reaction to it as when I see "bootlicker" as applied to anyone who takes the company's side (or is in management in general). There's too much adversarial name-calling these days, and not enough seeking understanding.
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I agree and it's especially frustrating because it's such a vital topic. Since at least ~2020 the utility of Google Search has declined dramatically and it appears much of the cause is actions intentionally taken by Google prioritizing short-term ad revenue over long-term user value.
There was likely a significant change in cultural priorities inside Google driving this. While one person can certainly contribute to such a cultural change, it would be a better article if it focused on the change in cultural values itself.
Just to chime in, I started reading the article due to this comment, as I wanted to check the style of the writing, but the amount of in-your-face insistence to subscribe to yet another newsletter just put me off entirely.
There was a CTA right at the beginning (which appeared suddenly after 4-5 seconds of reading so I lost my place), then another one a few paragraphs later, then less than 3 seconds after that, a pop-up to subscribe!
At that point I was so annoyed I just scrolled to the end to see how many more of these distractions I would have to endure, and then I found _yet_ another one and ALSO a bottom bar?
What gives? Is this really useful anymore? do people that subscribe after being harassed like this actually care about your articles?
I try to ignore these as much as possible, but holy cow, I just want to read this one article and maybe later _if_ I find it interesting I might read a couple more and THEN actually subscribe.
I am really annoyed by the amount of distracting stuff these "blogs" put in front you as if they wanted you to avoid reading the material. What is wrong with these people?
Aside from the annoying pop-up, I didn't actually notice the other calls to subscribe.
It's a bit of an unfortunate situation for the author, if any reasonable number of people are like me. If I didn't notice the less-intrusive efforts to get me to subscribe, and when I see the intrusive one (the modal pop-up), it makes me less likely to want to subscribe... oof.
I think the theoretical ideal from the reader's standpoint is that there's just one call to subscribe, at the very end, the idea being that if you can't make it to the end of the article, you probably aren't going to subscribe anyway.
And yet so many sites still do the modal pop-up that interrupts you while you're reading. So clearly they must work, at least well enough to get people to sign up? Then again, I do wonder how many people are so turned off by those pop-ups, people who would have subscribed, but decide not to?
Not sure if it's my browser config, but I saw all these CTAs I mentioned, which I find absurd.
I really think the article was relatively interesting, enough for me to consider other articles if it weren't for the amount of annoying nudges I got, which is a shame because the author probably put some good effort into it.
I agree that the only CTA should be at the end, but more and more it looks like it actually works, otherwise I would imagine people would stop doing it so often.
Ironically, these sorts of nagging CTAs are exactly the thing that "growth hackers" use to reduce quality in favor of short-term metrics.
The problem there is that nobody wrote that article, someone did write this one. You should ask yourself why that is.
That's the first question that came to mind while reading the article. Many of the possible answers that came to mind did nothing to improve my perception of the article.
I thought it was written very well, and was engaging. I could easily imagine it being dry and boring, otherwise, something that wouldn't hold my attention long enough to read through it to the end.
this is such a tiresome criticism. "this would be better if it were more boring" yeah okay and 4 people would read it and 2 of them would fall asleep during
And your criticism of him is what? Encourage more sensationalism? Because there's so much evidence of that being such good and healthy way for journalism/news to operate?
It may have been somewhat sensationalist and over the top. But it was also very authentic, and freaking hilarious. Much more entertaining to read than if it hadn't been snarky and catty.
So no don't go for pure sensationalism. Go for authentic voice and humor coupled with hard facts and sound arguments. That's what makes it powerful.
I think that you unintentionally hit the core of why things are turning into crap.
What is crappier: engaging text with colorful text that may offend people, or sterile text from an author afraid of offending a single person? I'm going with the latter.
Yes, I felt that the style of the writing lead me to doubt whether I was reading the full story (and indeed, the way Prabhakar's work at IBM is minimized reinforced that impression).