Comment by poly2it
21 days ago
If your businesses idea doesn't work without you being evil, you deserve to go bankrupt. I perceive a tendency to assume it is necessary for a company like Google to maintain full control over our ecosystem to further our progress and maintain order. However, we should know by now that this isn't the case. You don't have to be evil to be useful. See GNOME, GrapheneOS, Steam, KDE, Wikipedia, Linux or Mozilla (previously). Tricking us of their inevitability is their greatest success.
It's so funny to me that they think that forcing power users to cave in is going to bring in more money. Heck I will stop paying for Google Workspace and move my shit to Apple rather than pay for YouTube premium or watch YouTube ads.
I don't think it's about money anymore. These last few years we've seen governments, corporations, lobby groups, and the rich really starting to clamp down on authoritarian measures primarily centering around eliminating digital freedoms.
I think we might be past the stage of capitalism where the evil was merely incidental to the pursuit of profit.
Steam is interesting example. Many evil things in gaming: Battle Pass, LootBox, came from them, or being made popular by them.
Their business idea works great while not being evil in any new ways beyond what they were already tolerating with advertising. No, this particular brand of evil is so much more offensive, because they're just in it for love of the game.
> If your businesses idea doesn't work without you being evil, you deserve to go bankrupt
Oh but they hate to hear this.