Ask HN: imagine a world where Google was truly evil ...

[wongjoh]

... and had the most resources, same drive, same execution, lack of morals, and audacity to plagiarize what every up-and-coming startup and other successful company is doing in its own market.

For example, imagine that Google were to exactly replicate Quora, StackOverflow, Wikipedia, EBay, Amazon, etc. in UI, UX, distribution channels and deals and then gradually stopped showing those competitors as search results, provided incentives to corporations to partner with it instead of its competitors, bribed/lobbied every government agency, and that it would rather copy/destroy its competitors than acquire them.

Now, imagine that you were an ambitious entrepreneur in that environment / geographical area. How would you compete?

Just so you know -- this is actually happening. Not in the US and not with Google, but far east, and with actual big tech companies there.

What would be your practical advice to those entrepreneurs in that particular country?

[brudgers]

Because Google is amoral - corporate "persons" don't have the free will necessary for meaningfully characterizing them as moral actors - the idea that Google is ontologically good or evil is a category error (given the assumption that good and evil are meaningful terms).

That's not to say that a corporate "person" cannot be used as a tool or means for moral agents to commit acts of kindness or commit harm. But moral responsibility for those acts lies with the moral agents who run the company or otherwise make the decisions which lead to such states of affairs.

There is nothing in the scenario which you describe which is evil so long as one accepts that a corporation maximizing its profits is a good, i.e. characterizes corporate "persons" as moral agents rather than a force which moral agents possessing free will may harness for their acts.

I will add that the fundamental premise of the scenario is that Google would create a walled garden and give it preference over open networks such as the internet when providing information to users of its services.

The application of ethics to such scenarios is left as an exercise for the reader.

[wongjoh]

Sure. This is the classical question about a corporation maximizing profits vs its social responsibility. Furthermore, ethics/moral stand depend on the societal norms. In the scenario I gave, we are looking from the outside -- it may be perfectly "legit" within that society (and in fact, that's how many see it in my actual applied country). But reality remains: a giant with the resources, tenacity, and goal to copy and replace most every other successful company.

So my question remains: what should tech entrepreneurs do in this "imaginary" environment/scenario?

[pemulis]

My advice would be to focus really hard on a single area in the market. Google (or the Asian companies you seem to be really talking about, like Renren and Sina) can copy your user interface and quote-unquote "idea", but their size creates problems. They're not as focused as a small start-up can be. Big companies lumber, small companies sprint.

Since all of the front-end parts of a website are stealable, you have to win by focusing on back-end technology and community. That's how all of the sites on your list have found success. For Quora, StackOverflow, and Wikipedia, it's the community. For eBay and Amazon, it's the back-end technology. That's somewhat oversimplified, but you get the idea.

[namank]

As a kid, I was always paranoid about the kind of things Google can do. They can effectively build an accurate psychological profile on absolutely anyone on the internet. They track your search history, email, contacts, even your telephone number. They have all your docs, and now, with Chrome they CAN track your browsing history. And with things going paperless, they know everything about you.

Then their goals: build a database of genome of every person on the planet!!

My problem wasn`t the consolidation of data itself but the motivations of the people doing so and the easy target such service providers may make for crackers. Google is still run by ideal-respecting founders today. This won`t always be the case for a publicly-traded company. For a mild example: What is going to stop Google from selling potential clients to marketing firms when it goes in search for a new revenue stream?

[mariuolo]

I hope it would be broken up by antitrust regulators.

[wongjoh]

I would hope so too, but in the case/scenario, the very regulators are lobbied/bribed/look the other way. Not every society is as law-centric as the US, especially the fast, emerging countries.