[smokinn]

I don't see what Google has to do with this. Google gets roasted just as well as any other company around here. I've seen several articles get upvoted about google+ being a ghost town, and other critical articles.

Just try googling site:news.ycombinator.com google

From the first page I see:

6 discussions that are basically neutral

1 positive (Google puts Japan quake tsunami warning on their search page)

1 mix of positive and negative (people arguing both positions) (Goodbye, Google App Engine)

2 negative (Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results, Google to announce "new programming language for structured web programming" )

I've never noticed a leaning towards favoring Google here. If you were arguing that YC funded companies get preferential treatment then you might have a case but I don't think your "I get a feeling that the hivemind of HN is critical of anything that is not associated google" is correct at all.