[semiquaver]

I expected mostly snark from my earnest question, And got it.

Ok, concrete scenario. What about homeless people using the computer at the library? Im pretty sure Google wouldn’t intentionally cut marginalized people like this off from the entire internet, would they?

Please don’t respond with sarcasm.

[andrepd]

> Im pretty sure Google wouldn’t intentionally cut marginalized people like this off from the entire internet, would they? Please don’t respond with sarcasm.

Honestly, if you ask such terminally naive questions don't be surprised to get sarcasm in reply. Google does cut off access to chunks of people if it deems it profitable to do so!

[otterley]

It doesn't matter how "naive" you think a question is. Nobody here deserves sarcastic remarks in response to a good-faith question.

Literally the first guideline under "In Comments" is:

> Be kind. *Don't be snarky.*

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[gwerbin]

Oh please. It wasn't even that snarky. It's also still a valid and correct (as far as anyone can tell) answer to the question.

[andrepd]

Rethoric ≠ snark

[Asooka]

Google would throw homeless people in a furnace to generate electricity for their datacentres if they could. No, this is not sarcasm, I fully expect they would if they could.

[jfil]

It's unpleasant to face, but this initiative from Google is a concrete example that the homeless/too-poor-for-phone do not matter. I've heard of cases where university library apps/admin systems required a phone, and for those cases you could borrow a phone from a "device library" on campus. But, obviously, there's nothing like this for the homeless guy being blocked by Google...

[warkdarrior]

US govt used to have a program to sponsor mobile phones for homeless. Is that still around or did DOGE kill it?

(edit) It seems to still exist: https://www.fcc.gov/general/lifeline-program-low-income-cons...

[observationist]

> Im pretty sure Google wouldn’t intentionally cut marginalized people like this off from the entire internet, would they?

Sure they would. Cloudflare has already arbitrarily blocked entire swathes of the internet. Captcha as well. Your average user ends up going to the path of least resistance, and end up with a compliant ISP or carrier that's doing all sorts of censorship and gatekeeping and siloing and funneling.

And if they did get noticed, they'd whip up some sort of program through their cronies like the Obama phone, and get subsidized service to some token groups, heavily favoring political funneling and defaults supporting whatever party won the grift for that particular round of conspicuous do-gooding.

It's bad, man. For technically savvy people, they can get around things, switch up DNS, muck with vpns, etc. Normal folks are kept firmly within the walled gardens.

Then there's the information silos, platforms, and psychological shit they use. People don't have a chance in hell of getting a free and open link to the internet, what they see is tied to their identity, tied to their service provider, tied to their geographic location, and it's all done seamlessly in the background so they never even notice what they're missing, by design.

It wasn't snark. It's the awful, honest truth, and I have things to suggest involving wire brushes for anyone at Google or any other company involved in this shit.

We need a digital bill of rights, outlawing commercial trafficking in user data, mandatory ephemerality, and penalties involving prison time for CEOs and fines that are rapidly and unavoidably fatal even for companies like Alphabet or Amazon if they screw up even a little bit. Otherwise, this whole pretense at a free and open internet is just a convenient talking point and marketing schlock.

[pocksuppet]

GitHub allegedly blocks most of Brazil because most of Brazil is on CGNAT. Do you think GitHub cares? No, of course not lol.

[UqWBcuFx6NV4r]

They just didn’t want a Temu Cory Doctorow answer.

[bramhaag]

> Im pretty sure Google wouldn’t intentionally cut marginalized people like this off from the entire internet, would they?

Why wouldn't they? Google is notorious for making marginalized people's lives harder if it can make them money. Some examples:

- Hosting Palantir's ImmigrationOS, used by ICE to track immigrants

- Actively removing tools marginalized people use to protect themselves against ICE, such as ICE-tracking apps on the play store

- Intentionally aided Israel in committing genocide as part of Project Nimbus

- LGBTQ creator censorship on YouTube

Cutting off a small group of people they've repeatedly shown not to care about in the first place is a small price to pay to further cement their position as gatekeeper of the internet.

[whatsupdog]

Illegal immigrants =/= marginalized people

[CursedSilicon]

No person is illegal

[867-5309]

"person is immigrating illegally" not "illegal person is immigrating"

[account42]

You might want to campaign to get rid of the entire concept of citizenship then. Until you manage to get people onboard with that, the lawful thing to do is to support legal enforcement of the laws on the book, which most people also agree with in this case.

[aboringusername]

Well, it depends on the application and context. I don't think a homeless person at the library is going to be booking a $1000-a-night room in downtown Los Angeles.

However, services that homeless people will be using should factor in their target audience (such as the homeless not having a phone at all, or maybe not one that's up to date even).

However, like it or not, having a modern up to date device is becoming essential for even rudimentary basic access to society. Whether that's right or wrong it's where we are.

[akimbostrawman]

>Google wouldn’t intentionally cut marginalized people like this off from the entire internet, would they?

Followed by

>Please don’t respond with sarcasm.

Is my kind of humor. Just because they follow ESG scoring doesn't mean they actually care, if anything it means they very much don't.

They already trying there best to marginalize non chrome, non residential ip, non lodged in user not to mention there decade long silicon valley political purity targeting.