[vacri]

Do a thought experiment.

Sure, do one of your own. Have the developers of all your things use only the resource searching of the mid-90s. Watch all those technologies slow down considerably. This is part of what I mean when I say catalyst. Got a weird problem? I hope you happen to be in just the right group or forum that happens to have a willing expert.

Personally, I like how you completely disallow me any influence of Google on any other company, but you are more than willing to subsume any steel-using work into the provenance of US Steel. Apparently other steel companies - even other countries, don't exist. Your bias is beyond belief. I called Google a catalyst, not directly reposible for 'everything', unlike your mention of the steel industry.

[rayiner]

> This is part of what I mean when I say catalyst. Got a weird problem? I hope you happen to be in just the right group or forum that happens to have a willing expert.

A catalyst, in common parlance, is something that gets a reaction going under circumstances which it would not otherwise proceed. Google cannot be a catalyst if the "reaction" was already roaring by the time it had any influence.

Does Google make life easier? Sure. But I'm not sure how that earns it the title of "greatest tech company in history."

> but you are more than willing to subsume any steel-using work into the provenance of US Steel. Apparently other steel companies - even other countries, don't exist.

I think you underestimate the total domination U.S. Steel and how instrumental its production was to building the U.S. as we know it today. Controlling 2/3 of all steel production is somewhat more significant than controlling 2/3 of search engine traffic.

That's the heart of the distinction I'm trying to make. Google is something that makes life online easier, but U.S. Steel was something that made industrial America possible.

[vacri]

Industrial America was brought into existence in 1901? I mean, you've been telling me that Google doesn't really count because they had predecessors, and here you are saying that Industrial America essentially sprang into existence in 1901 at the behest of US Steel. Again and again you refuse to play on a level field.

Also, in common parlance, a catalyst is also something that speeds things along. A catalyst for change' doesn't mean that change would never have happened, just that it was significantly facilitated.