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You're starting to sound a little astroturfy here. But taking you at face value: In the context of this site, commenters tend to use the word "people" when referencing a relatively narrow swath of early adopters and influencers. It doesn't usually mean "normals" who really don't know the difference between a browser, a search engine, and "the Internet". The problem is, normals look to influencers to help them decipher the Interweb, and meanwhile Google's been ramming itself down both groups' throats. Consider the Google+ (tech influencers) and YouTube (millennial influencers) real names policies. Neither group is a fan, and sees it as pandering to marketing interests. And there's your answer. You joined up in the old Doubleclick building, so you know ad revenue powers the ship. When Google seemed to use that revenue to not be evil, to support 20% time and innovate recklessly, spawning tools that subsets of influencers could love and rave about -- even with the beta label and no support, it worked. When it started to come across more cynically, killing "Labs", killing people's pet Google products, taking away "free" and dumping the beta labels without adding a human face of support, it's bound to cause some eye opening to what Google's real business is: not a toy factory, but an ad revenue engine. It's part of the company growing up, but doesn't have to be. I would argue the company could still easily tweak its image back towards altruism even at the expense of some revenue. Pursue a little more karma than klout to avoid embarrassments like the Google Glass selection. Sustain information organizing products genuinely, not cynically. Have a soul. |