| I think this blogger isn't understanding a fundamental reality of corporate structure that has little to do with some pie-eyed plan for what Google thinks the web "needs". This behavior isn't indicative of any design to "improve" the web, which I think could be said that a fair majority of programmers desire on a personal level and indeed what most laymen would admit to wanting as well. This has to do with Google focusing on brand homogenization. This is marketing, not web fundamentals. It's a company trying to extend, homogenize and monetize its brand and the services its brand can offer under those circumstances. I also thinks this differs in nature from the path Microsoft took with its OS strategy, though there are certainly some similarities. Is corporatism infesting Google? Of course it is! That's what happens when a corporation grows to the size Google has over the past decade. Now, this is in no way meant to be in any way a defense of corporate culture or an argument against lobbying tech companies to do what's best for the web. We generally want to see the web evolve in a positive way. However, if you're expecting that from a major corporation that at the end of the day has responsibilities to shareholders... well, to say the least you're going to be disappointed. Positive evolution will generally come from non-profits, because they can take risks. I defy any programmer to point to one of these tech giants and say they "definitively moved the web in a positive direction". Google's the absolute closest you could get using such a narrow criteria and that's largely due to their innovations in search that stem from their less profit-focused days and their more recent Google Fiber efforts. Even then, Google Fiber is an extension of Google's long-term corporate goals. The only point I want to argue is that we need to look at this situation through a realistic lens. When we lose sight of the realities of Corporate America and its relationship with technology, that's the point when we start engaging in counterproductive hyperbole. |