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I disagree; I didn't mention proprietary capabilities out of pedantry, but because I think the two situations are fundamentally different. All Google is doing here is adding more features to its products, and while it sucks for people who made a business providing those features, it's completely different from the parasitic behavior that EEE represents.

An easy way to tell the difference is comparing with other companies doing the same: for example, DuckDuckGo is lauded for adding these kinds of small features. The only difference is that they're too small to kill anybody's business. But if DuckDuckGo tried to extend a standard format with proprietary capabilities in order to kill it, would we laud them?

Your analogy with DDG doesn't hold.

First, DDG includes (mostly) other companies' services like HN, WolframAlpha, etc. It doesn't compete with them, it's closer to prerendering in Chrome.

Second, I argued in other comment that Google Search is, for many users, a standard, and DDG must follow it or be left behind.

First, DDG includes (mostly) other companies' services like HN, WolframAlpha, etc. It doesn't compete with them, it's closer to prerendering in Chrome.

Plenty of them are builtin and/or part of DuckDuckGo hack. And even for others, it's pretty different from just prerendering. They are choosing a single site to display data from. Is it really different if Google makes a partnership without some site(s) and kills off everyone else? Why?

Second, I argued in other comment that Google Search is, for many users, a standard, and DDG must follow it or be left behind.

Except in this case, Google is the one behind, since DDG has many more special queries than them.

I use DDG, StarPage, and others because I consider privacy a right. Yet I don't necessarily endorse any of them, you're misrepresenting my opinion to come out on top.

Your argument is strikingly close to those against net neutrality. I'll just left the conversation here, you'll defend Google no matter what.

Yet I don't necessarily endorse any of them, you're misrepresenting my opinion to come out on top.

I never said you did. I never talked about your personal opinions on DDG or Startpage. Hell, the comment where I introduced DDG wasn't even a reply to you.

I used the fact that DDG is praised - in general, not specifically by you - for doing exactly what Google is being criticized for, and that shows that it's not inherently a bad thing, like EEE always is.

Your argument is strikingly close to those against net neutrality.

My argument is "if X is so wrong, how come we praise everyone else for doing X?"

I'm sure plenty of groups have used the same argument. It doesn't make me into them anymore than singing Maybe I'm Amazed makes me Paul McCartney.

I'll just left the conversation here, you'll defend Google no matter what.

No, just if I think it's being unfairly criticized. You won't hear me defend their appalling privacy stance, their terrible customer service, their braindead real name requirement on Plus, etc. There's a reason why I left Gmail and Reader years ago, and that's because I think Google has way to much power for our own good.

But it's not because they add freaking etymology utilities to their search engine.

You're totally right. But I would argue that its search engine is considered a standard by many. And now with a 90% market share it's reversing its policies.

Also, lest never forget Google Reader: "Embrace, extend, extinguish: How Google crushed and abandoned the RSS industry" http://www.zdnet.com/embrace-extend-extinguish-how-google-cr...

I would argue that its search engine is considered a standard by many.

Only by people who don't understand the meaning of "standard" in this context. Otherwise, it makes no sense to say "Google is embracing and extending Google Search".

Also, lest never forget Google Reader: "Embrace, extend, extinguish: How Google crushed and abandoned the RSS industry"

Another person who doesn't understand what EEE means, despite spelling it out. Yes, Google crowded out the RSS ecosystem, and eventually killed. Yes, I do agree that Google was a destructive influence for RSS. No, it wasn't an example of a company following the EEE strategy.

The whole point of the EEE strategy is that you extinguish the competition, not your own products. It's a plan to dominate a market by making your proprietary format the new de-facto standard (extending the original), which kills every other option.

If Google had followed the EEE strategy, it wouldn't have killed Reader. Instead, you'd still be using it, except now it would only support GoogleRSS feeds (made popular by leveraging feedburner), which would be a binary, undocumented format that nobody else would be able to parse.

90% market share implies a position similar to IE6 some years ago, a de facto standard.

With respect to RSS, Google launched a free product, poured millions into it. If you're not Google you can't compete with that. It was devastating. It destroyed everything. And with only their product standing, Google said, "you know what? I'll kill RSS dead, you have some months to transfer to my closed proprietary format/social network, Google+, the new standard". So it's in fact the EEE strategy.

Are you claiming that they poured millions into Reader for eight years as part of a plan to gain a few users to a service that didn't even exist at the time?

pfortuny 4604 days ago

Well if one of your products is in competition with the 'star' one (Plus), then the last E in EEE is perfectly logical. Notice that Page's push for plus happened after the development and offering of Reader. So, they EE'd RSS and then they had to E it.

EEE is a strategy. Unless there's any evidence that Reader was created eight years ago just so that it could swallow the RSS market and be killed to stop competing with a product that was years away from existing, it's not EEE. It's just a normal business decision to not compete with itself.