What is the most evil corporation in the world?

[Grey Fox]

 

Well their entire business model is based on stealing the content of everyone else on the web and then putting their own advertising on top of it.

#firstworldproblem

What about apple? Their new business model is about suing everybody for copyright fraud. It's like they are the new microsoft.

Patents, not copyright.

Right. Still appaling.

[garbon]

Apple apparently recently dropped out of some environmentally friendly products rating group.

[Sheilbh]

Also, Trafigura.

[Maximus]

Well that's certainly one way to spin it.

Am I wrong?

Google generates virtually no content (some small exceptions - Google Maps / Street View is google-generated), yet sells billions of dollars of advertising for linking to other people's content.

They provide a service, collecting the staggeringly enormous amount of data out there and cataloging it so those who want to find it can do so. They don't even charge the users. Instead they provide another service to pay for it.

They pay their employees quite well. That money has to come from somewhere. I'm a bit surprised that you would be the one condemning a company for running a successful business delivering a highly demanded service.

[Barrister]

Well that's certainly one way to spin it.

Am I wrong?

Google generates virtually no content (some small exceptions - Google Maps / Street View is google-generated), yet sells billions of dollars of advertising for linking to other people's content.

They provide a service, collecting the staggeringly enormous amount of data out there and cataloging it so those who want to find it can do so. They don't even charge the users. Instead they provide another service to pay for it.

They pay their employees quite well. That money has to come from somewhere. I'm a bit surprised that you would be the one condemning a company for running a successful business delivering a highly demanded service.

Actually I condemn them for trying to portray themselves as "Not being evil". 

I never said they didn't provide a service.  They clearly do.  But it's a service based upon the works of others, and for which Google provides nothing.

And you should also know that my father is a long-time newspaper man - but one who has been struggling with a lot of contract and term jobs, in large part because newspapers have been losing tons of money in recent years.

[PRC]

Well that's certainly one way to spin it.

Am I wrong?

Google generates virtually no content (some small exceptions - Google Maps / Street View is google-generated), yet sells billions of dollars of advertising for linking to other people's content.

They provide a service, collecting the staggeringly enormous amount of data out there and cataloging it so those who want to find it can do so. They don't even charge the users. Instead they provide another service to pay for it.

They pay their employees quite well. That money has to come from somewhere. I'm a bit surprised that you would be the one condemning a company for running a successful business delivering a highly demanded service.

Actually I condemn them for trying to portray themselves as "Not being evil". 

I never said they didn't provide a service.  They clearly do.  But it's a service based upon the works of others, and for which Google provides nothing.

And you should also know that my father is a long-time newspaper man - but one who has been struggling with a lot of contract and term jobs, in large part because newspapers have been losing tons of money in recent years.

I disagree that Google provides nothing to the content creators.  If the sites are showing up in search then Google is providing them exposure and awareness for free.  Those content creators can also learn to "game" Google to get even better results from organic search (that's part of my day job).  Google also provides things like advanced analytics and other development tools that are extrememly helpful to those content creators and lot of that, such as Google Analytics, is free.

Your old man should start blogging!  I'm serious.

[The Minsky Moment]

Also, Trafigura.

What makes them worse then others in the industry?

[Barrister]

How on earth would my old man make any money blogging though?   It seems like blogging is a part of this same cycle of

1. Provide content for free to the internet
2. ...
3. Profit!

That has caught up the entire industry.

Plus, although my dad was a sportswriter and sports columnist for years and years, for the last 20 years he's been primarily an editor / page layout person.

[DontSayBanana]

Painting Google as simply a delivery platform is really, really broad strokes.  Hosting?  Very-large computing?  You mentioned that they do, in fact, generate content via Google Earth and Google Maps- are you aware that that's a huge bulk of their income?  Getting into a squabble over the charge for the generated content is why Apple's dropping Google Maps, BTW.

[frunk]

Even if Google wasn't there newspapers would be dying out.  The trend had started well before Google became the preeminent search engine.

[DontSayBanana]

How on earth would my old man make any money blogging though?   It seems like blogging is a part of this same cycle of

1. Provide content for free to the internet
2. ...
3. Profit!

That has caught up the entire industry.

Plus, although my dad was a sportswriter and sports columnist for years and years, for the last 20 years he's been primarily an editor / page layout person.

Yeah, that particular gripe is a definite concern.  I don't see where you get Google being evil, though, since AdSense is one of their ways of inserting something into that "..." for content providers.

I feel like the only ones who've really grasped the Internet as a daily income generator are the gaming companies, and even they're still fine-tuning to come up with a reasonable junction of nature, amount, and price of microtransaction content.

[PRC]

How on earth would my old man make any money blogging though?   It seems like blogging is a part of this same cycle of

1. Provide content for free to the internet
2. ...
3. Profit!

That has caught up the entire industry.

Plus, although my dad was a sportswriter and sports columnist for years and years, for the last 20 years he's been primarily an editor / page layout person.

He can freelance blog for sites like http://www.arcticicehockey.com/ (Winnipeg Jet's blog and part of SBNation) which have Google's display network ads on the site and those generate revenue in the form of click-through commissions for the blogger. 

He can also setup his own blog and talk about whatever he wants... display those Google sponsored ads on his own site and collect the commissions on the clickthroughs, that's how bloggers make money.  It will be slow to start but if his content is good, if it has articles of interest that people want to read then the blog will become popular and that will help with his own exposure and being able to get more freelance jobs through traditional mediums. 

[Syt]

Painting Google as simply a delivery platform is really, really broad strokes.  Hosting?  Very-large computing?  You mentioned that they do, in fact, generate content via Google Earth and Google Maps- are you aware that that's a huge bulk of their income?  Getting into a squabble over the charge for the generated content is why Apple's dropping Google Maps, BTW.

In the discussion in Germany (ZOMG GOOGLE LINKS TO NEWS STORIES FOR FREE) it's been mentioned that the German Google news service is far from profitable.

[Barrister]

How on earth would my old man make any money blogging though?   It seems like blogging is a part of this same cycle of

1. Provide content for free to the internet
2. ...
3. Profit!

That has caught up the entire industry.

Plus, although my dad was a sportswriter and sports columnist for years and years, for the last 20 years he's been primarily an editor / page layout person.

He can freelance blog for sites like http://www.arcticicehockey.com/ (Winnipeg Jet's blog and part of SBNation) which have Google's display network ads on the site and those generate revenue in the form of click-through commissions for the blogger. 

He can also setup his own blog and talk about whatever he wants... display those Google sponsored ads on his own site and collect the commissions on the clickthroughs, that's how bloggers make money.  It will be slow to start but if his content is good, if it has articles of interest that people want to read then the blog will become popular and that will help with his own exposure and being able to get more freelance jobs through traditional mediums.

All of those kinds of sites though seem to have contributors who are wannabe sports writers, or people trying to break into the business.

[PRC]

He can freelance blog for sites like http://www.arcticicehockey.com/ (Winnipeg Jet's blog and part of SBNation) which have Google's display network ads on the site and those generate revenue in the form of click-through commissions for the blogger. 

He can also setup his own blog and talk about whatever he wants... display those Google sponsored ads on his own site and collect the commissions on the clickthroughs, that's how bloggers make money.  It will be slow to start but if his content is good, if it has articles of interest that people want to read then the blog will become popular and that will help with his own exposure and being able to get more freelance jobs through traditional mediums.

All of those kinds of sites though seem to have contributors who are wannabe sports writers, or people trying to break into the business.

Yeah, so with your old mans background he should be a pro and do well right from the start!