from the only-drug-dealers-and-Internet-businesses-have-users-for-clients dept.
Long ago, another company tried to control global connectivity—it had an unhappy ending
Can you imagine a company so powerful that it controls half of the world's trade?
It actually happened. But only one time in history. It's a remarkable story filled with lessons for those willing to learn them.
No business ever matched the power of the East India Company. It dominated global trade routes, and used that power to control entire nations. Yet it eventually collapsed—ruined by the consequences of its own extreme ambitions.
Anybody who wants to understand how big businesses destroy themselves through greed and overreaching needs to know this case study. And that's especially true right now—because huge web platforms are trying to do the exact same thing in the digital economy that the East India Company did in the real world.
Google is the closest thing I've ever seen to the East India Company. And it will encounter the exact same problems, and perhaps meet the same fate.
[...] When you consider all the brutal, terrible things this company did, you 're dumbfounded that they dared adopt that slogan—much like the "Don't Be Evil" that once served as Google's motto.
But their real god was profit maximization. Of course it was—when your return on investment is so high, you try to grow as fast as possible.
[...] Just like a shipping company that controls the port, Google's search engine is the port of departure for digital voyages today. And like the East India Company, Google decided that it can exploit anybody who uses its port—and destroy them if they want.
So Google destroyed the journalism business. That's why your neighborhood newspaper went broke—the folks in Palo Alto siphoned off all the advertising revenues. And they have killed off thousands of other businesses and jobs.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24, @12:31AM (1 child)
It's controversial, but the resemblance [wikipedia.org] of the US flag to the East India Company's is uncanny, and there are a some theories floating around about why that might be.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Tork on Friday January 24, @01:45AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Disagree) by HiThere on Friday January 24, @12:40AM
Local newspapers were dying even before Google was incorporated. Google speeded up the death, but it was already in process by 1970.
OTOH, perhaps Google killed off the local ISPs or the local bulletin boards. This would be because their focus was so entirely non-local. (Much more originally than it is today, when Google will provide local maps with advertisements for local businesses embedded in them.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DrkShadow on Friday January 24, @01:30AM (2 children)
Kinda... lost relevance to Gogle?
It doesn't say *how* they did this, it just says they _did_ do this - as though it's an obvious fact. Sorry, I don't see it.
Ok, that's their gambit - if you don't advertise on goggle, you don't exist. The end.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24, @02:13AM
> ... if you don't advertise on goggle, you don't exist.
That's certainly what Google will tell you! But you don't have to believe it.
Reminds me of the early days of Amazon when they just sold books. They were really good at brainwashing people to believe that if Amazon didn't have a book then it wasn't available...and there was no point in wasting your time looking around for other sources.
This was a lie, many books from small publishers were not available through Amazon because they refused the lowball deal that Amazon offered (well below the discount to big chain bookstores). In my case (an engineering reference book), my publisher refused the Amazon offer. Amazon retaliated by listing our book as "Out of print". The book has been in print continuously and available directly from the publisher...
(Score: 5, Informative) by Freeman on Friday January 24, @02:43PM
Just because they failed to provide evidence that Google destroyed the journalism business, doesn't mean it's untrue. However, I posit that, if Google never existed, journalism business could have been essentially destroyed as it currently is regardless. The internet itself was the beginning of the end of journalism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/technology/news-media-industry-dying.html [nytimes.com]
https://medium.com/@almightypress/how-clickbait-is-destroying-journalism-aae1b635361d [medium.com]
https://galaxy.ai/youtube-summarizer/how-journalism-destroyed-itself-an-in-depth-analysis-DPjjiSlXwgA [galaxy.ai]
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/27/is-the-journalism-death-spasm-finally-here-00138187 [politico.com]
https://www.fastcompany.com/91021907/why-does-journalism-seem-like-its-collapsing-call-it-market-failure [fastcompany.com]
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/media-layoffs-la-times/677285/ [theatlantic.com]
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/how-american-journalism-died/ [nationalreview.com]
https://emerging-europe.com/culture-travel-sport/croatian-netflix-drama-the-paper-is-more-relevant-than-ever/ [emerging-europe.com]
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/vice-co-founder-admits-woke-journalism-destroyed-brand-what-fk [zerohedge.com]
https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/a-hard-hit-for-the-fact-checking-community-and-journalism-meta-eliminates-fact-checking-in-the-u-s/ [niemanlab.org]
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/local-news-revival-plan/ [thenation.com]
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/03/warning-for-journalists-youre-more-ignorant-than-you-realize/ [harvard.edu]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Friday January 24, @04:09AM (1 child)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday January 25, @02:34AM
I compare Google somewhat to Yahoo. Yahoo at one time dominated the search and email industries. Google was a startup search engine. Yahoo of course was never as big and dominate as Google is now, but for the times they had "won" the dominance battle over earlier competition. Yahoo started screwing around with their algorithms, changing search results from the relevant to the profitable, and as a result started to make themselves irrelevant. Since Google was by then providing a far superior product, they suddenly vaulted past Yahoo and starting becoming what they are today. Unfortunately, they are now repeating some of the stupid things Yahoo did, but since there isn't a nimble competitor yet they still dominate, despite becoming more and more odious a product.
(Score: 5, Informative) by krishnoid on Friday January 24, @06:41AM (3 children)
Craigslist completely killed off classified advertising, so you lose an entire section of revenue with no replacement.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Friday January 24, @02:51PM (2 children)
The internet killed News.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24, @06:04PM (1 child)
> The internet killed News.
Maybe there is something instructive if we look at the other end and ask:
What started the news business?
I can imagine that it started with a town crier who probably didn't make much of a living, and the competition was the town rumor mill. Once printing became affordable and the literacy rate went up a bit, the town criers didn't last much longer(?) But when did passing around the news become a business, and then a source of power unto itself, taking advantage of the power to move public opinion?
Anyone here to fill in the interesting details?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 27, @02:58PM
Interesting thing, Benjamin Franklin worked for his brother at a Newspaper in Boston Massachusetts when he was young. He also published quite a bit in early American newspapers.
Funnily enough, he became a fugitive around 16 years old due to his advocating free speech.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"