this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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Google managed to create a very clean image of themselves in most heads, but looking closer it is an ugly profit maximization machine. It cares about shareholders. If it cares about you, then probably for spying on you and learn how to manipulate you and others better. I hope people start realizing finally.
And let's state it clear: Google could have a voice. They could object to the Musk-Thiel-Trumpian destruction machine. They could be there for the world. But they're not. Not at all. They serve the money. And if it pays off, then they are willing to ruin peoples lives.
Google is on the wrong side of history.
I am hoping that Google bites the dust from this. Having stuff like Peertube becoming common, would go a long way towards mitigating media moguls from controlling narratives. As we have seen, the media organs of the right are staying silent or downlplaying what has been happening.
Also, it would be nice if the folk didn't have to deal with baseless copyright takedowns. A lot of culture has been lost to feckless corpotacracy.
Seems like their motto isn’t „don’t be Evil“ anymore for a reason.
It was limiting them. To truly maximize profits they need to strip off all limits. I'm not joking. Really not. This is why capitalism and fascism go so well together.
Can they even argue they following washed version of "do the right thing"
Well „the right thing“ says nothing. Doing the right thing can be making tons of money, which it apparently also is.
I agree with your points, but what do you think are some of the specific things Google or other similar tech companies in such a similar capacity could realistically and meaningfully do object the Musk-Thiel-Trumpian destruction machine?
I would like to learn more
They could decide not to give 1M to Trump, but they did: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/09/google-microsoft-donate-trump-inaugural-fund They could use their reach and make a clear public statement: "we don't support this". But I've never seen any. They could give higher rating to actual useful information and try to show less fascist propaganda to people. I have to assume that's going wrong as well.
Because of their giant impact, they send a message to all others. "We go with the fascists, we are not on the side of humanity but on the side of profit". That creates dangerous dynamics.
Google has always been fuckers, they are still fuckers and going with the fascist flow they've proven that they will remain fuckers. Even if they switch side once the Trumpian monster stumbles, the can never be trusted.
This days it's plain obvious. Before was slightly better hidden.
Literally nothing. A corporation, especially a publicly traded one like that, can't do much but maximize (ideally long-term, but usually short-term) shareholder returns.
The Activision-Microsoft merger is a good recent example of this. During the anti trust trial, the CEO of Activision literally came out and said that he believes it's a bad idea that will be bad for the industry and bad for the company in the long term, using the impact of consolidation in Hollywood as an example, but he has to side with the board. He's basically legally obligated to.
I'm not saying it's unjust or a bad system (and I'm definitely not trying to paint Bobby Kotick as a good guy), I just want to point out that corporations are very simple in their purpose, and nobody should be expecting anything more from them. If you're disappointed that Google made this 180, that's on you for falling in love with a corporation. They're useful tools for producing goods and services, but terrible as a political tool for democracy.
But for some reason, it became popular to fetishize tech companies, and that spawned megalomaniacs like Elon, Zuckerberg, Horowitz, Thiel, etc who feel like they should be the supreme rulers of our civilization.