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- cross-posted to:
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Good to see the post from the former Google Engineer. Everyone not able to read between the lines ATM should read that … cuz that’s exactly what’s going on.
It’s like if a bunch of empires or feudal states heard rumour that there was super rich gold mine somewhere in the mountains … they’d all be madly clamoring to conquer those mountains first so hard you’d get pure feverish chaos.
That’s what this AI moment is … all of big tech … they just want to win the platform war even if it doesn’t exist yet.
First Microsoft Windows in the 90s, then Apple and Google with smartphones and Facebook with social media … they are all lessons for the industry. Winning a platform war gets you at least a decade of printing money.
And it seems like a pernicious consequence of allowing and enabling monopolies. The more they succeed, then the bigger (and more inefficient) the fight is to become one.
In all those cases, it was mostly the better product that won.
Microsoft won with PCs in the 90s because its office suite was the best. Apple and Google were lightyears ahead of BlackBerry and Palm, and Facebook was a much better user experience than Myspace.
Google is going to lose this battle because their model is simply less useful than Copilot or ChatGPT(and those aren’t really great to begin with)
In all those cases, it was mostly the better product that won.
I’d suspect it’s not quite clean cut as that. Sure there may be reasons why a particular victor wins, but as for being “better”, I’d bet it’s always more complex than that. Windows Phone, for instance, probably a lot going for it but AFAICT, had a poor app dev experience or something, and so never took off.
Google is going to lose this battle because their model is simply less useful than Copilot or ChatGPT(and those aren’t really great to begin with)
Well, Google have a more clear path to monetisation with their ads business and more opportunities to leverage the internet with their search supremacy. Given that all AIs tend to be a bit crappy, being “good enough” may be enough for Google to be the last one standing.
Yeah, it’s never the best tech that wins. It’s the cheapest viable tech that wins. VHS/Beta, Windows/Mac, Nintendo/Turbografx, Kitchenaid/Viking. The list goes on.
Wow plus was thirteen years ago? Seems longer. That’s when i gave up on google. They had wrecked the + operand so that it only gave you google+ site results. It was insanity to do so and whatever grudging respect i had for them was immediately defenestrated.
After months of outcry they added a tiny advanced tools menu option called “verbatim” that you had to use just to get something like the AND function. Total idiocy.
Later, it failed.
Upvoting for excellent usage of the word ‘defenestrated’ in a sentence that doesn’t refer to Russian tactics for getting rid of political opponents.
Multiple Prague defenestrations just crying in the corner for being forgotten.
UX: the practice of calling out truth into a vast, uncaring void.
Had to say myopia, couldnt just say short sightedness
It’s the same concept but with a third of the amount of letters. What is wrong with a word that exist in the language being used for its intended meaning?
I guess, because it’s not necessarily known by everyone speaking the language. I didn’t know it. I’m not a native speaker, but neither are most English speakers.
That’s what dictionaries are for. I have merriam-webster.com bookmarked for this very reason.
I feel excited every time I find a new word, it means an opportunity to learn has just presented itself. I still semi regularly find new words, even in my native language. I love opportunities to grow and learn. I learn new languages explicitly to experience this more often.
I mean, I do, too. I love reading up on etymology. After a while, various words become self-explanatory, because you’ve seen their individual parts before.
But for actually communicating with others, obvious words are really great. There’s beauty to “shortsightedness”, because even someone who’s never heard it, will have a guess what it means. They don’t need to look up the etymology, it’s smacked right into their face.
Weird complaint.
Why did you point this out? What’s wrong with saying myopia?
Update: turns out myopia can also be used as describing ‘Lack of discernment or long-range perspective in thinking or planning.’ so i guess i was wrong from the start. Very myopic of me
Well, there you go. Today you learned something new. But now your complaint makes more sense. If myopia didn’t have this definition, I’d say you would be right. I would have perceived it a bit too “book-literary.” Like if someone qualified computers as “whimsical,” I would be like “bruh…”
Because in this instance its just a little unusual but in some cases it feels like using synonyms is gatekeeping knowledge. I think it makes it less accessible for everyone with a language barrier and is good for entertainment but bad for communicating information. Also myopia is a clinical definition where short-sightedness is also metaphor so it makes this person sound like when jimmy neutron asked for the sodium chloride lol
The argument of gatekeeping knowledge by using synonyms is a very weak one. Using synonyms spreads knowledge because anyone who gets to learn it along the way becomes, well, more knowledgeable.
Maybe it can help learn like it did for me in this instance but i dont think its as accessible if you’re just trying to communicate basic information.
We use jargon at work to clients who ask too many questions, to stop them asking questions and just pay the invoice. Its an example haha
Hehe oh I understand that scenario. But jargon is different from synonyms of basic words.
Maybe I’m biased, because I learned the word myopia before shortsightedness. It’s even shorter and easier to pronounce! :)
*couldn’t
