Google is Dead, and They Killed It
It's a strange time to be online. With Twitter being taken over and rebranded to X.com by an egomaniacal narcissist, the digital world seems to be teetering on the precipice of change. AI permeates the landscape, rendering search engines almost redundant. The first page of results no longer offers genuine content, but instead serves up SEO-driven drivel that doesn't say really anything but is laden with all the right keywords. [1] Social media is all but entering its hospice care, yet like a beloved relative, we grapple with imagining a world without it. We find ourselves continuously crafting online personas, avatars that aren't quite us. They're professional caricatures, facsimiles birthed from an unspoken mandate to partake in the elaborate charade known as the rat race. But in this shifting sandscape, there's been one constant—Google. Or is there?
The Google of 2013 stands in stark contrast to its 2023 incarnation. Public sentiment towards this tech titan has notably shifted, spiraling downwards like the rest of us. There was a time when Google was the luminary, the harbinger of innovation. Each new product announcement was met with palpable excitement and anticipation. Fast forward to the present, and such announcements often elicit chuckles. Google's earlier "Don't Be Evil" mantra now seems a distant memory at best, a paradoxical statement at worst. Today, the company is infamously known for turning its users into commodities. From Gmails being processed by AI to exhaustive data mining of one's habits, location, and history, the behemoth's approach has changed, and not necessarily for the better.
Consider this: a decade ago, "The Internship" with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn premiered, painting a rosy picture of the company. Today, that film feels like a by-product of some Mandela effect, almost out of place in our reality. The Google of the present aligns more with the dystopian vision of 2014's "Ex Machina" than with the light-hearted comedy from just a year earlier. Now, when a Google product is launched, the initial reactions are skeptical at best. Queries like "When will they shut this down?" or "How long until they pull the plug?" are commonplace. There's a rock bottom to consume confidence and it seems Google is rapidly approaching that unforgiving bedrock of consumer confidence.
Google's Bard AI vs. the World
Take Google's Bard AI, for instance. The big question on many lips: is anyone really using it? As of March 2023, within a mere month of its launch, Google Bard AI has garnered an impressive 30 million global visits. [2] At first blush, that sounds monumental, right? But dig deeper and things take a different turn. As of May 2023, ChatGPT clocks in with a whopping 13 million daily users.[3] When pitted against Google's monthly figures, this disparity becomes glaring. The puzzle deepens when one considers that "Google it" has wormed its way into everyday lingo. How then, is this tech giant seemingly playing catch-up?
The controversial key? Perception.
Diving into the world of AI chat services, user trust becomes paramount. After all, the interface is more than mere engagement; it's a dialogue. It's intimate. Users need an ironclad assurance about the sanctity of these exchanges. Here, Google finds itself on shaky ground. As I tinkered with Bard upon its debut, a thought emerged: There's a non-zero chance that Google is scanning, storing and selling everything I tell that fortune teller machine, eagerly awaiting a chance to sell advertisers everything they can.
A quick comparison of the privacy policies of both platforms can offer some insights:
From Bard's privacy policy: "To help with quality and improve our products, human reviewers read, annotate, and process your Bard conversations. We take steps to protect your privacy as part of this process. This includes disconnecting your conversations with Bard from your Google Account before reviewers see or annotate them." [4]
From OpenAI's policy: "We may aggregate or de-identify Personal Information so that it may no longer be used to identify you [...] We will maintain and use de-identified information in anonymous or de-identified form and we will not attempt to reidentify the information, unless required by law." [5]
Moreover, OpenAI's commitment to user data is unequivocal: "We don’t 'sell' Personal Information or 'share' Personal Information for cross-contextual behavioral advertising [...]. We also don’t process sensitive Personal Information for the purposes of inferring characteristics about a consumer."[5] OpenAI's position is clear: they don't peddle user data to marketers. In contrast, Google, at its core, thrives on advertising. The arithmetic is straightforward and decidedly in OpenAI's favor.
This isn't an attempt to laud OpenAI as the paragon of privacy. Rather, it underscores a broader point: Google's "people as the product" ethos, may well be the digital albatross around its neck, limiting its potential in the burgeoning chat AI domain.
Google Domains, or How to Lose Customers 101
The site you're reading this on? The registar is, or was Google Domains. Now, it's Squarespace. Google Domains has become another name on Google's ever-expanding hit list of terminated services. As a webmaster, it's the service I use the most from Google, aside from Gmail. The abrupt and unceremonious unloading of our domains, without as much as a courteous heads-up, spurred me to pen down this piece. The verdict? Over the coming weeks, I'll be shuttling my domains to Porkbun. And those Gmail accounts I've maintained for over a decade? They're on their way out, too. Frankly, the allure of Google's ecosystem has dissipated, overshadowed by the unending commodification of my data for advertisers. Here's a fun fact: unless you actively opt-out in the U.S., Google Maps has been cashing in on your location details, selling them to ad companies. [6] Folks, do we really want to be constantly tracked by these companies, for the privilege of receiving targeted ads for disposable junk? Does the CEO of Google really need to know that I took a piss at a Circle K on Thursday July 8th 2017?
The site you're reading this on? It's proudly hosted by Neocities.org — the bastion of open-source values, unparalleled privacy, and unrestricted expression. Now, what's Squarespace synonymous with? Coupon codes peddled on polarizing podcasts. Proprietary platforms. Corporate puppetry. And the production line of homogenized, sterile digital clones we've become all too familiar with. Ironically, my gravitation towards Neocities was propelled by my profound reservations about Squarespace.
Conclusion
The world's collective patience with Google is wearing thin. From impassioned calls for writers to ditch Google Docs over grave privacy qualms[7], to revelations that private Gmails have been used to hone Google's AI, [8] It's almost poetic — as "google" carved its niche in our lexicon, "privacy" seemed to fade out.
Google, once a paragon of innovation, no longer lives up to its storied name. As illustrated by the myriad products laid to rest on killedbygoogle.com, the tech titan seems destined to become its own undoing. The company's steady decline is unmistakable. Even as a hobbyist, I would hesitate to integrate a Google product into my endeavors. As Google continues its downward trajectory, I'll be making my exit stage right, steering clear of the impending crash. In essence: Google is dead, and they killed it.
- "SEO is Ruining the Internet" - John W. Defeo
- "Google Bard Statistics: The Unfolding of Google Bard" - Enterprise Apps Today
- "ChatGPT Statistics" - BusinessDIT
- "Your Data and Google Bard" - Google Support
- "Privacy Policy" - OpenAI
- "How to Stop Google Maps from Storing Your Location" - Android Central
- "Google Docs AI: Is it Safe? I'm a Novel Writer and Tech Journalist, Let's Talk" - Laptop Mag
- "The Controversy of AI Training with Personal Data" - Analytics Vidhya