Have you ever noticed how many people aspire for greatness while hating those who achieve it?
Many small business owners dream of their companies one day being large enterprises, but it seems that there are limits, even for our dreams. Small and medium are good, large is questionable, and very large is a definite no-no. The same rule applies to wealth. If you have no money it’s good to want to make something of your life. If you’re doing okay, it’s good to aspire to be wealthy. But if you’re rich and want to be super-rich, it’s at best distasteful.
Google is one of the more extreme examples. Most (if not all) of us use it on a daily basis, and many of us rely on it. Yet the moment they flex their muscle to further their business aims, they are derided, abused and even penalised for doing so.
Henry Porter writes for the UK newspaper The Guardian. It’s a high-quality British newspaper, and he’s a talented and recognised writer.
The title of the article leaves the reader in little doubt as to the expected tone – Google is just an amoral menace. Why mince your words when you can just spit them out?
I’m accustomed to Google haters, but this one is extreme by any standards. A few select excerpts:
“Google is the portal to a massive audience: you comply with its terms or feel the weight of its boot on your windpipe.“
“Google is in the final analysis a parasite that creates nothing, merely offering little aggregation, lists and the ordering of information generated by people who have invested their capital, skill and time.“
“There is a brattish, clever amorality about Google that allows it to censor the pages on its Chinese service without the slightest self doubt, store vast quantities of unnecessary information about every Google search, and menace the delicate instruments of democratic scrutiny.“
Ouch. But why so much hatred for Google?
Is it so reprehensible to serve as an effect portal? There is, after all, a simple reason why we moved from AltaVista to Yahoo and then to Google. The others simply weren’t as good at finding what we were looking for.
And the only reason they make billions of dollars in advertising is because they do it so well. GoTo/Overture/Yahoo were once the PPC kings, but for advertisers to gain prominence, they simply had to spend more. Google added a more effective approach – you have to give the searcher what they are looking for.
The newspaper writer also takes issue with the effect that Google are having on newspapers, yet most intriguingly he also riles at their failure in not creating original content. As the writer of several books, I assume that he doesn’t hold similar complaints about the evil mighty bookstores who also do ‘not understand the risks, skill and failure involved in the creation of original content‘.
Those who have heard me speak at conferences or have read my blog for some time know that I am certainly not a Google Worshipper. But to belittle and criticise Google mainly for the extent of their success is unjust, and should, perhaps, be below the writer. Perhaps he has another book on the way.
