• jballs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      40·
      1 month ago

      Notice that era was before they went public. Then it predictably became the “how do we make a profit this quarter?” era.

      • redfellow@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        172·
        1 month ago

        That’s not a Google issue. That’s literally each and every public traded corporation. They need to maximize shareholders profits by definition.

        Could we stop stock markets and that? I’d love it.

        I don’t believe anyone decided to step in deeper shit one step at a time, they listed, and from there onwards it’s the only possible path. Death by a thousand greedy strokes.

        • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
          22·
          1 month ago

          It’s a Google issue because the executives… specifically chose to chase higher profits on the stock exchange. There’s plenty of private companies that make money, yet retain their soul and aren’t at the quarterly whim of outside investors…

    • HowManyNimons@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      1 month ago

      I would like to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting when they decided “OK now we’re evil, right?”

          • Zekas@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            1 month ago

            As someone said, the goal of capitalism isn’t to have a lot of money, it is to have all of the money.

        • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          1 month ago

          You…a mind traveler.

          Me…in search of my own mind.

          This plays out one of two ways. Either an adult swim animated show where your whole body is just my brain, and I stuff you back in my head through my ear.

          The show revolves around you, trying to escape from inside my head. And me, trying to find you, and stuff you back inside.

          ORRRRRRRRR

          It’s one of those lifetime romance movies. I’m Andre the Giant, and you’re Bobby the Brain Heenan. They’re lovers who have hit a rough patch, and the only way their marrage can survive the 1980s, is to take the WWF championship off of Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania 3. They laugh, they live, they love, and then they cry when Hogan slams Andre.

          …what am I even doing with my life???

  • deltreed@lemmy.worldEnglish
    42·
    1 month ago

    All these companies start off with altruistic intentions and then become evil. Money and power is helluva drug.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      1 month ago

      Google set out specifically to not be evil. They even set their company motto as “don’t be evil”. But then racist fucking psychopath Sundar Pichai was hired as CEO and the motto was scraped for “do the right thing”, with the “right thing” always being evil. The new motto is only half spoken. The full motto is truly “do the right thing to obtain money and power at all costs”.

  • papalonian@lemmy.worldEnglish
    40·
    1 month ago

    I wonder if this is the actual philosophy Google had at the time or if they always planned to be what they are now.

    • AeonFelis@lemmy.worldEnglish
      38·
      1 month ago

      There will always be a difference between the two-things-in-a-basement mentality and the oh-god-won’t-somebody-think-of-the-shareholders mentality.

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      1 month ago

      I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some kind of Steve Wozniak / Steve Jobs split personality thing going on. Maybe one or the other person involved were serious about the “don’t be evil” thing. But the others were not.

  • Faresh@lemmy.mlEnglish
    17·
    1 month ago

    If they had ads for themselves, I assume they had income. But they say that their platform doesn’t have ads. Where did they get the money to pay their own ads?

    • Wxnzxn@lemmy.mlEnglish
      48·
      1 month ago

      Every source on the history of Google seems to implicate imply that their growth and development went:

      Using their university resources -> surviving off of investor money -> starting monetization with targeted ads and raking in money

      So it seems they had a phase of cornering their market with both public resources and off risky investments, then capitalised on having that exclusive appeal. Seems all too familiar, considering every damn tech startup under the sun now seems to go “trick investors or public funds” -> “corner market” -> “enshittifcation”

      If someone else has some better info - go ahead and correct me, but there seems to be no mention of monetisation of Google before their targeted ad rollout.

    • Taalen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      1 month ago

      That doesn’t look like an ad, but a section in a (probably) tech magazine where they introduce useful or interesting websites to their readers.

  • tiredofsametab@kbin.run
    3·
    1 month ago

    I was in university then and we actually used Yahoo mostly to learn about how to search (back then with boolean operators and other things). I don’t recall covering google. I think maybe we had Alta-Vista as well? Of course, Archie, Veronica, etc. were still taught as well.