Google’s story over the last two decades has been a tale as old as time: enshittification for growth. The once-beloved startup—with its unofficial “Don’t Be Evil” motto—has instead become a major Internet monopolist, as a federal judge ruled on Monday, dominating the market for online search. Google is also well-known for its data-harvesting practices, for constantly killing off products, and for facilitating the rise of brain-cell-destroying YouTubers who make me Fear for Today’s Youth. (Maybe that last one is just me?)
Google’s rapid rise from “scrappy search engine with doodles” to “dystopic mega-corporation” has been remarkable in many ways, especially when you consider just how much goodwill the company squandered so quickly. Along the way, though, Google has achieved one unexpected result: In a divided America, it offers just about everyone something to hate.
Here are just a few of the players hating Google today.
Maybe if you’re in a big city, or maybe Europe. I recently moved back to the US from Asia and found OSM data to be really bad in the small city that I come from.
Be the change you want to see :)
That’s fair, when I was in the middle of nowhere in Finland a couple of years ago, the map was often very barebones, that’s also probably where I did the most edits to date. That’s kinda the downside of a community project where people usually map the area they live in or visit, when fewer people live somewhere there’s fewer people to improve the map. And yeah, I feel like OSM is more popular in Europe in general.