What we're teaching companies to do, then, is avoid publicly holding themselves to any standard of responsible behavior. It's a total liability, because it makes people crucify you for stuff that is expected of companies that don't make the effort.
If you're starting a new company, stay the hell away from any hint that you will try to do the right thing. It just opens you up to people looking at every turn for opportunities to prove that you did evil, that you've sold out, etc. because it validates their self-fulfilling prophecy that corporations must be profit-seeking automatons that would off their own sister for a quick buck.
I guess you want the 90s back, where Microsoft was the behemoth who unabashedly crushed any possible competitors with shady OEM deals, embrace-and-extend, the halloween documents, etc. Maybe you want your closed-source OS's and browsers back, along with their proprietary APIs and platform lock-in. Maybe the next behemoth after Google will do away with any attempts at this openness crap, and you'll be happier because at least they didn't pretend they were going to try to do what's best for end users.
I don't think we are _teaching_ companies anything. This is the realm of PR and companies know a _lot_ more than us on PR.
Also if you believe that Google didn't get any advantage out of painting itself the defender of the netizen I think you are being naive. Google played the "we are more ethical than your profit-seeking corporation" and got a large group of followers because of that. Hence why those people now feel betrayed. You can't have your cake and eat it too. :)
And please, don't turn this into a false dichotomy. I am fine with Google doing whatever they want to do: whatever they did now was not illegal, just morally dubious. I don't need to be in favour of Microsoft or lock-ins just because I am against Google acting hypocritically. So stop bring out the boogeyman.
> Also if you believe that Google didn't get any advantage out of painting itself the defender of the netizen I think you are being naive.
Let me get this straight: you're the one disappointed that Google doesn't have some kind of magic want to make all the carriers agree to absolute net neutrality and I'm the one who's being naive?
> I don't need to be in favour of Microsoft or lock-ins just because I am against Google acting hypocritically.
So what are you in favor of then?
What tech company do you feel better about than Google?
Google got Verizon to agree to Net Neutrality on wireline connections. Who else has done that for you lately?
If you boycott Google into the ground to show them just how very betrayed you feel, who is going to be your next powerful ally? Who is going to push a net neutrality agenda then?
If you're starting a new company, stay the hell away from any hint that you will try to do the right thing. It just opens you up to people looking at every turn for opportunities to prove that you did evil, that you've sold out, etc. because it validates their self-fulfilling prophecy that corporations must be profit-seeking automatons that would off their own sister for a quick buck.
I guess you want the 90s back, where Microsoft was the behemoth who unabashedly crushed any possible competitors with shady OEM deals, embrace-and-extend, the halloween documents, etc. Maybe you want your closed-source OS's and browsers back, along with their proprietary APIs and platform lock-in. Maybe the next behemoth after Google will do away with any attempts at this openness crap, and you'll be happier because at least they didn't pretend they were going to try to do what's best for end users.