shazam - 4:44 am on Oct 21, 2011 (gmt 0)

Not sure where I have ever stated that google is the worse culprit in regard to job losses. While I am not against discussing politics-economics-and banking with you, I doubt this is the best forum or thread for this discussion.

Google controls the flow of commerce in many many different verticals in a dramatic way that has never been seen before. It's not even comparable to yellow pages/radio/tv and other media.

This power and money has led to extreme greed and rather evil activities, but of course they are immune to any anti-trust violations here in the States, so we know this will continue for the foreseeable future. A few large companies have the cash and resources to fight back, we've seen this in the travel industry and with Android. For the majority of small businesses though, their only option is layoffs and liquidation of inventories and assets.

The "don't use google" idea is just plain silly. The fact is, they have the monopoly. Your customers, when they are in 'buy mode' are using google. No matter how much we would like to, there is no ignoring the big evil elephant in the room. Once they decide your particular vertical or niche is generating enough money, they will destroy it.

One day, they will go too far and even the government will not be able to ignore it. This is why they make such an effort to push slowly and surely so people get used to it in steps. The google serps from 10 years ago, are no where close to what they are now. But they knew full well that they couldn't throw all the bs at people in one go. They are indeed masters at social engineering and pr.