Google is like the Borg

Google aiming to dominate future of Internet computing

[docbird]

Article on Google's "secretive new center on Columbia River":

[rockymountainnews.com ]

[Stefan]

I don't know if the Borg is a good analogy. The Borg are a very communistic, worker-ant sort of collective. Google is more of the giant, money-grubbing, capitalistic, individualistic, oligarchy sort of approach - a small elite of petty-dictators trying to control things, not because of common values, but because of common greed. The plebes who serve in this endeavour hope to also be one of the oligarchy some day, and thereby have giant piles of money so they too can lord it over everyone else. It's all very un-Borgish.

Good article, though. Thanks.

[gibbergibber]

The analogy is a terrible one because Google simply cannot control things, at least not with their search engine (and search is their only major success story so far).

If you don't like Google Search, you can just switch to another search engine like Yahoo or MSN, there's no penalty whatsoever for doing this.

It's totally different with things like Microsoft Windows (or even Apple iTunes) because switching to a rival product means all your existing software and/or files become totally useless, and that's why they have control over their market.

Google cannot ever become a monopoly with Search, it simply can't be done because there's no way of controlling what Search customers do. It's all too anonymous and impersonal, there's no user-specific element to it.

[Quadrille]

Not sure if it's google-bashing or just desperate to get a few mentions.

It's also described as "Google's not-so-very-secret weapon".

A one-para statement that Google is building a new googleplex would be much more accurate and waste less time and bandwidth.

Is every single journalist a conspiracy theorist these days? Sheesh!

[europeforvisitors]

I'm with Quadrille. What's the big deal? It's just a data center.