>Google, more than any other company, has made the web a better place. The web was horrible dumping ground before Google - laced with Portals and flashing display ads, pathetic Search, fragmented content.
Perhaps you have not been around in the nineties / early 00, but the web was far more exciting and cool that the corporate BS that it is today.
And YouTube was acquired, it wasn't Google's. Same with Google Earth / Maps. And Chrome started as Webkit by Apple (based on KHTML). Google just bought all these things or threw money at forking them (Webkit), and made the web it's own monopoly.
I agree. I miss the web of the nineties. Fan pages made by amateurs, crazy color combinations, under construction gifs, minimal ads (just a simple banner), no tracking into oblivion. But most of all the vibrant feel, the helpfullness and the innocence. It was a cozy place.
...and when you searched for "widgets" you'd find a person a thousand miles away who knew about as much as there possibly is to know about widgets, and they had a little website with all the information. Maybe they were a bus driver, or maybe a professor, but they loved widgets and shared that with you.
Perhaps you have not been around in the nineties / early 00, but the web was far more exciting and cool that the corporate BS that it is today.
And YouTube was acquired, it wasn't Google's. Same with Google Earth / Maps. And Chrome started as Webkit by Apple (based on KHTML). Google just bought all these things or threw money at forking them (Webkit), and made the web it's own monopoly.