But I don't feel like Google has the luxury of letting it's image burn like this. TURTLEDOVE is already a huge semi-sound but immensely scary change, MV3 is a disaster of high order and hasn't responded with anything but a stream of bandaids to challenges like Mozilla's far more capable Background Pages proposals. But I think the reputation damage here is vastly higher, as there's basically nothing being offered here to most users, or, if this spec goes through, ex-Web users. This effort is just an abominable horror show, and at some point, it feels like Google/Chrome have to stop being so blinders-on as to treat this as a merely technical discussion.
The last time these debates went down, where there was an incredibly contentious spec that got shipped, it basically took the Web creator Tim Berners-Lee using his w3c authority to stamp "ship it" on the spec. https://www.techdirt.com/2017/03/01/tim-berners-lee-endorses...
More importantly, a company of the size, scope and sophistication of Google trying to hide its fundamental redefinition of how people access the web, behind “it’s only a technical change” is unacceptable.
As if something with multiple downstream non-technical effects, is only a technical change
As if you can minimize and dismiss everyone’s fears and concerns as hollow, invalid and irrelevant by waving the magic wand of tis only a wee technical change, to be sure, to be sure
As if everyone’s protests and arguments against can be instantly hosed down, because aye, you guessed it laddie, it’s only a technical change
It’s almost as if the folks at Google think people are so stupid that not only do people not know what they’re talking about, but they’ll actually believe the lie and fall for that deception…
It’s almost as if Google was trying to gaslight the public about this…
If they end up groveling about this, I don’t think “in retrospect, we could have communicated this better” is going to cut it. This is a company the size, scope and sophistication of Google. This is not their first rodeo. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they mean to do it…
This defies my Occam's Razor view. You seem to be assuming Google is an extremely well connected organism with vast coherency: each limb knows what the others are doing, they are working together in close fashion, & doing things for ulterior motives.
This is such a horrific & bastardly case - of creating unparalleld rank awfulness hither-to-fore unimaginable - that I am tempted to agree. And I do think there probably was some cross-pollination on this idea (which I personally would characterize as unlike the vast majority of things happening on the Chrome team).
But I still think there's a very necessary "reel it in" counter-response that has to happen here. It was me who characterized this as "only a technical change". Google is trying to shift how the web works & knows it, with this change, and that's clear, and their explainer indeed rather twists words somewhat to make it sound like it's for the user: but it is also imminently clear they seek to shift of the web works in a wide way, and they're not cloaking that behind anything or as simply technical: they're wrong & immoral & awful, but up front about what they're doing, and they're not presenting it subtly.
I linked Yoav Weiss's post with some disdain (for rebuffing), but I think a lot of these rules hold true in most circumstances, and I think even under duress many should be respected to the degree possible. But reciprocally, I've already advocated (in the HN thread) that sometimes I don't think constructive replies are appropriate or possible. When we are working to define the only open accessible shared hyper medium humanity has, there is a higher degree of engagement necessary, which also has to permit explosively deconstructive argumentation sometimes. That was my main critique: that Yoav is sheltering Chrome unjustly from the minefield of conflict he created (or more generously, let be created).
No, I’m using Google rhetorically. Sure you could be more specific and say the Google Chrome team, or whoever is actually discretionary responsible for this, and the chain of command that authorizes them with that power within the org… but I think, bothering with such specifics would make the message less effective so I didn’t.
Also, I don’t think it’s necessary. Google is responsible for whatever its parts are doing; a corporate entity. And people are right to expect that if they get something from Google then it’s caused by Google.
Also, I think it’s wrong and too early to be diluting or shielding Google behind the pedantic hairsplitting that, “oh you see it’s not actually google at fault here, um, it was probably some guy that works in a basement somewhere, you know, his views not reflected by ours and so on…” it’s not necessary to provide them that shield or confusion at this stage.
He may work at google, you may work at Google, I may work at google; we don’t know. And it’s not important. What’s important is that Google is at fault here. (I don’t btw)
Magnitude of the malfeasance is so great they deserve to be held to account for it, and a simple label of Google is sufficient.
Also, Occam’s razor? I think it’s unnecessary to invoke the preposterously exaggerated strawman of some ghastly and convoluted conspiracy here, when their actions directly align with, and can be efficiently implemented by, their business. It’s a simple thesis: Google is at fault and they meant to do it. They know it’s bad and therefore are selling it deceptively.
It’s neither convoluted nor complex in any way. In fact, if they’d tried to engage with this technically in a way that accounted for acknowledged and respected the fears and concerns people raised in response, then I think they would’ve ended up with a solution that is more convoluted, and complex. In this we have the curse of simple evil.
I think it’s drinking the gaslit Kool-Aid to pretend “oh no, it’s an accident, it’s incompetence, they didn’t mean to.” This is directly (if harmfully and unethically) supporting their business interests. They meant to do it. That’s the simplest explanation. That’s Occam’s razor.
> You seem to be assuming Google is an extremely well connected organism with vast coherency: each limb knows what the others are doing, they are working together in close fashion, & doing things for ulterior motives.
Nah dog, you're overcomplicating it. All it requires is a person or two in a management chain to recognize the hint of long term business potential in a technical change. It doesn't have to be a sure thing, or a big thing, the bare minimum is that they just notice a business model that could be enabled, and choose to explore it. Then once the company takes on the initiative, some combination of communication and intuition spread the understanding of what they're doing across some of the buisness. For the wider scale, all the rank and file need to do is play dumb, or be legit unaware, about the obvious incentive they're working towards.
That's not a vast complicated conspiracy. That's every single business' outward-facing messaging strategy.
When parent poster talks about the "size, scope and sophistication of Google," the point doesn't have to be that they're meticulously coordinating. The point can simply be: there's no fucking way they're not playing dumb.
This is my problem with people using Occam's Razor to understand business decisions. They often assume the idea that someone could be employed in business development and spend months championing and refining an idea is a level of complexity that must fail to a more simplistic explanation. But we know that shit happens all the time.
It's honestly good for this to get a lot of attention though, I'm happy to see additional commentary on it getting shared.