We've banned this account for serially posting corporate propaganda for Google, which you've been doing on HN for years. Since banning dozens of your accounts hasn't convinced you to stop, I'm going to post about this increasingly loudly until you do stop. You should think about the many Google employees on HN, who overwhelmingly use this site in good faith. They represent Google the right way, by participating honestly in threads and commenting about what they know. They will cringe when they hear what you are doing—which if you keep doing it, they will. The agenda you've been propagating is a way to hurt Google, not help it.
We ask HN users every day not to accuse others of astroturfing or shillage, but the other side of the contract is that when we find real evidence of it, we crack down.
Edit: I should add, for those who are worried about bias, that we have nothing against Google and are only interested in protecting HN against abuse. People do that for other companies too, not just Google, and we're just as against it in those cases.
Imagine someone at Boeing would have generated some negative news about the MAX... I would think that smart people would admire people that speak against bad things like sexual harassment(which is illegal AFAIK) but I seems that we have people here that would prefer not see the dark sports of their favorite company.
I was reading the Amazon protest thread and it seems that the capitalists/free market guys would be fine with sexual harassment too because free markets would fix it and you have the choice to resign, too bad some communist made it illegal /s
Even with recent tariffs, US tariffs are still generally low, it's hardly a poster child for "protectionism", the EU has other barriers in addition to tariffs and much of it is due to french protectionism.
If you think that these "loopholes" should be closed then close them for all companies and countries, don't enact discriminatory laws and then act indignant about it.
While we are on this subject, and since I agree wholeheartedly with what you said, let's give another exemple where fact and numbers are more important than generalisation and opinions: a big contention point about tariff between EU/US was cars, and how the US claimed EU had a larger tariff than the US, while the numbers actually showed the US imposed a bigger tariff on average due to the trick of calling some cars "light truck" and putting truck tariff on them.
US argument: "Europe taxes American cars 10%, while America taxes European cars 2%."
Which seems true, when you look at the actual EU/US tariff numbers:
US: 25% tariff on trucks, 2.5% on cars
EU: 22% on trucks, 10 % on cars
Quote from [1]:
> But when you look in details at the numbers, you realize that most of what is sold in the US, that is considered as car in the EU, is put in the trucks category in the US, by being called "light truck".
> In the US there are twice as many "light trucks" sold compared to "cars". Light trucks are pickups, SUVs, minivans. Those are just "cars" in Europe.
> EU import fees are 10% on cars (hatchbacks and SUVs alike). US import fees are 2.5% on cars and 25% on light trucks.
> Average car price in the US is $26k, average light truck price is $36k.
> Therefore, if you care for math, average duty on combined US car+light truck market is 19%, nearly double of the EU rate!
Trade, tariff and the likes are complex matters, but ultimately they're also just numbers, so when in doubt, run the numbers.
IIRC, this blatant miscategorization of vehicles is what ultimately killed the Mini Clubman Panel van from being a possible thing in the United States (in addition to it being a supremely weird vehicle.)
The US strong protectionism is not through tariffs but through tax incentives, targeted investments hidden as national security contracts and things like "buy american" acts.
Just because you dress it up doesn't change what it actually is.
And when the US can't manage to protect the industry with tariffs, they just put foreign people straight in prison as economic hostages like they did with Alstom.
Are you litigating the boeing v airbus thing? didn't the WTO rule that airbus is receiving billions in illegal subsidies?
And are you suggesting that france doesn't subside specific industries?
If you're complaints are exclusive to the aviation and defence industries then a US complaint regarding the EU and france could include that and every other industry.
"The World Trade Organization appeals panel today upheld European claims that Boeing received billions of dollars in illegal tax breaks and subsidies from the US Department of Defense, Washington State, Kansas and South Carolina."
AFAIK the case against Boeing is still open. Arguably Airbus is getting direct subsidies (WTO ruling) while Boeing seems to get pampered by overpriced defense contracts which has the same result more or less (no WTO ruling yet). Conclusion is nobody is innocent, just guilty in different ways.
"The US strong protectionism is not through tariffs but through tax incentives, targeted investments hidden as national security contracts and things like "buy american" acts."
what fraction of GDP is that? 1-5%?
Europe semi public enterprises have a much bigger weight. Banking, energy, postal services, transport, telecommunications were until recent national monopolies and protecting domestic champions is still a matter of national interest.
Did you mention postal services? You mean like US, where only USPS has the right to put mail into your mailbox... and it's a federal criminal offense for anyone else to deliver mail into your mailbox?
Shouldn't be a long inquiry, this tax is textbook discriminatory trade barrier.
If you look at EU policy as france and germany protecting their perceived interests by targeting US tech companies it
starts making sense, I think a rule of thumb there is: "if it hurts google it should be law".
It does not. In a preliminary evaluation, there are 26 companies that would match the criterias, 11 are not americans, 4 of them (that's 1/6th) are even french companies to begin with.
The point is to catch up with something everyone else has figured out: that the value is in the users data. Investors have caught up to it and acted on it, so did VC, so did companies, so did everyone ... Except governments. If the data is what you extract your value from, then it should be normal that it is what you are taxed on.
If my math is correct then most of the companies are American, and by far most of the potential revenue.
Considering the rhetoric leading to this tax and the french government's many raids and failed investigations into US companies and their taxes it's difficult even with careful wording for the french government to deny the actual target of this tax in a WTO type setting.
Maybe the US should be targeting those companies, too. I don't think you can really say a multinational still is or acts "American", even if a majority of its employees and its owners are.
For tax purposes most of those companies aren't even American.
Apple, Alphabet's subsidiaries, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. are companies registered in Ireland or Luxembourg, or the likes.
The OP provided facts. Now is setting a certain threshold discriminatory, no idea. One interesting data point would be the percentage of US tech giants in total compared to those that fall under the proposed tax. If they are overrepresented it might be discriminatory, if not much less so.
How do you tax an industry if said industry is majoritarily composed of US companies without it being flagged as discriminatory ? If we look at it the other way it would mean US companies have a free pass.
Might not be the same industry per say but the sources of revenue overlap. Facebook and Amazon are obviously different services, they both make insane amount of money through ads, most of which escape taxes.
The law is directed to companies fitting these criteria:
Don't forget that most of these companies abuse the system to avoid paying tax in most EU countries, for example airbnb paid something like 70k of tax in 2015 in France (a top google engineer would pay more tax than the whole airbnb business), because the only french based airbnb entity was a sub company which was used as an intermediary between France and Ireland. Of course it's in their interest/right to use as many loopholes as they legally can, but I don't see why France wouldn't update their tax laws to close of few of these loopholes and accommodate these new business model / business practices.
I'm always amused about myself regarding my stance on these things. On the one hand I am totally supporting the closure of these loop holes because they are unfair and put ultimately an exaggerated tax load on the working population. Not a goid thing when we are still stuck with a system that provides less work for people due to automation but still relies on taxing work and salaries.
On the other hand I cannot blame companies profiting from them. And it is not just tech giants, every major European corp. is dojng the exact same thing. And if, as an example, grocery chains are not following Amazon's model of just providing services to a selling entity based in a third country I consider that to be their fault. To be honest I have a plan to use Estonia and the Netherlands in something similar if it comes to fruition. Would I fight to keep the loop holes open? No, because I prefer a level playing field. Would I refuse to profit from them as long as they are there in a legal way? Absolutely not, why would I give up an advantage, a legal one non the less, if I don't have to.
And I think the impact isn't even that big for the "abusers". I have the impression that this kind of company is so optimized and thinking in a way that once the tax advantage goes they will still be much more competitive than companies currently not profiting from said loop holes.
The laws are fine, what we need is to not tailor laws according to selfish political whims or to the whims of publishers and all other inferior competition.
Luckily for Google in the US the grievances of a company's enemies/competitors don't count for much.
I'll credit the WSJ for counting themselves among those enemies, but what I find vexing with all these reports is the constant and casual mentions of "breaking up" these companies as though it's a viable and realistic outcome which it isn't and any self respecting publication should present things in the proper context.
Is youtube still being operated at a loss? If google runs a video sharing platform at or near a loss, funded by cash they get from search ads, then how can any other company possibly compete with them? By also running a video sharing platform at or near a loss? There is a very small number of companies that could conceivably do that.
This is precisely why google needs to be broken up.
In it's current form, no, and I'm fine with that. I'd like to see what a self-sustaining youtube alternative looks like. The status quo is not divine providence.
I always thought the name had something to do with it, "google plus" doesn't sound right specially for a social network, also "Hangouts" is a terrible name, it doesn't internationalize well nor does it work for an enterprise setting, and "keep" is a good app but it should be called "google notes" nevermind they already used that name on a now defunct product.
Google has been worse at naming products than they have a right to be.
Feels like the same people responsible for Mircrosoft's product decisions in the 2000s have now all moved to Google, with a slight twist in strategy.
When a Microsoft product didn't do well they called it something different and relaunched, hoping no-one realised it was the same old thing – e.g. Zune Music/Xbox Music/MSN Music/Groove Music/Microsoft Store etc.
Google now* just kills it and launches something else, sometimes more than one, hoping no-one remembers the still-cooling corpse of the previous attempt. For example, they're now on their ninth attempt [0] at a messaging service with no end in sight.
When Google Reader died, it reminded me not to become dependent on other peoples' computers. I had gotten lazy and was attracted to a well done tool, and it dying was a helpful reminder that I'd been suckered, and was lucky it wasn't something more important.
I've been better at not making that mistake since.
It suggests a lack of focus, and gives users a reason to not trust their products. Why should I adopt service n when it's probably going to be shut down in 12-18 months, after the launch of service n+1?
You shouldn't, because you're a member of the early majority, late majority, or laggards, in Crossing the Chasm terms. Innovators and early adopters are more comfortable trying out a startup's offering that might be imperfect or might fail.
Most people are conservative like you. Your sheer numbers are why crossing the chasm is so important for the long-term survival of a new offering.
I love discovering and trying out innovative new products, and have made it a large part of what I do professionally.
However, some offerings I take more seriously than others.
With Google, if it's not search, data or ad related (i.e. the stuff that makes them money), it's generally the case it's not going to be around long-term.
They changed Keep's name a few times, I don't think they are done. When I pull the app drawer in my phone I always wonder where will things be in a couple of months. Some apps have Google prefix, some don't. Some had, but now they don't. When they have the prefix, I can see only bunch of icons with the same label "Google...". It seems that now they are at no-Google-prefix phase, but I expect to see it changed a couple of times.
Keep naming history went somewhere like this: Keep, Google Keep, Notatki Keep (Notatki for Notes in Polish). So I had to relearn a couple of times where they were.
Chromecast app had it even worse, because at one time it merged or became Home. Of course it had it's Google-prefix phase AFAIR. It probably went something like this: Chromecast, Google Cast, Google Home, Home.
Completely agreed. It's because the name sounds like it's referring to the company instead of a product.
I'm happy to use Gmail, which comes across as its own thing, but I might be a little bit more reluctant to use Google mail. I'm happy to use YouTube, but Google YouTube? I don't know.
Internet companies' names tend to refer to their flagship product, and become synonymous with it. But when they release other things with their name in front of it, like Google plus, it just sounds corporate.
> Google has been worse at naming products than they have a right to be.
Driven by engineers and not creatives. And even if you have creatives driving the product (naming or otherwise) it still won't make sense to the engineers who are the final deciders. [1]
[1] I don't mean there are engineers but that the base people who are in power come from or think like engineers vs. creatives. (Think Walt Disney vs. Eric Schmidt or Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates).
The author keeps conflating the "hate speech" talking points with what this investigation is actually about, it's like they can't help but pad the article with all their google grievances.
It sounds like this is due to COPPA complaints because a lot of kids watch youtube videos and apparently they are not supposed to, but if youtube was found culpable then everyone would because COPPA is a mess.
I am experiencing quite a bit of the opposite from "let youtube babysit their children" in many different parents that treat video like some sort of poison which is a curiosity to me (I am not a parent).
I have been thinking more about dopamine or motivation and satisfaction in myself. I get it, satisfying that craving with any one thing too much is bad. Having satisfaction for that craving always on demand is bad. That satisfaction comes in many forms some which people say are "bad for you" some "good for you" some people disagree (in any category: exercising, eating, socializing, mind altering substances, television, youtube, social media, work, video games, reading, etc.)
Not very many people get a high from boredom, so a good measure of it probably fits in a good life, but that has its limits too.
Whenever I hear too many people have the same opinion about something "bad for you" that can't be explained without hand-waving I get very suspicious.
YouTube harms children in just the same way as it harms adults. The difference is that children are more susceptible. What is considered a normal religious or political argument between adults can be considered brain washing if directed at children.
They do not possess the mental capacities or world experience to be able to handle arbitrary videos. And the fact that it's arbitrary is exactly the issue. My young siblings watch YouTube, and I will say the best children's content on YouTube is better than the best children's content that was available on TV in my team. There are amazing channels out there with ethical, educational, entertaining, wholesome content I wish I had access to when I was their age.
Children's cultural consumption must be curated by the parents or a trusted party. YouTube will take kids down arbitrary rabbit holes that can take them to violent, political, radical, targeted, or even genuinely disturbing videos. Adults can contextualize what they see, or disengage, and even then we see the negative effects. Subjecting children to that is not just bad parenting, it's bad in the sense that dystopia is bad in science fiction. It is poison.
It's not recommended for parents to let youtube to babysit their children. But most parents in the States let their kids watch animations or kid videos on Youtude Kids, so they can prepare a quick meal, take a shower, or just eat dinner quietly...If you have a kid and work full-time, then you will understand why a lot parents still do it even they know that it's not good.
The downside of Youtube - Youtube will automatically push similar contents even on Youtude Kids. For example, a kid watched a "Baby Shark" video, then Youtube will push a lot videos tagged with similar contents, including weird parodies with inappropriate content for kids.
