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@NGIZero Are you serious right now? You do know what Google is, right? You do understand what their business model is? I thought NGI/NLnet was purportedly about finding and supporting *alternatives* to surveillance capitalists like Google, Meta, etc., not trying to improve their PR by perpetuating the myth that they’re generally a force for good who sometimes (often) make silly mistakes.

Do better.

@aral Would it or would it not be good to open source a complete platform, and allow its users to determine its course by giving them copyright? Would that not offer people an alternative to Sony and Microsofts dominant gaming platforms?

I think you must have used Etherpad at some point? What is different here? Do you still see that as a Google product? Of course, #Cryptpad is warmly recommended.

@NGIZero … nowhere in the purview of a trillion-dollar multinational corporation, much less a surveillance capitalist, is there the goal of furthering the commons and contributing to the public good.

The sooner we stop pretending they ever had this goal and the sooner institutions that have some level of legitimacy (or at least a claim) in representing “the alternative” stop laundering their legitimacy by perpetuating these myths, the better.

…

@NGIZero … Just as with Big Tobacco, we will start turning the tide against Big Tech when we manage to make them socially unacceptable.

With Big Tobacco this came with the Surgeon General’s report unequivocally stating that smoking harms your health.

We need the equivalent in tech.

Institutions like yours shouldn’t be pleading with Google to “do the right thing” any more than an animal rights group would plead with factory farms to “please, be kind.”

The goal is to not have factory farms.

@aral @NGIZero I think it's a good thing to point out that it's definitely a thing that they could do, and that it would be a great resource for lots of people – the fact that Google won't as contrasted with what they could in fact do helps paint a stronger picture of how to view them as a company imo.

@NGIZero With all due respect, I’ve been making things with computers for the last four decades, working professionally in the field for over two decades, I’ve contributed to books and given countless talks at international conferences on the subject, and I’ve been an invited expert at the European Parliament twice. Writing off what I’ve said as “anger and assumption” is what I’d expect from a Silicon Valley lobbyist, not an EU institution purporting to support alternatives to it.

@NGIZero Given that we’ve applied for funding with you and in light of this current conversation, I have one very important question for you:

Do you (NLnet/ngi) see anything fundamentally wrong with Google and it’s business model or do you think they are generally a force for good in the world (but they sometimes make mistakes and could improve how they do certain things).

I’d like to know this as we are very careful about who we associate with and, especially, who we accept money from.

@aral Please find me a technology big tech is involved with that we are not funding actual alternatives to. Any form of proprietary lock-in is something we target to remove, anything that invades privacy needs to be stopped/mitigated (think #NoScript, #JShelter, #Offen.dev, #Goatcounter, #TrackingTheTrackers, #Searx, #Qubes, #SpectrumOS, etc). That is our contribution. Obviously, the trillion dollar surveillance economy needs to be curbed by harsh regulation, but this is not within our remit...

@NGIZero Thank you for clarifying your position. I’m glad to hear that you don’t think Silicon Valley people farmers like Google, Meta, etc., are forces for good in the world and can be reformed but that they must be stopped/mitigated. It’s good to know that NGI/NLnet does not approach them as partners to work together with (so they can improve) but sees them as the problem to be solved by funding alternatives with different business models and success criteria. This is exactly as it should be.

@ArneBab @NGIZero Bless them, they’re such an excellent company. Such a role model. Let’s make sure we encourage all new computer science graduates to apply for jobs there. Not only is the pay great but they just do so much for the world with their open source work.

Also, have you heard, some clueless folks seem to have a vendetta against them and are trying to regulate (basically restrict) them? How horrible. Why would anyone want to harm a company that gifted humanity the likes of etherpad?

@aral I think you are oversimplifying this: They can be an evil company *and* their opensource releases can be useful. There can be people at Google who try to do something good while evil — they try to use their ill-gotten privilege to undo some of the damage. @NGIZero