Apples vs. Gates

I came across Mike Elgan's latest article today and it inspired me to comment. I've been thinking a lot about this blog today, especially as I read through my current favorite book.

A quick aside: I realize that it's always going to be difficult for me to comment on what I'm currently reading. When something is good enough to make me think, I just want to devour it and can hardly bare to pause in my reading to bend down a page, much less to high-tail it to my computer to jot down my insights. I also hate folding down the edges of book pages - though not as much as I hate bent book spines! Anyway, relating that to this blog... I realized that I might have better luck commenting on anything that I read, rather than just books. For example, this news article is short enough, and online enough, to give me time and motivation to write up my thoughts. So, we'll see if it sticks.

This article is pretty interesting to me, as it starts out highlighting all of the realistic ways in which Apple is coming to resemble Microsoft. Then it goes on to highlight the very-hard-to-see ways that Apple might be coming to resemble Microsoft. Then it breaks and tells you that the author is not out to put Apple down at all, nor is he attempting to defend Microsoft. He is merely pointing out the dangerous and non-business-friendly/non-consumer-friendly attributes that a company can pick up once it becomes very large or popular.

This speaks to me because I fear dearly for the future of my favorite site/portal/problem-solver: Google. I started using Google about 10 years ago, when I was sitting in the lab, trying to be different and more efficient by using Dogpile. (The different part was working, but not so much on the efficient front.) I loved the nonsense of the name and I remember having to look it up to find out where it came from. Needless to say, the success of Google's products and their extension into the beyond-the-search-engine realm has thrilled me. Gmail is my communication platform of choice and I'm usually one of the first among my friends to point out the cool new feature that is still only on the Google Labs page.

But lately I've started to worry. I love the products they are producing and I'm really not that worked up about the potential privacy concerns that have some folks all agitated. I just worry that they're going to get too big for their britches and start charging for all of these wonderful free services that I've become totally reliant on. Or perhaps they will just stop updating them, or adding features, or making them useful - which can be just as crippling to those of us web-o-philes out there.

Google has continued to make an effort to listen and repond to user feedback, but how long can this last?

I hope that Mr. Elgan's assertions about software companies are incorrect, but in this case, only time will tell.