So I was reading this article on Google. It was very long but it’s a super interesting read! I remember, when I had just started using the internet, I had used Yahoo, some website called askjeeves.com and Rediff for school projects/ gather information. These are a few names that I can remember, but there were more. If you go around and ask anyone today, they would probably know Yahoo and Rediff, but the others have been dead for a long time now. If you picture a race, Google ran past all of them and took first place. It’s definitely the king of search engines, to the extent that people now use the company’s name as a verb! People say “I’ll google him” or “have you googled him?” or “I spent my morning googling this issue”.
Personally, I love Google. I think the company has come too far, and it has reached here, because of the smart technology and business acumen. The workplace culture is also talked about, and they try their best to provide the employees with all the facilities. They are number one today, maybe cause they deserve it.
But, after reading this article, I’m not so sure. I understand that the industry today is ruled by giants like Google and Facebook, and they have done a great job to become the leaders, however, if this is the way they’re defeating the competition, actions should be taken. If a competitor rises, they try to buy them, but if they don’t agree, it doesn’t mean that you shut them up. That not only harms the consumer, but a great innovative company/ product is getting shelved. Maybe that new technology can do wonders, but just to avoid competition, they can’t be shut down.
If the younger generation grows up seeing these problems, they won’t bother to work on their ideas, because they won’t see a point in it. I know the company brings is a lot of revenue and everything, but the government needs to step in. If not stop this completely, they at least need to create a sort of balance.
Imagine a scenario, where this same issue was faced by a digital agency. Since they are sort of competing with Google, Google stopped showing any information on it. And, for our final assignment, that company’s CEO would have been a great fit, but when I search for relevant companies, the name doesn’t show up. Isn’t it misleading? Google is not giving me full information, it’s not providing me information that would’ve helped me ace my project. Google can start manipulating situations in the future, which can be quite scary. The government should step in right away and establish a few guidelines before it gets too late.
References: