No one who lived through high tech in the 1990s will ever entirely trust Microsoft, or view them as other than a threat. The Beast of Redmond used its effective monopoly for PC operating systems to leverage an effective monopoly in productivity software (killing the likes of WordPerfect or Lotus 1-2-3 as alternatives) and then used the Windows-Office duopoly to control the personal computing industry. They missed the boat on web browsing, and then bought Spyglass’s commercial Mosaic code to turn into Internet Explorer – and knit it into the operating system to crowd out Netscape, with the side-effect of intro ducting vectors of vulnerability that would provide ten years of malware vulnerability. They invested a mere $150 million in Apple for the sake of propping up the only other viable commercial operating system maker – and in return Apple got continuing production of Microsoft Office for Mac, because without it the Macintosh would have been doomed quickly as a platform.
Things are different now. Companies like Google and Facebook don’t have a monopoly as such – there’s nothing preventing you from using Yahoo for email or Duck Duck Go for web search or Path for social networking. What Google and Facebook do have is a crippling majority of mindshare, and the sense in Facebook’s case that you have to be there because everyone else is, while in Google’s case, you’ve probably relied on their services (which have been largely excellent for many years) to the point that you’ve given them a critical mass of data.
Google and Facebook don’t charge end users at the point of service. Essentially, the only way you can give Google money is by buying a Nexus device – even Android is free and open-source at the OS level (the Google-specific apps for Android may still be proprietary). Facebook is constantly smacking down rumors that they’re going to start charging, but by and large the only way to give Facebook money is to pay to promote a post. Or…to advertise.
I often wonder whether Google and/or Facebook can’t charge end-users for their service. Think about it – if Google or Facebook got rid of advertising and just charged the necessary amount to make up the difference, how many people would stick with it? And more to the point, could you make as much money just by charging what the market will bear? Or is this a situation where Google and/or Facebook’s services are provided as a loss leader to allow them to harvest enough personal information to make a profit at advertising?
Microsoft certainly thinks so – they pitched their new Outlook.com email service with some risible ads about “Scroogling” as if they are shocked, shocked that a technology company would take unfair advantage of their position to make more money. Frankly they ought to be more worried about getting their uptime on Outlook.com above three nines, but that’s neither here nor there. Microsoft is finally paying the price for having sat on their laurels after the launch of Windows XP, while Apple was skating off toward the iPod and then the iPhone and then the iPad, and Microsoft shat the bed with the Zune and took forever to produce Windows Phone 7 and then whored all its buyers with Windows Phone 8. And then Surface…erm, surfaced. Essentially, Microsoft is still stuck into the idea of Windows everywhere and Windows everything, one ring to rule them all.
By contrast, Google’s one thing is its ability to aggregate data and sell advertising. And they will do anything that feeds into that, and kill it gladly if it doesn’t work out. Sic transit Google Wave, Google Buzz, Orkut. That’s why Google+ will hang on. That’s why they’re happy to put a superior Google Maps product on the iPhone instead of keeping it themselves as an Android differentiator. Google doesn’t care if they make money on the bait; their money’s in the trap. Which is the same reason why Facebook keeps adding things like voice chat and video calling, and is urging on Graph Search (which is basically asking you to make your life an open book for the sake of improving search results). Everything Apple (and Amazon) does is about getting you to buy more Apple (or Amazon) stuff; everything Google and Facebook do is about getting you to let them sell more of you. That’s why Google Maps and the Kindle app are available on iOS – Apple knows that you’re more likely to buy an iPad if it can be a Kindle reader too, and Amazon knows it will sell more Kindle books if it can sell to more people than just own a Kindle device. Similarly, Google wants mapping information from more people than own Android devices, and Apple would rather you buy an iPhone and run Google Maps than buy an Android device to do so.
But at least with Apple and Amazon, they’re still charging cash on the barrelhead in the time-honored market tradition of “money can be exchanged for goods and services.” Google and Facebook are still dueling for the right to your online identity – e.g. Facebook Connect or the all-new Google+ Sign-In – and to make themselves the intermediary of your online experience. Hell, Google’s new Chromebook Pixel charges you MacBook Air money for what is essentially a browser terminal, but has one terabyte of cloud storage connected. One terabyte of your stuff…to be stored by Google. The mind reels.
The moral of the story is this: if you are in fact the product, you have to avoid letting yourself get locked into a single solution. Putting your entire life in Google is hella convenient and easy to use, but to quote Spencer Hall, “there is always free cheese in the trap, and it is always a deal.” You don’t have to let yourself be the product. Google and Facebook may be too big for their britches, but they don’t have to be too big for yours. If privacy and control are important to you, they’re worth paying for.