There's nothing wrong with wanting to have good morals and values, but it makes no sense to me that you'd create a new language to replace time-tested, fully functioning languages on the basis that those languages get in the way of a developer's thought process, only to later tie-in a bunch of non-development related issues that get in the way of a developer's thought process.

How about instead these media companies pay Google and Facebook for the exposure that drives traffic to their sites?

Shouldn't the media companies have the option of being paid for their content that Google and Facebook scrape and aggregate? After all, if the media companies think the exposure is so valuable, they can always decide to charge Google and Facebook zero for it. It's pretty telling that they seem willing to give up the "valuable exposure".

You're making a few bad assumptions: First, that all news content is equal and if one publisher caves, that publisher's content will be "good enough" for people doing Google searches. Second, that publisher's traffic will be impacted in any way that effects revenue. Right now is a moment in history when news organization's traffic could dip, and they're still going to have traffic that far surpasses their ability to sell ads. And if they want to sell subscriptions, well then they have to get used to their content not being in Google searches anyway.

With the current situation, this might be the wrong time to pick this fight. I'm sure more people than ever are using Google services, but they're also bleeding massive numbers of customers. It seems pretty unlikely that they'd agree to start paying for content forever after... they're starting to charge for reCAPTCHA's afterall. On the other hand, publishers probably have the best chance they'll ever get to convince people to come directly to their site instead of through a portal...

A lot of people never realized that reCAPTCHA was being used for image classification, which also means that the algorithm doesn't know with certainty the "correct" answers to the questions it's asking. For every two correct tiles selected I throw in a bad one just for fun, and it rarely complains.

I haven't had a chance to read the blog post, does it give any hints as to when they'll sunset Stadia?

The more Chrome fucks with your file downloads, the more of a "problem" Google Drive can step in and solve. And a lot of non-technical users are suddenly going have to move all piles of file downloads somewhere..

I think they know Stadia will tank, but the long-term bet here is that they develop a platform that companies like EA and Ubisoft can license. They can sell the platform to those companies as cheaper than dedicated console development, with zero-piracy and usage based pricing. I would be shocked if they really think they can pull off their own branded service, but why not take the long-shot chance it works out, while letting a small group of customers pay to beta test..?

Now that game platforms (like PSN and Xbox Live) are really social platforms and given Google's record on those... how long will Stadia be around? I'm thinking somewhere between Google Wave or Google Buzz (1-year each) and Google Friend Connect (4-years). I doubt they'll give it as long as Google+ or Orkut, since Google+ was a major initiative and Orkut's timeline includes a number of years pre-acquistion. So maybe 2?

If chrome disables cookies, websites will be forced to work without them, which means that firefox users will reap all of the same benefits while simultaneously avoiding Google. As a firefox user, this seems win-win. Change my mind.

Google's replacement technology for website logins will almost certainly use a custom Google service (like AMP) which will track logins (thereby linking your non-Google web logins to Google accounts) or otherwise force small to medium sized websites to replace their login systems with OAuth-based social logins. To use any website that requires a login, you'll now have to login through a Google or Facebook account. They'll spend the next two years telling everyone how much "more secure" this is.

Undercutting on Sonos' price could support the argument that Google is able to charge less because they didn't have to invest in development of the technology because they stole Sonos' blueprint. Also that Google has damaged the value of Sonos' inventions by giving the technology away for pennies.

80% of Uber drivers use it as additional income, not as their primary job.

OK. That's just Uber, and I couldn't find that statistic online anywhere, but let's assume that's true... If millions of part-time and full-time employees start putting wear and tear on their personal vehicles and use their free time to drive taxis, what does that tell us about the jobs market? Maybe that using the unemployment rate as the sole measure of how the jobs market is performing might be over-simplifying too much..?

Is this why we have soaring unemployment? Guess what? We don't. We have record-low unemployment.

I'm not supporting the post you're responding to one was or the other, but a lot of people miss that the reason we have low unemployment is because "gig-economy" jobs (ie. Uber drivers and Etsy sellers) are being counted as real-jobs. The effect of this is that wage-growth has stalled (because gig economy workers are often making less than minimum wage) and the number of people who require government services has stayed flat (because gig-jobs don't come with benefits). If there were a truly an increase of jobs in a competitive job market, wages would be increasing (as employers compete to acquire workers) and the number of people getting benefits would decrease. Automation is still killing "real" jobs and they're being replaced with the Uber-driver and Etsy seller substitutes. And in case you haven't heard, Uber is working to automate away those jobs too.

There are constant sales on the PSN store, and I'm pretty sure the Xbox store too. Nintendo's store is another story.

If you don't believe me, visit the PlayStation store website. There are recently released games (like The Outer Worlds) at sale prices now. I don't think thereâ(TM)s been a week without a sale in a couple of years...

So, person A (passenger) wants to pay Person B (driver) to transport him somewhere. Person B wants to ferry Person A for a price.

This explanation is presented in simple terms, appearing to be for the reader's benefit, but actually reveals a shockingly naive understanding how transactions work.

The "government" in this explanation gets involved because not all the terms of the transaction can (or should) be negotiated for every taxi ride. Do you think Person A and B should discuss the appropriate level of insurance coverage and liability for every ride? Or do you think there should there be some minimum standard in place? Who enforces that?

And "reviews" are the "safest system"? Really? You don't think doing a background check on a person's actual driving record of accidents and previous arrests would be safer than whether or not some people tapped 5-stars for a "clean car" and "fun conversation"?